Sitting of 5 March 2002

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS
MERSEY TUNNELS BILL(BY ORDER)
Order for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Tuesday 12 March.

Oral Answers to Questions
  TRANSPORT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  TRANSPORT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS

    Homelessness
    Simon Hughes: When the Government will publish a national homelessness strategy. [36643]
    The Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Mr. Stephen Byers): We have announced the establishment of a new directorate within the Department to co-ordinate action to tackle homelessness. I have asked it to report to me as a matter of urgency on the steps that need to be taken to address this issue.
    Simon Hughes: The House and the country will be glad that the Homelessness Act 2002 gives us the basis for moving forward, and we welcome the Government's initiative in that direction Will the Secretary of State confirm that the record number of homeless families in temporary accommodation who are waiting for a permanent home will form part of the discussions between him and the Treasury about funding the strategy? Will he assure us that in cases of family breakdown, those who leave the family home, particularly because of fear of violence, will immediately be accommodated safely, rather than having a harrowing wait before they find alternative secure accommodation?
    Mr. Byers: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his warm welcome for the Homelessness Act. I was pleased that it was the first measure introduced after the general election last June and that it got Royal Assent last week. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we amended the Bill as it was going through the House to ensure that, where a relationship breaks down, the interests of children are put first, which is a positive change. The hon. Gentleman
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    points out that, for a variety of reasons, the number of families in temporary accommodation is increasing, which is a matter for real concern. Young children are being denied life chances because they do not have somewhere that they can call their home. In facing the challenges in housing, we must ensure that we can deliver for those young children.
    Glenda Jackson: Who will be responsible for monitoring the efficacy of the homelessness strategy? Will it be the homelessness directorate? Will my right hon. Friend ensure that any national strategy will incorporate what would work most efficiently within the Greater London area, which is a pan-London strategy in partnership not only with the Association of London Government but with the Greater London Authority?
    Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend makes a very important point about the situation in London, particularly as it is clear that individual housing authorities alone cannot solve the deep-seated housing problems faced by London. There has to be a pan-London approach to the issue, and that is something that the newly established directorate is looking at carefully. We will be monitoring the strategy ourselves, but a variety of voluntary organisations will be looking closely at how we are delivering this important part of my Department's agenda. I believe that in this Parliament housing will move towards the top of the political agenda.
    Dr. Julian Lewis: Does the Secretary of State accept that if he had spent a bit more time putting roofs over the heads of families who need them and less time giving house room to the likes of Jo Moore, we would not now have a situation in which the number of families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation has increased by 152 per cent. and the number of empty council houses in England has increased by 6,000 since 1997? What has he got to say about that sort of record?
    Mr. Byers: The increase of 6,000 in the number of empty homes sounds significant, but what the hon. Gentleman did not say is that there are 750,000 empty homes in the United Kingdom, so perhaps 6,000 is not too many. As he should know, in last year's Budget we introduced measures to bring empty properties back into use, such as 100 per cent. capital allowances to convert space above shops into flats and a reduced rate of 5 per cent. for VAT on the cost of renovating homes that have been empty for over three years. We are taking action to deal with empty homes; the Conservative party in government did absolutely nothing.
    For the record, this Department and this Secretary of State are going to deliver on the housing agenda. As far as I am concerned, it is one of the top priorities, and Opposition Members will see the results in the very near future.
    Mr. Stephen Hepburn: While I welcome the homelessness strategy, I hope that it will not apply to people whom councils have spent months trying to evict. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that when councils get rid of such tenants, they will not get in somewhere else through the back door as a result of the strategy?
    Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend makes an important point. His constituency is just south of mine on the River Tyne, and we share similar problems, even if one football team is doing better than the other.
    Local authorities are being far more robust in dealing with tenants who make the lives of their neighbours hell. Those tenants are moving out of council housing into private accommodation, and a growing number of private landlords are taking on tenants who have been evicted. In many well-established streets up and down the country, private tenants are being installed, often on housing benefit, who make life hell for private owners. We want to consider a licensing system for private landlords so that they will have to deliver on their responsibilities.
    Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: In considering his homelessness strategy, the Secretary of State will wish to think about the number of rough sleepers, which has been artificially massaged down. Is he aware of the press release issued by the Transport and General Workers Union on behalf of independent charities, which alleges that the rough sleepers unit used public money to pay for rough sleepers to stay in bed-and-breakfast accommodation and states that outreach workers were pressurised into not declaring the full number of rough sleepers? It also alleges that rolling shelter beds were left empty for a month before the count, and that four hostels had dining rooms turned into bedrooms—all to massage the figures down artificially. Will the Secretary of State announce today that he will hold an inquiry into that, and if he will not, will he accede to the request from Shelter and the Simon communities to hold a meeting to discuss the allegations?
    Mr. Byers: What the hon. Gentleman has not said is that the methodology used in the rough sleeper count was constructed not by this Government, but under the Conservative Government in 1996. The voluntary agencies that conducted the survey followed the methodology agreed by that Administration. The hon. Gentleman may shake his head, but those are the facts. He does not like the facts to get in the way of his prejudices, but we all know that the Conservative approach to rough sleepers was well stated by a former Cabinet Minister who spoke about the inconvenience of coming out of the opera and having to step over people sleeping in the doorway. For the Tory party, rough sleepers are an inconvenience to be ignored—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I call the next question.

    Rail Services (East Midlands)
    David Taylor: What recent assessment he has made of the need for new passenger rail services to relieve motorway congestion in the east midlands. [36645]
    The Minister for Transport (Mr. John Spellar): As my hon. Friend may be aware, we are currently conducting a programme of regional multi-modal studies, including several involving the east midlands region. The studies are assessing demand for all modes of travel to
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    2021, including public transport, road use and motorway congestion. Recommendations to Ministers are expected shortly.
    David Taylor: I thank the Minister for that answer and for visiting north-west Leicestershire 11 days ago for a briefing on the national forest rail line project in my area and in south Derbyshire. When he receives the conclusions of the MI multi-modal study for the east midlands, will he examine carefully any reference to that project in the light of the information that he has received? Will he do his best to arm-wrestle the Chancellor for the necessary funding, which is but a small fraction of the £60 billion rail investment announced two years ago? That investment works out at £100 million for each constituency, and a small amount would do a lot of good.
    Mr. Spellar: My hon. Friend makes a strong case for his constituency, just as he and representatives of his local authorities did when I visited his area. I shall bear in mind the comments that I heard then when we receive the multi-modal studies. My hon. Friend and his colleagues sought to tackle the issues in the interests of their constituents by considering new communities in the area and new modes of travel. We shall consider those issues in his and in other areas when we make our assessment of how to remedy the substantial under-investment that we inherited from the Conservative Government.
    Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: I am sure that the Minister will have seen the letter that I received from the Secretary of State this week. I had raised with him the matter of the statement by the Strategic Rail Authority about East Midlands Parkway station. How can we take seriously anything from a Department that sends a letter to a Member of Parliament stating:
    "I understand from the SRA that the May 2003 opening date given in the Strategic Plan was an inadvertent error"?
    We are fed up with errors from this Department. When will we start to get some action, some true information, and proper apologies when people give us wrong information in the Chamber?
    Mr. Spellar: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was asking for that particular project. He was probably not making his presentation in such an approachable way as my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor). As I understand it, there was a straightforward error by the Strategic Rail Authority, for which it has apologised. In spite of the hon. Gentleman's protestations, we will certainly give the matter proper consideration, so as to extend travel opportunities, comfort and facilities for travellers right across the east midlands. I guarantee to the hon. Gentleman that I shall look into the matter for him.
    Liz Blackman: Ilkeston is the only town of its size in the east midlands without a railway station. A project for a station there has been identified by the SRA and by a multi-modal study. The problem is the Trent junction signalling box, which needs to be upgraded before capacity can be improved. Unfortunately, that upgrading will not take place for quite some time. May I

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    urge my hon. Friend to look at the issue, and to do all that he can to bring that project forward so that capacity in the area can be increased?
    Mr. Spellar: The Strategic Rail Authority and Railtrack are looking at a number of the constraints and bottlenecks in the railway system, in respect of which they could make a considerable cost-effective enhancement to facilities. That is extremely important because, previously, Railtrack seemed to be far more focused—although not particularly effectively—on the major projects, and did not look at running the system that it already had. We are already seeing a significant improvement in Railtrack's attitude and performance.

    Rail Freight
    Mr. Peter Duncan: What recent representations he has received on the expansion of rail freight. [36646]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Mr. David Jamieson): Both my Department and the Strategic Rail Authority regularly receive representations from interested parties promoting the expansion of rail freight. The scope of these contacts is wide ranging. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is as encouraged as I am that, after years of decline, there has been a 20 per cent. increase in the amount of freight on the railway lines since 1997.
    Mr. Duncan: The Minister will be aware that the Government's target for the increase in rail freight is 80 per cent., and some 43 per cent. of that needs to be delivered through the completion of the west coast main line. What is the projected mix of passengers and freight on that line, given its crucial importance to the Scottish economy? Exactly when is it going to be rescued from its current state of chaos?
    Mr. Jamieson: The SRA is looking closely at the west coast main line with a view to increasing the amount of passenger and freight traffic. It may have been a temporary lapse of memory that caused the hon. Gentleman not to mention the substantial amount of funding that Scotland has derived from the rail freight grant, not least for the Nith valley project near his constituency, which received £1 million for the Thornhill loop in June 2000.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Is my hon. Friend aware that, before we can encourage more freight on to the railways, we have to maintain our existing services? Will he please give an undertaking that the French Government will be told in no uncertain terms that firms in my constituency are about to go bankrupt because of the attitude of the French authorities to the constant pressure of people trying to get on to freight trains on the other side of the channel tunnel, and that that will not be allowed to continue because it is putting drivers and would-be immigrants at risk?
    Mr. Jamieson: I thank my hon. Friend for her justifiable concern in this important matter. The restrictions and their impact are of considerable concern
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    to the Government. We are exerting pressure at the highest levels to get the French Government to restore the freight service without further disruption. The French Government have taken the extremely helpful step of changing French law to give United Kingdom immigration officials authority on the Eurostar while they are on French soil. Since February, we have even had the power to check the papers of those who are making internal journeys in France, which is an unprecedented extension of our powers. My hon. Friend raises important matters with regard to freight and they are being dealt with at the highest level by the Government.
    Mr. Eric Pickles: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the question. The question was not about checking papers but about freight and people smuggling themselves on to freight trains. In a written answer to me dated 30 January 2002 the Minister promised that work to strengthen the fencing was under way and due to be completed by mid-February. He also said that he had received assurances that security measures and a police presence would be put in place. That increased fencing turns out to be little more than 3 m high, flimsy and little better than chicken wire. Not surprisingly, last week 200 m of that was pulled down and there is no sign of the French CRS police. It is little wonder that business is losing confidence. The Scottish whisky industry no longer uses the tunnel, large paper manufacturers no longer use the tunnel and major freight companies are going into bankruptcy. When will the Government do something about that? It is time that they ended the pointless civil war inside the Department, stopped attacking civil servants, and stood up for Britain rather than a departed spin doctor.
    Mr. Jamieson: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman rather lost the plot at the end of his question. While the Government concentrate on the problems of the channel tunnel, he concentrates on the problems of personalties. Many of the matters that he just mentioned have been dealt with already. Unfortunately, he looked rather pleased when he said that some of the measures that had been taken were not working. The Government are concerned—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman would stop wagging his finger for a moment and listen to what I am saying, it might be beneficial to the House. The hon. Gentleman is clearly rattled by the answer that he is getting and does not like it. I can assure him that the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) raised in a serious manner in the context of current discussions are being addressed at the very highest level, and that many of the measures that we have put in place, or have asked the French to put in place, are working.

    West Coast Main Line
    Dr. Phyllis Starkey: What discussions he has had with the Strategic Rail Authority on the allocation of track space on the west coast main line between different operators. [36647]
    The Minister for Transport (Mr. John Spellar): The Strategic Rail Authority is leading a review, with the input of principal stakeholders, of the outputs to be delivered from the west coast upgrade, including an assessment of

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    how capacity should he utilised to meet the requirements of the many different users of the line. The SRA is keeping the Department in touch with developments.
    Dr. Starkey: My right hon. Friend will be aware that my constituents, although pleased about the upgrade and its effect on inter-city services, are seriously concerned about Virgin having exclusive use of the fast lines and squeezing everyone else on to the slow lines. In particular, we are concerned about a deterioration in the county services that commuters use heavily in the mornings and evenings and about the loss of the Rugby to Brighton service north of Watford. Will he assure me that the Strategic Rail Authority will give proper consideration to the needs of all my constituents and those of my hon. Friends who represent Northampton and Watford, and not just consider the Virgin—
    Hon. Members: Order.
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Spellar: That was rather ungallant of Opposition Members as a serious point was being made. It is clear from this afternoon's proceedings that Opposition Members are not interested in making serious points on behalf of their constituents; they are interested only in point scoring.
    Two issues are involved here. One is the reduction in the number of paths while modernisation work is being undertaken on the west coast main line. As I understand it, that is having an immediate effect on the service to Gatwick and beyond that my hon. Friend described. Secondly, the Strategic Rail Authority is engaged in significant discussions—not only with Virgin and other train operators but with freight companies—about full use of the paths after modernisation of the west coast main line is completed.
    We need to consider how the questions that my hon. Friend raises will be dealt with. I accept that the service has been reduced in the short term, but in the meantime passengers will be able to change between the two services at Watford.
    Chris Grayling: The Government have paid a great deal of attention to the west coast main line, but they have quietly dropped from their 10-year plan proposals to build crossrail and to upgrade the Great Western line. Is that related to the fact that, according to the Department's own forecast, public sector investment in the railways will be 30 per cent. lower in 2010 than it was in 1995?
    Mr. Spellar: That is fine cheek, coming from a member of a party that did nothing about crossrail when in government. We are working with the City, Transport for London and the Strategic Rail Authority to decide on the paths for the project. The project has always been long term and has nothing to do with the 10-year plan. We would not have to deal with the issue now if the hon. Gentleman's party had got on with it a lot earlier.
    Andrew Bennett: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, although commuters in Greater Manchester are prepared to put up with a deterioration in
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    the service while the west coast main line is being upgraded, they want the certainty that services will be restored to at least their former level, if not improved?
    Mr. Spellar: I will draw my hon. Friend's comments to the attention of the SRA, which, as I said, is involved in ongoing discussions with train operators and other operators on the line. As he fully understands and as he pointed out to his constituents, some disruption will occur while the line is being modernised, but there will be considerable improvements for rail travellers and a shift in passenger transport.

    Planning Green Paper
    Mr. Stephen O'Brien: What representations from environmental groups he has received concerning the planning Green Paper. [36648]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Ms Sally Keeble): Quite a number of environmental groups have written to Members of Parliament, who have passed on that correspondence to Ministers. In addition, there have been more than 3,000 responses to the consultation exercise, of which about 2,000 were from environmental groups or their members.
    Mr. Stephen O'Brien: Who in the Minister's Department will be available to assist in considering representations on the Green Paper from environmental groups, now that Jo Moore, Martin Sixsmith and Ian Jones are not available? More to the point, will she confirm whether Martin Sixsmith is or is not available, given that some dispute exists as to whether he officially resigned?
    Ms Keeble: I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but the consultation exercise arrangement has always been that the responses will be sifted and analysed by external consultants on our behalf.
    Mr. Bill O'Brien: Can my hon. Friend tell the House how many of the organisations that responded to the planning Green Paper raised issues about telecommunication masts and planning procedures relating to their location?
    Ms Keeble: We have yet to analyse the responses. Most of them—about 2,500—have come in the past week, doubtless in response to the campaign by environmental groups. We receive many submissions about telecoms masts and they are always considered very carefully. We also take up matters directly with some operators.
    Mr. Anthony Steen: I entirely support the Government's approach to the sensitive environmental considerations associated with building 3.75 million new houses in Britain by 2011. However, how does the Minister reconcile that with a fast-track approach to major public building infrastructure works which downgrades

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    the environment and regards it as of little significance? How does she square those two approaches to the environment?
    Ms Keeble: The Green Paper repeatedly emphasises the fact that we take environmental issues and the importance of community involvement very seriously. It contains a number 01 recommendations that benefit community groups and the environment.
    The housing policies that are already in place will continue, including the use of brownfield sites. The infrastructure proposals will be the exception for major areas of infrastructure, and we believe that our proposals still enable community and environmental groups to have an input into the decision-making process. I underline the fact that we completely understand the importance of taking into account environmental considerations. I would argue that this Government's track record on protecting the environment is far superior to that of the Conservative Government.
    Mrs. Lorna Fitzsimons: Can my hon. Friend tell us whether there have been any submissions about the misuse of planning law by environmental groups when it is quite clear that the will of the people in an area is in favour of a development? Groups misuse planning law, especially on the village green issue, filibustering and wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers' money, when what is wanted is much-needed industrial development.
    Ms Keeble: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. One of the aims of the planning Green Paper is to provide a system that is more transparent and is not held hostage by filibustering tactics, but that can be well used by community groups to enable them to put their views directly and not turn planning inquiries into what has been called a banquet for banisters.

    Railtrack
    Mr. Gregory Barker: What the estimated cost to date is of Railtrack being in administration. [36649]
    The Minister for Transport (Mr. John Spellar): We estimate that the total amount so far drawn down from the commercial loan facility—
    Hon. Members: Where's Byers?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The House must come to order.
    Mr. Spellar: All I can say about that outburst is that it was one that they prepared earlier.
    We estimate that the total amount so far drawn down from the commercial loan facility, which is used for running the railway, together with the administrators' fees, is some £1.8 billion. That is an interim arrangement, and the administrator will shortly start the process of raising banking facilities to refinance the loan from the commercial sector. When that takes place, there will no longer be a direct call on taxpayers' money.
    Mr. Barker: I listened carefully to the Minister's answer, but is not the real economic cost far higher?
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    Taken together, more expensive financing, higher performance targets and tens of millions in lost efficiency savings will mean that the real cost of Railtrack administration will be £400 million this year, and more like £1.75 billion cumulatively to 2006. Given the Secretary of State's record for factual inaccuracy, would the Minister care to revisit his answer and tell the poor old British travelling public what the real cost of the Labour Railtrack fiasco will be?
    Mr. Spellar: I can tell the hon. Gentleman what the cost of Railtrack is. It is a failed privatisation. It did not have a clue about its own assets. It could not run its programmes. It went from £2.3 billion estimated expenditure on the west coast main line to between £6 billion and £7 billion and rising, and it was not able to organise its contractors. If the hon. Gentleman actually talked to the operators in the industry, he would know that they found Railtrack to be out of touch and incompetent. They have already seen considerable progress under John Annitt, who is a respected figure from the construction industry. There has been a change of attitude and a change of practice. Travellers will welcome that, because it is delivering the rail service that they want. By his question, the hon. Gentleman shows yet again how out of touch the Conservative party is on this issue.
    Mr. George Stevenson: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the process that led to the administration of Railtrack—both the ending of that debacle and the role played by the Secretary of State—has been warmly welcomed, especially by Labour Members? Is he also aware of the concern that creating yet another company—even one limited by guarantee—is bound to lead to more damaging fragmentation of the industry?
    Given that all the resources for our rail infrastructure are either dispensed directly or are guaranteed by the public purse, will my right hon. Friend give urgent consideration to the suggestion from the Select Committee on Transport, Local Government and the Regions that all the infrastructure should be incorporated in the Strategic Rail Authority?
    Mr. Spellar: My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the fragmentation of the industry. I am sure that he is pleased about the measures that the Strategic Rail Authority is taking to consolidate the operator side of the industry.
    Bids are currently being prepared for the infrastructure. One proposal is for a company limited by guarantee, which would provide an effective way of focusing Railtrack's successor on the operation and management of the infrastructure. Under Railtrack as it was, there was an absolute focus on short-term shareholder value, to the detriment of the travelling public and the rail infrastructure.
    Mr. Peter Lilley: Is the Minister aware that the cost being suffered by my constituents is a one-third increase in delays since the effective renationalisation of Railtrack? They want a Secretary of State who will focus on making the trains arrive as rapidly as his information officers depart. They are not interested in those people; but how can they trust

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    a Secretary of State who has seen resign—or has sacked, or disowned—the chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, the chairman of Railtrack, the franchising director, and that other fellow, Winsor? All those people were appointed by the Secretary of State, or by his Government. How can my constituents trust him if he cannot retain the trust of those whom he appointed?
    Mr. Spellar: As well as giving an unmitigated endorsement to the old Railtrack, the right hon. Gentleman seems to favour the whole of the failed structure. I would expect the great majority of those in the industry to consider the new chairmen of the Strategic Rail Authority and Railtrack a considerable improvement, and indeed we are already seeing progress.
    That is not in any way to underestimate the difficulty of recovering from the considerable problems created by the structure introduced by the last Government. First there was the privatisation of the train operators, and the way in which it was handled; then there was the rushed and botched privatisation of the infrastructure of Railtrack, a company which, as we have seen, was wrongly focused on short-term shareholder value rather than the running of the system. We are considering how to improve the structural position, and we have already made considerable changes in personnel, to the good of the industry.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is the Minister aware that the British people were fed up to the back teeth with handing over billions of pounds to a few people in Railtrack? At some point, it had to stop. Let me suggest a precursor to the company going into public ownership—I hope that is the idea—and point out that, shortly, one or two other companies might be going for a song. Let me say this, to the fury of the Tories and the press: snap them up. It might result in a few top civil servants effing and blinding and all the rest, but we should not worry about that. The British people out there want to get rid of the way in which the railway companies were assembled by the Tories—lining the pockets of their friends—and make sure that travelling by rail benefits all the British people.
    Mr. Spellar: What I am sure the British public want, and what freight operators want, is a rail system that works efficiently and effectively. We will introduce the mechanism that will best ensure that. The key is that we do not start with any ideological predisposition towards one course or another—unlike the bunch on the Opposition Benches, who could see only one way. That is why they made such a mess of things.
    Tom Brake: The Secretary of State was right to put Railtrack into administration, even though he waited too long and the process was badly executed. However, private consortiums will be running London underground for the next 30 years. Will the Minister explain why, if they fail to perform adequately, the next Secretary of State will not be able to terminate their contracts, or put them into administration?
    Mr. Spellar: Quite simply, if the consortiums fail, there will be provision for taking over their work. There must always be a default position. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his friends on the Greater London
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    Assembly will use what influence they have in Transport for London to urge all concerned to get on with the contracts and to start to deliver benefits for the people of London. The bodies involved should start getting in the investment that the infrastructure so desperately needs. The system will have to cater for a considerable number of extra travellers as a result of the million extra jobs created in the economy since the Government took office.

    Regional Governance
    Mr. David Lidington: What role regional assemblies will have in the determination of planning decisions and housing and transport policy. [36650]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Dr. Alan Whitehead): The forthcoming regional governance White Paper will set out our proposals for the functions of elected regional assemblies.
    Mr. Lidington: In what ways will abolishing a county council in Aylesbury so that powers can be transferred to a regional assembly in Guildford or Reading bring government closer to local people?
    Dr. Whitehead: The hon. Gentleman seems to be under the misapprehension that the purpose of regional government is to suck powers up from local government. I cannot guarantee that regional assemblies will draw no functions from local government, but any such cases will be very much the exception. Local government will remain the community champion and chief service deliverer, whereas regional government will lead in the development of the strategic vision for the region. Our programme of reform is about ensuring that local government deals with local services, that regional government deals with regional priorities. and that Westminster deals with issues of national importance.
    Helen Jackson: Is my hon. Friend aware that regional bodies on both sides of the Pennines wholly support the proposal by Central Trains to reopen a tunnel for rail freight under the Pennines? That matter was commented on by the House a short time ago. Does my hon. Friend accept that, on strategic transport policies of that sort, it is crucial to take note of the wishes of regional bodies? Does he agree that they will play an extremely important role when they are fully established?
    Dr. Whitehead: My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is essential that accountable regional bodies take careful note of the benefits that can accrue to regions as a result of collaboration—both between regions, and with regard to projects within regions. My hon. Friend will have noted that the Green Paper entitled "Planning: Delivering a Fundamental Change" envisages that elected regional assemblies will take over strategic regional planning functions, among other things.
    Sir Patrick Cormack: Why did the Minister evade the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), who

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    suggested that the creation of these absurd regional bodies would lead to the demise of county councils? Will the Minister confirm that that is what would happen?
    Dr. Whitehead: The hon. Gentleman seems to have had something of a memory lapse. He should recall that the previous Conservative Government introduced a series of unelected regional bodies. They sucked power up into the regions, but they were not accountable. One of the purposes behind developing elected regional assemblies is to ensure that power is accountable, and is exercised at the appropriate level. Regional activities will be accountable at regional government level, and local activities will be accountable at local government level.
    Mr. Derek Foster: Whatever powers are eventually devolved to regional assemblies, there is a growing feeling in the north-east—among sporting personalities and people in entertainment, as well as among politicians—that the area needs a strong regional voice. Will my hon. Friend say when we can expect the White Paper on the matter? Will he confirm that the timetable to which the Government are working would allow a referendum in the north-east before the end of this Parliament?
    Dr. Whitehead: My right hon. Friend makes the important point that in the north-east keen interest has been expressed from a variety of sources in the idea of an elected regional assembly. He can expect the forthcoming regional government White Paper to appear shortly. Among others things, it will set out the timetable for early referendums when the creation of regional assemblies on an elected basis is regarded as desirable.
    Mr. Jeffrey M. Donaldson: Whatever the future role of regional assemblies, what steps are the Minister and his Department taking to ensure co-operation with the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly to bring about a strategic, co-ordinated transport policy for the whole United Kingdom?
    Dr. Whitehead: The hon. Gentleman should know that the Government, my Department and the devolved governments of the regions and nations of Great Britain undertake regular discussions on issues of mutual strategic importance. Those discussions are proving useful in terms of the sort of issues that he has raised.
    Mr. Malcolm Moss: Does the Minister agree with the headline in a recent edition of the Local Government Chronicle, suggesting that the Prime Minister is selling the counties out? Will the Minister tell the House whether the Government intend to sell the counties out?
    Dr. Whitehead: Not only do we not intend to sell the counties out, but we intend to ensure that elected regional assemblies will be created only when people in the region concerned want those assemblies to be created on an elected basis. Therefore, the idea that there is a plan for the extinction of county councils, regardless of the popular feeling in the regions, is completely untenable.
    Joyce Quin: I welcome my hon. Friend's determination and that of the
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    Secretary of State to honour the manifesto commitment on the introduction of regional assemblies. I agree that it is not so much about creating an extra tier of government as about democratising an existing tier, and giving that tier back to the regions where it belongs. May I also press my hon. Friend on timing? Will he confirm that the publication of the White Paper will be accompanied by a proper period of consultation, and that legislation this autumn to pave the way for referendums will not be ruled out?
    Dr. Whitehead: I confirm that the White Paper will be published shortly, will contain substantial proposals about the functions and working of elected regional assemblies and will set out a timetable according to which discussions will take place. An opportunity will be provided for full consultation on the way forward set out in the White Paper.

    Homelessness
    Dr. Vincent Cable: What progress the bed and breakfast unit has made in reducing the number of homeless households in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. [36651]
    The Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Mr. Stephen Byers): In September last year, 12,500 households were in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, of which some 6,500 were families with children. I regard that figure as unacceptably high. Based on the advice of the bed and breakfast unit, I hope to be able to make an announcement on the steps that we intend to take to reduce this number in the near future.
    Dr. Cable: What estimate has the unit and the Secretary of State made of the additional demand for bed-and-breakfast accommodation as a result of new Government regulations in June that will substantially increase the number of homeless people to be rehoused by councils? Does he not recognise that this will cause severe problems for councils such as mine that are chronically short of social housing? To head off the pending crisis, will he therefore speak to his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions about reforming the system of housing benefit to enable social landlords to lease private accommodation for the homeless?
    Mr. Byers: The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue about the relationship between housing benefit and the use of accommodation. It is one of a range of issues that we are considering in the context of making an announcement in the near future on how we intend to tackle the increasing number of households and families with children in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. The number is going up dramatically and that has to be brought to an end, but in a positive way in terms of the good accommodation that we should be able to offer to those who have to suffer bed-and-breakfast accommodation. We take this issue seriously and we will be making an announcement in the near future.
    Ms Karen Buck: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the number of social housing units for rent in London has plummeted

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    since the mid-1990s? Does he agree that supply is the key? Will he do what he can to ensure that we get a settlement from the Treasury to tackle not only the crisis in bed-and-breakfast accommodation but the equally serious crisis that underpins it of chronic overcrowding? It is twice as high in London as it is in any other part of the country, leading to catastrophic consequences for families with children.
    Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend is a strong campaigner for decent housing for families with children. I would like to think that we will be able to respond positively to her representations and many of those made by my hon. Friends. It is a question of funding, and we are putting in additional resources. It is also a question of developers facing their obligations, particularly in London and the south-east. At present, we are able, through the planning process, to put obligations on affordable housing only where it is residential accommodation for which planning is proposed. It would make a lot of sense if we could put such an obligation on a commercial development that was proposed. We are consulting on whether such an obligation should be introduced.

    Regional Governance
    Mr. Anthony D. Wright: What progress he has made on proposals for elected regional Government in England. [36652]
    The Minister for Local Government (Mr. Nick Raynsford): We are making good progress. A White Paper on regional governance will be presented to Parliament by the Deputy Prime Minister as soon as it is ready. It will set out the Government's plans for taking forward our manifesto commitment on elected regional government.
    Mr. Wright: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, but I wished for a date to be given. There is lively debate in the regions on the pros and cons of regional government. Can my right hon. Friend tell us in broad terms what benefits he believes will flow to the regions that adopt the regional assembly approach? Furthermore, will the option for regional assemblies be open only to those areas that have unitary rather than two-tier government?
    Mr. Raynsford: As my hon. Friend rightly points out, a debate is taking place, with different views emerging in various parts of the country. It is our view that people should have the opportunity, through a referendum, to determine the appropriate outcome in their region. A number of regions feel strongly that there would be benefits in having an elected regional assembly to give greater regional focus to economic development and related policies and to introduce a proper democratic framework to govern the activity of organisations that are accountable only to Ministers or are unelected quangos. Those regions perceive clear benefits in having an elected regional assembly.
    As the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), has already made
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    clear, we will in our White Paper spell out the specific arrangements for the relationship of local government to elected regional assemblies where those are proposed.
    Mr. John Butterfill: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the considerable need to review regional boundaries? The south-east Dorset conurbation, for example, has no road or rail communications worth talking about with the proposed regional seat of government. The Highways Agency now deals with this under a central southern region, shown on all its maps. Is the right hon. Gentleman now considering a central southern region?
    Mr. Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman has been around a long time and knows from experience that debates on boundaries are almost guaranteed to generate a long, protracted and not terribly productive outcome. For that reason, the Government have formed the view that it is right to work in the first instance on the basis of the government regions, as defined for the Government offices, which will provide sound building blocks. However, the hon. Gentleman will have to wait for the publication of the White Paper to see in detail how we propose to take forward the boundary arrangements for elected regional authorities.
    Mr. David Clelland: If voting in the referendum for regional government dictates the end of the county council tier, what implications will that have in any future reorganisation of local government? Would not a further referendum have to be held before a future Government could get rid of county councils?
    Mr. Raynsford: As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary made clear earlier, there is no agenda for the abolition of county councils, but we recognise the need to look at the relationship of local government to elected regional assemblies, where people determine through referendums that they want an elected regional assembly in their area. The precise way in which that will be handled will be spelt out in the White Paper.

    Railtrack
    Mr. Colin Breed: If he will make a statement on the progress towards establishing a company limited by guarantee to take over Railtrack plc's responsibilities relating to running the network. [36653]
    The Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Mr. Stephen Byers): The team that has been engaged by the Strategic Rail Authority to develop a bid based on the concept of a company limited by guarantee is currently preparing its proposal. All potential bidders are aware that the administrator and the Government would like to keep the period of administration as short as possible.
    Mr. Breed: I thank the Secretary of State for that response. What does the right hon. Gentleman expect the public expenditure required by the new company to be, and how much will be generated by private investment?

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    Will that entail more moneys from the Treasury, over and above what has already been announced as part of the 10-year plan?
    Mr. Byers: We shall have to await the business case that will be put by the hid team for the company limited by guarantee. Any bidder will have access to Government grant and track access charges and will be able to borrow on the financial markets on the basis of those two secured revenue streams. That is the current situation, but obviously the detail will depend on the proposal and the business case made by the company limited by guarantee or any other bidder.
    Mr. Bob Blizzard: When my right hon. Friend next talks to Railtrack, will he ask whether something can be done about the Oulton Broad North level crossing? Because of an antiquated signalling system, the gates have to be lowered manually and are left down for five minutes to allow the passage of a two-carriage local train, thus blocking off one of the only two roads through the area. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need an integrated approach if the proposal made by Anglia Railways for more trains between Lowestoft and Norwich is not to cause chaos on the roads?
    Mr. Byers: As it happens, I know the Oulton Broad North level crossing extremely well. I was on my way to campaign for my hon. Friend in the general election last year—successfully, of course—and, as all campaigners will understand, I was running behind schedule and then the level crossing gates came down, manually. It was even more frustrating because I wanted to be with my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend has made an important point: we need to ensure that investment goes into the network. That includes the Oulton Broad North level crossing as well as the west coast main line.
    Mrs. Theresa May: The Secretary of State has an entire Department of civil servants at his disposal—although the number is falling by the day. He
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    has external consultants to advise him on the planning Green Paper, external consultants to advise him on his relations with the City and, of course, external consultants to advise the bidder for the company limited by guarantee. Is the SRA's cost for putting together a bid for a company limited by guarantee counted as public sector investment'?
    Mr. Byers: The SRA is meeting the costs of the bid team from within its resources and will be accounted accordingly.
    Mrs. May: So it comes within the public sector.
    The Secretary of State told the House that total investment in the railways would be £64.9 billion over the next 10 years, but analysis shows that a third of that is accounted for by inflation, a quarter of it is double counting and a third of the remainder is ongoing renewals and maintenance work: so the real figure for investment for improving the railways over the next 10 years is not £65 billion, as the Secretary of State told the House, but less than £20 billion. Will the right hon. Gentleman apologise to the House, or does he just regret giving the wrong impression?
    As this is the last DTLR Question Time before the Easter reshuffle, I just want to say to the Secretary of State—goodbye.
    Mr. Byers: There are important issues that need to be addressed. Whether it is the hon. Lady saying bye-bye to me, or me saying bye-bye to her, time will tell. Under the 10-year plan, £64.9 billion will be invested in the railways. Those are the figures and that is the money that will be invested. The hon. Lady should not rely on the comments made in some of the newspapers. Those are the figures and that is the amount that will be delivered. The important issue for the Government and for me is that, whereas the hon. Lady may reflect the priorities of the Westminster village, the Government and I will deliver on the priorities of the people of our country. Those priorities are improving our transport system, decent housing for our people, regeneration of our economy and ensuring that we deliver for all our people. That is what I intend to do, and that is what I shall continue to do.

Points of Order
3.31 pm
Tim Loughton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Hon. Friends and I have been tabling questions in recent weeks about the cost of sending British NHS patients for treatment in Germany and France. Over the past few days, we have received answers to those written questions, refusing us any information about the cost of that treatment on the spurious grounds of commercial confidentiality. The answers to further questions as to what constitutes commercial confidentiality are, apparently, confidential. Surely it is legitimate to seek details of whether taxpayers' money is being spent effectively, not only on those NHS escapees going to the continent, but for the 1 million-plus patients who remain on waiting lists at home. Could you give us your guidance on how we can get that information about taxpayers' money into the public domain?
Mr. Speaker: I am not responsible for ministerial answers.
Mr. Peter Lilley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You may have seen in The Times today an article on the second page reporting that yesterday the Government organised what the paper calls a pre-emptive strike to discourage discussion of a proposal by a think-tank close to the Government to raise the basic retirement age to 67. You will have noticed that on the Order Paper yesterday there was a question specifically on that subject from the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), which was withdrawn. Could you make inquiries as to whether any improper pressure was put on the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that question; could you rebuke anyone, from the Whips Office or otherwise, who did that; and could you offer counselling and support to Labour Members who feel inclined to give in to pressure from the Whips to remove embarrassing questions from the Order Paper?
Mr. Speaker: I do not think that a proper point of order.

Animal Welfare (Journey to Slaughter)
3.33 pm
Mr. Andrew Turner: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State, in setting standards for slaughterhouses, to have regard to the desirability of reducing the length and duration of animals' journeys to slaughter, and for related purposes.
The Isle of Wight, the constituency that I am proud to represent, was fortunately free of foot and mouth during the last outbreak, although on 19 February last year the first of two contacts was identified on the island. Fortunately, we were given the all-clear, but why should contacts be identified as far apart as Northumberland and the Isle of Wight? Both cases had been dealt with at an abattoir in Little Warley in Essex.
That is just the problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) said:
"The volume of traffic through any one abattoir has increased the risk of the virus spreading.
As vehicles come from a wider geographical area to reach their nearest abattoir they then take the virus over a far wider area, meaning much of the country may be affected."
Why must animals travel such long distances to slaughter? The answer is, first, because of the closure of many small abattoirs, and secondly, because many supermarkets demand that animals be slaughtered at slaughterhouses of their choice and not those nearest the farms.
The hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) introduced a ten-minute Bill in November with the objectives of limiting journey times, promoting local slaughterhouses and limiting the frequency of animals' journeys to markets. The Government had the opportunity to take up his proposals in both the Animal Health Bill and the document "England's rural future". Regrettably, neither of them mentioned the hon. Gentleman's proposals; hence my Bill, which takes a slightly different approach by considering why animals have to travel so far.
A wide range of organisations, from Compassion in World Farming and the Soil Association to the Meat and Livestock Commission and the Countryside Alliance, recognise that small slaughterhouses have closed at an unprecedented rate and that supermarkets' dealings with farmers frequently require animals to be slaughtered far away from the farm. The result is, of course, considerable additional stress to the animals caused by long journeys, overcrowding, inadequate rest periods, lairage and drinking facilities, and by repeated loading and unloading.

The indefatigable countryside campaigner Mr. Robin Page pointed out in 1999 that there were 1,000-plus slaughterhouses in Britain in 1980, with 44 having the capacity to kill more than 50,000 beasts a year; in 1999, however, thanks to the European Union fresh meat directive, there were only 416 slaughterhouses, with 78 killing more than 50,000 beasts a year. Mr. Page went on to say:
"For humanely killed stress-free animals, slaughter needs to be as close to the farm as possible. Under the directive, the reverse has happened: with unnecessary closures, due to ridiculous hygiene regulations and unacceptable costs, animals are now being transported many miles to die."
I want to stop that stress.
Compassion in World Farming reports that we are down to about 300 abattoirs. As Mr. Page said, EU meat hygiene legislation has driven up costs to a point beyond

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the reach of many small slaughterhouses. The increased costs have arisen both because EU legislation has stepped up its requirements on veterinary supervision and because the EU has imposed a range of additional structural requirements on slaughterhouses.
A number of steps need to be taken if a network of local slaughterhouses is to be re-established. The Government and the abattoir sector need to make a concerted attempt to prevent the closure of more local abattoirs and to secure the reopening of those that have closed. The Government should give careful examination to the ways in which we can give financial assistance to that development and encourage investment in small local abattoirs. They must negotiate with our EU competitors to secure a revision of EU meat hygiene legislation. Such revision must provide a more sensible balance between the need to achieve good hygiene standards and securing economic viability for small local abattoirs.
Farmers and others who sell for slaughter should be encouraged to use an abattoir that is reasonably nearby rather then sending animals to a distant slaughterhouse. Those supermarkets that source their meat only from a few large abattoirs must be persuaded to alter that policy. They should be willing to source their meat from local abattoirs up and down the country, especially if it is for local consumption. Indeed, there would be little point in creating new local abattoirs if supermarkets refused to use them. Supermarkets want to be regarded as a responsible part of the food chain, so they should be prepared to facilitate a return to local slaughter, which will bring benefits in terms both of animal welfare and of disease control.
I am pleased to say that the agricultural sector on the Isle of Wight is working towards the creation of its own local abattoir, which would prevent a two to three-hour journey by road, ferry and road again to mainland abattoirs such as that situated at Frome. I compliment the agricultural community on the island on its work, and especially the Isle of Wight county branch of the National Farmers Union, the Isle of Wight Partnership and the South East England Development Agency, which have all contributed to the plans. I also thank Lord Whitty for the interest that he has shown in those plans.
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Let us think how much easier it would be if the Government were fully behind shorter journeys from farm to table. The objectives of my Bill are to require the Government specifically to compare the stress of additional distance of transport with that of abattoirs, while reducing burdensome regulation; to adopt EU standard veterinary qualifications for those who inspect abattoirs—such qualifications are already acceptable, but we have to make them available for those who train in the United Kingdom; to assist in the recreation of small abattoirs, perhaps paid for by a standard headage payment across all slaughterhouses, instead of the bulk purchase scheme that exists at the moment and unfairly benefits large slaughterhouses; and to ban unreasonable trade practices in supermarkets.
The Bill is an important animal welfare measure. Personally, I consider it a more important such measure than others that may come before the House in future weeks and months. The fact is that far more animals suffer every day from long-distance journeys to slaughterhouses and markets than will ever suffer from foxhunting, but I do not wish to make a partisan point on that subject. This is such an important animal welfare measure that I believe that it deserves the support of all parts of the House.
I commend the Bill and I hope for the support of the House in introducing it.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Andrew Turner, Mr. Richard Bacon, Mrs. Helen Clark, Mr. Jonathan Djanogly, Mr. Jeffrey M. Donaldson, Mr. Peter Duncan, Mr. Adrian Flook, Jane Griffiths, Lady Hermon and Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger.

Animal Welfare (Journey to Slaughter)
  ANIMAL WELFARE (JOURNEY TO SLAUGHTER)
  Mr. Andrew Turner accordingly presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State, in setting standards for slaughterhouses, to have regard to the desirability of reducing the length and duration of animals' journeys to slaughter, and for related purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 10 May, and to be printed [Bill 108].
Opposition Day

  Steel Industry
  Mr. Speaker: We now come to the main business. I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  3.43 pm
  Adam Price: I beg to move,
  That this House is gravely concerned about the Prime Minister's role in supporting LNM/Ispat International's contract for the SIDEX steel plant in Romania and is unimpressed with the explanations given hitherto; notes Lakshmi Mittal's non-domicile resident status and his donation of £125,000 to the Labour Party; condemns the Government's support for a company that is actively lobbying in the United States against the interests of the UK steel industry; notes the potentially devastating effect on the domestic steel industry posed by Mittal-inspired steel import tariffs imposed by the US Administration; calls for urgent action to be taken to help support the UK steel industry as a consequence of any US-imposed tariffs; urges the Prime Minister to publish guidelines regarding Government support for companies that are also substantial donors to the governing party; and demands a full public inquiry into the Government's support for the Romanian SIDEX steel plant deal.
  The motion was tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends, and on behalf of the UK and Welsh steel industry.
  Like me, the Secretary of State comes of ironworkers' stock. His constituency suffered 1,000 job losses as a result of last year's Corus closures. I feel genuinely sorry for him that he has been chosen to answer on the Government's behalf on matters on which he was not consulted and over which he has no control. Yet again, the Secretary of State for Wales has been handed all the responsibility and none of the power.
  Llew Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
  Adam Price: In a minute.
  Llew Smith: Will he give way?
  Adam Price: In a minute.
  Llew Smith rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Adam Price: But the Secretary of State does have the choice—a very simple one: to defend his Government and his party's reputation, or to represent the people who elected him. If he will not stand up and defend Welsh industry and Welsh communities, there are many hon. Members on these Benches who are prepared to do so.
  Llew Smith: The hon. Gentleman says that he is involved in this debate as a representative of the Welsh steel industry. Can he explain that remark, given that those who are closest to the industry—the trade unions—have dissociated themselves from the remarks that he has
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  been making for the past few weeks? He is intervening not on behalf of the Welsh steel industry, but on behalf of the Welsh nationalist party.
  Adam Price: I am sure that the Welsh steel communities will be proud of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. I do not want to get involved in an inter-union dispute, but we have received full support from employees in Allied Steel and Wire and the GMB. The GMB takes a different line from the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation as regards loyalty to the Labour Government.
  Mark Tami: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Adam Price: I should like to make some progress, if I may. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman says that he wishes to make some progress.
  Adam Price: We demand answers from the Government on behalf of those who expect a British Prime Minister—a Labour Prime Minister, at that—to be batting for British workers, not supporting foreign business men. Throughout this affair, the Government have singularly failed to provide a satisfactory answer to the central question—why did a British Prime Minister put the full weight of the Crown behind a foreign company's investment in eastern Europe that will cost British jobs? That is the key question that the Secretary of State for Wales must answer in the Prime Minister's absence.
  It is shameful that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has not found the time to come to the House at this critical juncture for the steel industry. She is not so much washing her hair as washing her hands of the steel industry. She found the time to attend Mr. Mittal's reception in November, however.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: On a point of order,. Mr. Speaker. As you know, the rules of the House allow copious use of notes. Nevertheless—apart from the fact that I personally feel that Welshmen should speak extempore—those rules dictate that hon. Members must not follow notes too closely.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is in order at the moment.
  Adam Price: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has twice flatly refused to come to the House. At this of all times the steel industry is entitled to expect leadership from the Government, yet we see political cowardice of the most contemptible kind. The Government have tried to brazen and bluff their way out of the crisis. Downing street has issued a string of denials, discrepancies and dissembling. The Government's smokescreen of denial and fake indignation is designed to obscure the truth, but the key facts are clear.
  Helen Jackson: The hon. Gentleman says that he—and, I suppose, his party—

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  speaks on behalf of the UK steel industry. What are they doing to support the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and other members of the Government who are pressing the United States Government to take action over US steel tariffs? We hear a lot of bluster from the hon. Gentleman and his party, but what positive action are they taking to support what our Government are doing to protect the jobs of my steelworkers, as well as those in Wales?
  Adam Price: The hon. Lady will know that I am a fellow founding officer of the all-party steel group. She will also know that President Bush announced his intention to call a section 201 inquiry last June. What did the Prime Minister do? He wrote a letter 24 hours before the deadline was up, yet Mr. Mittal got his letter within four days of asking. All the British steel industry is asking of the Government is parity of esteem; surely it is entitled to that.
  The facts are clear. Mr. Mittal gave £125,000 to the Labour party. In July, the Prime Minister signed a letter urging Romania to sell its nationalised steel industry to Mr. Mittal's company. In November, Romania did so, after the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development had, at the Government's behest, given Mr. Mittal a loan. Labour has argued that there was no connection between the donation and the letter or the letter and the deal, and that the loan was also unconnected. The Labour party says that those are all coincidences, but I call coincidences that recur a pattern.
  Of course that was not the first time that the Government had helped Mr. Mittal; he received his first loan from the Government to buy a state-owned steel plant in Kazakhstan just months after he gave the Labour party £16,000 in 1997. That is part of a chain of coincidences, where favours are given to the Government or to the Labour party and favours are done in return.
  Mr. Chris Bryant: Can the hon. Gentleman therefore explain why, on 9 March last year, the leader of the Welsh nationalist-run Rhondda Cynon Taff local authority, Pauline Jarman, met representatives of the Rhondda Cynon Taff bus and coach operators association to talk about extending their £4.5 million agreement; and why, only two weeks later in the run-up to the general election, the convenor of that group gave a £1,500 donation to the local Plaid Cymru party? Can he also explain why, two weeks after the general election, Plaid Cymru councillors on the local authority decided not only to extend the contract for a further year, but to give an additional 7.5 per cent.—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Interventions should be brief.
  Adam Price: Unfortunately for the hon. Gentleman, I was given ample warning of that issue; it was raised by his colleague Councillor Robert Bevan in the scrutiny committee, but he immediately withdrew the allegation. Councillor Robert Bevan and the hon. Gentleman were opponents for the Labour party nomination and they are not on speaking terms, but if the hon. Gentleman were to speak to his colleagues in the Labour group, perhaps he would have better information. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) must be quiet.
  Adam Price: The Government have made a concerted effort to confuse, conceal and conflate our understanding
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  of this case, and the hon. Gentleman's intervention is an example of that. Line after line of defence has been demolished, as the Government have been forced to amend, to correct and to retract statement after statement.
  The Prime Minister said that LNM was a British company, which it is not. Those at Downing street argued that it was owned by a British parent company—another false statement. The Prime Minister's official spokesperson said that Mr. Mittal was a British citizen—he is not—and that the donation came after the election, but it actually came before. It was said that Mr. Mittal had given money to the Tories—another untruth that had to be retracted. It was claimed that the letter was signed after the deal was agreed—not true; a late bid from the French company triggered the letter. It was said that the letter was drafted and signed unchanged—wrong again. The original draft was written on 19 July including the words "my friend Lakshmi Mittal", which Jonathan Powell removed to avoid embarrassing the Prime Minister.
  We have been assured that the Prime Minister had not met Mr. Mittal bilaterally and did not know about the donation. Again, that is untrue. Mr. Mittal, according to his official spokeswoman, had met the Prime Minister on several occasions, most recently at a celebration dinner for 15 of Labour's biggest donors just weeks after the general election. Four weeks later, the Prime Minister signed the letter.
  Finally—it is such a long list that I am breathless with mentioning so many retractions—it was claimed that the Prime Minister writes frequent letters to heads of state on behalf of businesses, but when the BBC checked the list of countries, not one of them could confirm ever having received such a letter, and the Government have refused to provide any example, citing that familiar excuse—commercial confidentiality. Ten lines of defence have been uttered by the Prime Minister's official spokesman, but later retracted in one of the most appallingly inept cover-ups that this country has ever seen.
  Ian Lucas: The letter written by the Prime Minister was requested by an independent civil servant, the British ambassador to Romania. Is not that the key fact in all this? Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting—it is important to be clear about this—that that gentleman was in some way acting at the behest of the Labour party? Will he make that clear?
  Adam Price: We are familiar with this Government's strategy of heaping blame on officials when events turn against them and when information comes out that contradicts Government statements. The way in which Her Majesty's ambassador in Bucharest has been treated as the fall guy is appalling. If the hon. Gentleman is seriously suggesting that a member of the diplomatic service would take it on himself to have dozens of meetings with a business man without checking for ministerial approval, his understanding of the operations of the British state is different from mine.
  Mr. Roy Beggs: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in accepting £125,000 from one of the wealthiest families in the United Kingdom. the Labour party has sold itself short?
  Adam Price: I totally agree. It was crass and insensitive in the extreme of the Labour party to accept

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  that donation from a Corus competitor at the same time as redundancy notices were being sent out to people in the Secretary of State's constituency. That is absolutely disgusting. Not only should we expect an explanation, but we deserve an apology, not for ourselves but for redundant and current steelworkers in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency.
  Mark Tami: Has the hon. Gentleman seen the comments of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, the main union in the steel industry, praising the British Government for their fight against any American protectionist measures? Would it not be better if we concentrated on those issues, the real issues facing the steel industry, instead of this nonsense?
  Adam Price: I will come on to the United States, as Mr. Mittal has clearly had a role to play there. I am not an apologist for the management of Corus, which has treated its workers appallingly, not least in the latest pay freeze.
  Lembit Öpik: Now that I get a sense of the general thrust of the hon. Gentleman's comments, will he, for my clarification, answer the following question? Has Plaid Cymru, at any stage in its history or, let us say, in the last 10 years, promoted a political point or campaign on behalf of an individual or organisation who has given a donation to Plaid Cymru?
  Adam Price: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his robust opposition to the Government, once again. For a new Member, he is a fine example of an Opposition Member who scrutinises the Executive without fail at every available opportunity.
  Lembit Öpik rose—
  Adam Price: I crave the indulgence of the House; I want to make progress. I have been fairly generous in giving way.
  The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) mentioned the United States. Of course, we know that Mr. Mittal has spent $600,000 in the USA lobbying for tariffs on steel imports. Mr. Mittal's closure in Ireland has already cost British steel companies millions of pounds in its knock-on effect on credit availability. Crucially, Mr. Mittal's Sidex plant, funded by the British taxpayer, is a prime example of the problems of the steel industry: an eastern European steel maker is selling steel in western European markets, subsidised in this case by the British taxpayer.
  Mr. Nigel Beard rose—
  Adam Price: I should like to make some progress. I hope that the hon. Gentleman catches your eye later in the debate, Mr. Speaker.
  Graham MacKenzie, the chief executive of Allied Steel and Wire, said:
  "The fear is that the investment in the Romanian steel is going to lead to a surge in imports from Romania and that is going to damage steel producers in the UK."
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  Mr. Mittal himself told The Times of India that he wanted to make the Romanian plant Europe's main steel producer and that he saw no future for manufacturing in the UK. Mr. Mittal is entitled to his opinion, but he is surely not entitled to the support of the British Government as he hammers another nail into the coffin of the British steel industry.
  The balance of trade in steel has collapsed in the past five years, under this Government. A surplus of 2.8 million tonnes in 1997 turned into a deficit of 1.2 million tonnes last year. That is part of the wider meltdown of manufacturing under this Government. For the first time, the amount of steel contained in manufactured goods imported into the UK is now greater than the amount that we are producing. It is no longer enough for the Government to shrug their shoulders, point to global overcapacity in the steel industry or blame the Corus management, as if Governments are now powerless to intervene to save jobs or support indigenous industry. The Government, as the Secretary of State admitted during Thursday's Welsh debate, could have opposed the merger of British Steel and Hoogovens and referred the matter to the competition directorate, as my party demanded in June 1999. The Government refused to consider that and told us that the jobs at Llanwern were safe. I recall the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation saying something similar. The Government could have intervened in the currency markets to bring about a more competitive exchange rate.
  Llew Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Adam Price: I must make some progress. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but I have been generous in giving way.
  The Government's policy of a high pound has led to a loss of more than £3 billion in export earnings over the past five years for the British steel industry. They could have found a Longbridge-type solution to the problems of Corus in south Wales, even supporting compulsory purchase as a last resort. Perhaps the problem is that Torfaen is not a marginal constituency whereas Birmingham, Edgbaston is—at least, Torfaen is not marginal yet.
  Mr. Roger Williams: I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman has yet addressed the question asked of him by my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik). Has Plaid Cymru ever taken up the interest of someone who has made it a financial contribution? If he will not answer, we must assume that the answer is yes.
  Adam Price: I am disappointed in the hon. Gentleman. As he is vice-chairman of the steel group, I should have hoped that he would use his valuable opportunity to address the concerns of the steel industry.
  Mr. Simon Thomas: My hon. Friend is making a comprehensive case for why the Prime Minister should have spent more than 30 seconds reading the Mittal letter. Does he feel that the Prime Minister should spend more time on such matters than he takes to choose his shirt in the morning? Will he address the point made

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  by two hon. Members from the Liberal Democrats, a party that has recently exerted undue influence on South Wales police in pursuit of a Member of the National Assembly?
  Lembit Öpik: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) to make accusations about individuals who are not in a position to justify themselves in a debate that has nothing to do with the police investigations into Mike German?
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) made an attack on a political party on a matter that has occurred outside the House. So far, he is in order, but I think that his intervention has ceased.
  Adam Price: Let us drag the House back to steel, Mr. Speaker.
  Above all, the Government could have decided not to support, under any circumstances, an investment in an eastern European plant that would bring further competition to the British steel industry.
  Llew Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Adam Price: The Prime Minister—
  Llew Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) has said several times that he will not give way.
  Mr. Mark Hendrick: He is giving way to his own side.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Let me chair the proceedings; it is easier that way.
  Adam Price: I am grateful, Mr. Speaker.
  Rather than making half-hearted and empty gestures late in the day, in order to deflect criticism of his Government's double standards and inaction over the past eight months, the Prime Minister should have announced an emergency package of contingency measures to safeguard the future of the steel industry. We have known for eight months that tariffs were coming. Where have the Government been? Where has the Prime Minister been?
  The effect of the tariffs could be devastating, not just because of the loss of a market that was worth up to £500 million two years ago, but because a surge of cheap imports frozen out of the American market will flood western Europe, particularly the United Kingdom. That is where the Government should be concentrating their efforts. It will not be enough to do as the Secretary of State has said and refer the matter to the World Trade Organisation—it could take years to receive an answer from that, and by then the British steel industry could be devastated. We need action now. We need a targeted package of measures and we need the Government to lobby the European Union in the strongest possible terms to introduce EU-wide tariffs against dumping by low-cost producers.
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  In addition, the European coal and steel treaty is currently being renegotiated, and we need to reconsider whether the steel industry should receive targeted Government support in the form of investment aid under the new terms of that treaty.
  There were many factors that should have led to extreme caution being exercised and a thorough evaluation taking place before any help was given to Mr. Mittal, whether in the form of the Prime Minister's imprimatur or the loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. There was no evidence of caution or evaluation; indeed, there was an almost reckless commitment of effort and resources. The full endorsement of the British state was given to Mr. Mittal. After the Ecclestone affair, it is surely vital for the Government to avoid even the faintest suspicion that British Government policy could be influenced by donations.
  Mr. Bryant: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Adam Price: I am afraid not.
  The conduct of the Government has achieved the opposite effect: a persistent scandal and the loss of public trust. I note that the chair of the Labour party has said that
  "those who do contribute overwhelmingly do so because of their desire to promote the values of the party they support".
  It is interesting to note the choice of language there: "overwhelmingly", for example. The right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) clearly does not deny that some businesses try to buy access and action. In Mr. Mittal's case, it would surely be stretching credibility to suggest that he woke up one day and decided that he was a socialist.
  Albert Owen: Now that the hon. Gentleman has moved away from the subject of the steel industry and is talking about donations, I will give him the opportunity to answer this question. Has his party received a donation from an individual—yes or no?
  Adam Price: I shall let the hon. Gentleman into a secret. I gave the party about £900 myself last week.
  Mr. Mittal operates in countries with some of the worst—[Interruption.]
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Adam Price: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hendrick).
  Mr. Hendrick: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Prime Minister went out of his way to support a foreign company in deliberately undermining the Welsh steel industry for a measly £125,000? [Interruption.]
  Adam Price: I think I am getting somewhere here. Well done! Congratulations to the hon. Gentleman.
  In 1998, Mr. Mittal was involved in a political corruption scandal in Indonesia—reported by the Financial Times—surrounding the privatisation of the former state-owned Krakatau Steel in west Java, under the Suharto Government. The former president of the board of directors of Krakatau Steel resigned in protest at what

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  he called the mysterious way in which the sale was handled. As with the Romanian deal, the allegations centred on the under-valuation of the company and the secrecy surrounding the deal.
  Ispat bought a 55 per cent. stake in the company for $400 million, even though the directors of the company had negotiated the sale of a 25 per cent. stake to another company for $500 million. The directors were not consulted on the sale and, as in Romania. no one was ever allowed to see the contract, which according to a Financial Times report, was "pocketed" by the privatisation Minister, Tanri Abeng. The deal later unravelled when Abeng was indicted for corruption in two other privatisations. The clear implication was that Ispat had bribed Mr. Abeng into accepting their lower-value bid for Krakatau.
  In November, while Mr. Mittal was busy lobbying for tariffs against imports to the United States—against the interests of the British steel industry—he applied for his Mexican subsidiary to be exempted. To say that this man was two-faced would be a gross understatement, but one of his faces would certainly be the unacceptable face of globalisation, involving business without passports, without borders and without principles, and with little commitment either to the country where he was born or to the country where he lives.
  Mr. Mittal is a lobbyist for tariffs, and a lobbyist against the British in Bucharest. He is an Indian in Algeria, where he bought the state-owned steel complex with diplomatic support from New Delhi, two weeks after the Sidex signing in London. He is a Republican donor in Washington, and a socialist firebrand in Hampstead, or so we are led to believe. Throughout all this, he is a man who knows the value of money.
  As the London correspondent of The Times of India has said of Mr. Mittal's donation:
  "He gave it to get exactly what he wanted, and they"—
  the Labour Party—
  "took it for the same reason."
  It is clear from the way Mr. Mittal operates on a global scale that his donation was clearly designed to win favour with the UK Government at a critical time during the Sidex negotiations. The evidence for that may be circumstantial, but it is powerfully persuasive.
  Mr. Mittal got what he wanted. I am prepared to accept that there may be an entirely innocent explanation for the Government's acquiescence in his demands. The problem is that we have yet to hear a convincing explanation. If a Minister backs a firm for a string of reasons and it happens to be a Labour donor, who can ever prove what was uppermost in the Minister's mind? The problem with this case is that the string of reasons has evaporated into thin air. We cannot know for certain whether anyone in this affair has committed a conscious act of corruption as a direct result of improper influence. This probably did not—probably did not—involve anything so overt as a crude pay-off, but something much more insidious: a culture in which business supporters of a project—to use new Labour phraseology—are not subject to the basic checks that would otherwise set the alarm bells ringing.
  We can be certain of one thing—this affair will continue to poison the Government's relations with the steel industry, will corrode public confidence in the
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  political process and will undermine the Government's standing and the Prime Minister's personal integrity at home and abroad as long as the questions go unanswered.
  The British people, not least the redundant steel workers from the Secretary of State's constituency, are owed an explanation and an apology from their Government. In refusing to answer questions, in refusing an inquiry, in making a series of false and inaccurate statements, in putting up a Minister today who has no responsibility for what was done nor for what can be done, the Government have shown their contempt for democracy, for the steel industry and for the people of the UK.
  The Government are running out of time and excuses. [Interruption.] With all due respect, the 3,000 redundant steel workers are not laughing tonight. Unless the Government answer the charges against them and the steel industry's calls for support, they will be held in contempt by the British people—in this case, a contempt, I regret to say, that will be richly deserved.
  4.12 pm
  The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Paul Murphy): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "recognises the fundamental strengths of the British steel industry, which is amongst the most efficient in the world; believes that, despite the regrettable decision of Corus to cut UK steel capacity, the industry has a long term future in Britain, as recently demonstrated by the decision of Corus to invest in the Port Talbot works; further recognises that the success of economic restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe, together with the enlargement of the European Union, is essential for the future of the British steel industry and other British manufacturing as it will extend markets and reduce hidden subsidies; congratulates the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for its work on restructuring the Romanian and other Eastern European companies, including through supporting the successful sale of the SIDEX steel corporation; and further welcomes measures put in place by the Government and the National Assembly for Wales to train and retrain former steel workers and regenerate communities affected by Corus job losses.".
  Plaid Cymru—[Interruption.] It is good to see right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches for a debate on Welsh matters; I wish we could see them a little more often. Plaid Cymru has the chance once a year to bring a Minister—me, or anyone else; all Ministers represent the Government—to the Dispatch Box to answer for Government policy, especially as it applies to Wales. Plaid Cymru wants to separate Wales from the rest of the United Kingdom, so presumably its interest lies in how these matters affect Wales.
  Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: Not Romania.
  Mr. Murphy: We will come to that in a minute. The hon. Gentleman should not be so flippant, because the essence of this debate is Romania.
  Mr. David Cameron: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Murphy: I shall give way in a few moments.
  We could be debating the health service, days after the opening of the first new hospital in Cardiff in three decades. We could be debating education and how we can

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  build on our record exam results. [Interruption.] That does not prevent the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) from talking about health or education matters in Welsh questions. We could be debating pensioner poverty—a real and genuine problem in Wales—and how we can build on the success of the minimum income guarantee. We could even be debating transport and how we can speed the recovery of our railways in Wales from the disastrous privatisation forced on them by the Tories. But we are debating none of those matters today. Instead, whether the Opposition like it or not, we are debating the Romanian steel industry and its impact in terms of the development of Europe.
  Plaid Cymru often claims—indeed, it has done so for many years—that it is a truly internationalist party. It says that it wants to see Wales in Europe and that Britain—it has discovered Britain in the last couple of weeks—has nothing to do with that scenario. It wants to create what is termed "a Europe of the regions", stretching from the Urals in the east to County Cork in the west. Now we know the truth: its internationalism stops at the River Wye. It wants the economies of eastern Europe to remain stuck in the Soviet era, rather than having a reasonable chance of competing, like other European countries.
  Mr. Cameron: How does the Secretary of State define Mr. Mittal's steel company? Is it a British company, a British-based company, a company with British connections or none of the above?
  Hon. Members: Phone a friend.
  Mr. Murphy: I think I understand what "phone a friend" means. I will come to the thrust of my argument in a moment, but first I shall touch on what the hon. Gentleman says. Of course the company has a British base, a headquarters in London and employs people in Britain. The Prime Minister wrote to the Romanian Prime Minister some days before the signing ceremony—but after a decision on the Sidex plant had been taken. If the Romanian economy prospers, develops and becomes part of an enlarged Europe—I will come to the European loan in a moment—companies in Great Britain and Wales will benefit.
  Mr. Andrew MacKay: I have the highest regard for the Secretary of State, so I am sorry that he is the fall-guy who has to open the debate; there are others who should be at the Dispatch Box instead.
  It is widely believed outside the House and on the Opposition Benches that the Prime Minister intervened only because of Mr. Mittal's very large donation to the Labour party. To prove me wrong, would the Secretary of State be good enough to consult the fat red file in front of him and tell us which, and how many, other companies with small interests in our country—like Mittal's—the Prime Minister has made representations about to the leaders of other countries?
  Mr. Murphy: I completely reject the accusation that the letter had anything whatever to do with a donation to the Labour party. The Prime Minister has made it absolutely clear from this Dispatch Box—[Interruption.] He said what he said because it is true that the donation was in no way linked to the letter to Romanian Prime Minister. I shall come to what the letter was about in a
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  moment, but I should point out that it dealt with nothing other than the absolute need to ensure that Romania becomes part of a new and energetic Europe.
  Mr. Michael Fallon: Is the Secretary of State seriously suggesting that neither the Prime Minister nor any Government Department was aware that Mr. Mittal was a donor to the Labour party?
  Mr. Murphy: I am certainly telling the House that the donation had absolutely nothing to do with the letter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] Of course I am saying that.
  Ms Diane Abbott: It is with some trepidation that I intervene in what is essentially a Welsh debate. I have listened with great care to my right hon. Friend's remarks. The whole House will agree that it is in the long-term interests of the rest of Europe that the Romanian economy and steel industry be restructured, but in the short term Mr. Mittal's interests clearly run contrary to those of the British steel industry. It remains a conundrum to many people inside and outside the House that the Prime Minister should sign that letter, as in the short term he has signed up to interests contrary to those of the British steel industry.
  Mr. Murphy: I shall come to that point in a moment, but first I propose to address the relationship between the British steel industry—particularly in Wales—the letter and the development of the Romanian economy. That is why I am here. I am here at the Dispatch Box, not because I am a fall-guy, but because I am interested—as I am sure are all those who represent Welsh constituencies—in the development of the Welsh economy, including the Welsh steel industry. There are not many Opposition Members who represent as many steelworkers as I do. I represent a steel constituency and I know about the position of the steel industry.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Murphy: I wish to continue the thrust of my argument, which I have only just started.
  Mr. MacKay: In the heat of the debate, the Secretary of State inadvertently failed to answer my principal question, but I am sure he will wish to do so before he moves on. How many other small companies has the Prime Minister made representations about to other heads of state, and who are they?
  Mr. Murphy: I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman about correspondence between Prime Ministers, which is governed by international convention and commercial confidentiality. When his Government were in power, they did exactly the same for company after company. There was a time, when I was a younger man, when I could not go into a high street and buy produce that did not come from a firm that gave money to the Conservative party. However, I am also sure that both Labour and Conservative Governments helped those companies, to the benefit of the British economy.
  Mrs. Jackie Lawrence: I am amused by some elements of the exchange that has just taken place. Will my right hon. Friend remind the House

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  which Government introduced legislation to bring transparency to donations to political parties? What was the attitude of the party that has chosen the subject of this debate, and how did it vote on the issue? If the official Opposition are so concerned about the issue, why did they not do something about it during the 18 years they were in government?
  Mr. Murphy: The irony is that the debate would not be taking place if it had not been for legislation introduced by this Labour Government. That is the reality.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Murphy: I must move on; otherwise, other hon. Members will not have an opportunity to make their contributions.
  During last week's Welsh affairs debate, the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) said that
  "many things are happening in the world that will be detrimental to the prospects for Welsh companies in a range of sectors. However, should our Government actively support such developments?"
  Predictably, he answered his own question, in the negative, and said that we should never have supported Mr. Mittal's acquisition of Sidex because a successful Romanian steel industry would mean that
  "jobs in the Welsh steel industry will be endangered."—[Official Report, 28 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 917.]
  That, in a nutshell, is the Plaid Cymru approach to east European industrial reconstruction: there should not be any if it supposedly threatens any Welsh jobs.
  In a written answer recently, the Prime Minister said:
  "Privatisation of its steel industry through the sale of Sidex is an important element in its economic reform which will help to establish a level playing field between EU and Romanian steel producers and should lead to a reduction in levels of state subsidies which disadvantage UK steel producers. The privatisation did not threaten British jobs."—[Official Report, 14 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 612W.]
  Corus has also said that Mittal is not one of its major competitors.
  Mr. Simon Thomas: The Secretary of State's central point is that the privatisation of the Romanian steel industry was of benefit to a British company. The letter written by the Prime Minister to the Romanian Prime Minister clearly stated:
  "I am particularly pleased that it is a British company which is your partner."
  He means that Mittal's company is a British company. The letter continues:
  "This should send a very positive signal to investors and businessmen"—
  I do not know what happens to business women—
  "in Britain and more widely. Together with the other measures you are taking, I hope it will stimulate renewed interest by British business in Romania."
  The letter specifically says that a British company will be Romania's partner. As it has now been comprehensively proved that it is not a British company, does not the Secretary of State's argument fall to pieces?
  Mr. Murphy: Of course it does not. The hon. Gentleman omitted to quote from the beginning of the letter, which said:
  "I am delighted by the news that you are to sign the contract for the privatization of your biggest steel plant SIDEX, with the LNM Group. This represents an important step forward in the efforts you and your government are making to restructure and modernise your country's economy."
  The rest of the letter came from that, not from the sentence to which he referred.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Murphy: No, I shall not give way.
  Mr. Simon Thomas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My copy of the letter that I prayed in aid and which the Secretary of State relied on comes from www.guv.ro, which is the Romanian website, as the Government refused to give it in answer to a parliamentary question from my hon. Friend the Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price). Hon. Members may not have a copy of the letter. Will you ensure, Mr. Speaker, that a copy is placed in the Library?
  Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.
  Mr. Murphy: The whole letter is printed in the booklet "The privatisation of Sidex SA Galati", so it is there for all to see. The hon. Gentleman still misses the main point. It is all very well questioning the newly discovered Britishness of companies, but it is much more important to concentrate on Romania and eastern Europe. If eastern Europe does not come up to the level of other countries of the European Union, how on earth can we expect enlargement to work? How on earth do we expect companies from Wales and the United Kingdom to invest in Romania, which has a population of 25 million? If right hon. or hon. Gentlemen had a factory in their constituency that traded with Romania, they would welcome this news, not disparage it.
  Mr. Llwyd: No doubt it is laudable to assist Romania to modernise and to join the European Union. We are in favour of the EU, but I doubt that it is sensible or right for the Government to bat for Romania against Welsh and British jobs, and to use British taxpayers' money to bring the Romanians over to sign the deal.
  Mr. Murphy: In no way is it a question of using the full power of the state or British taxpayers' money. I shall come to the issue of the British taxpayers' money, because that relates to the European loan. I doubt the points that the hon. Gentleman and his party have made about the euro, because I saw in Wales on Sunday last Sunday the headline "Garbagegate MP Sparks Euro Storm". Presumably that refers to the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr, whose views on Europe may differ from those of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). They are entitled to disagree, but if the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr opposes Europe, I can understand what this argument is about.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Murphy: I shall finish my point.

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  I know that the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy is very much in favour of the European project. Romania is a small country—of all parties, surely the Welsh nationalist party should support small countries—that is trying to develop and, as a struggling democracy, to get out of the grip of communism that held it down for years. That is what the letter and the debate is about. It is not about a nonsensical claim that the redundancies at Corus were made as a result of the letter that Mittal had. It is nonsense to suggest that, and I shall explain why.
  Mr. Boris Johnson: I am still perplexed about why the Prime Minister saw fit to call this company British when it patently is not. Will the Secretary of State enlighten the House as to whether he thinks LNM is any more British than Usinor, the defeated French company that also has offices in this country? If LNM is more British, will he explain why? Is there any reason other than that Mr. Mittal gave £125,000 to the Labour party?
  Mr. Murphy: I doubt whether there are many steelworks in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. Those of us who represent industrial areas know that in a global economy a company's headquarters may be anywhere in the world, and its factories and other parts of the company may be somewhere else. Even Corus, which has said nothing about the tariffs, has an American subsidiary. In this era of global capitalism, we know full well that virtually every company is from a different country—that is certainly the case in my constituency. It happens all the time.
  Let us return to the central point. It is nonsense to suggest that the Welsh steel industry somehow suffered as a result of the letter. Let me first touch on the question of British taxpayers paying towards Mr. Mittal's company—
  Mr. Crispin Blunt: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Murphy: Yes, for the last time.
  Mr. Blunt: Can the Secretary of State explain why Jonathan Powell—or the Prime Minister, or someone else in his private office—saw fit to remove the word "friend" from the Foreign Office draft of the letter?
  Mr. Murphy: First, Jonathan Powell did not do that. Secondly, as the hon. Gentleman knows and as any Conservative Member who has been a Minister will know, letters are routinely drafted and redrafted before reaching the Minister who signs them.
  Let me now deal with the question of the loan, which is central to the argument advanced by the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr. I assume that he was referring to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, as there was no other financial involvement. According to the bank, its mission is
  "financing the economic transition in central and eastern Europe and the CIS".
  Its aim is simple and straightforward: to help those countries, just as it helps developing countries in Asia, Africa and elsewhere.
  Adam Price rose—
  Mr. Murphy: I have only just finished quoting the EBRD. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a second.
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  The bank has helped similar projects throughout eastern Europe. There has been a 14 million euro investment in refrigerator makers in Russia, as well as a 36 million euro loan to the Croatian tourist industry, a 21 million euro loan to boost the export hopes of Bulgaria's leading pharmaceutical company, and a 21 million euro investment in the railways of Bosnia-Herzegovina to improve the transport of industrial goods. There are many other examples. Just about every project that the bank supports could—if the facts were stretched beyond the realms of possibility—be said to have some effect on Welsh industries.
  Let us now examine the issue of United Kingdom funding of the bank. We have subscribed 1.7 billion euro to its capital. Along with many other countries, we guarantee its loans. That allows it to borrow at preferential rates on the world's markets. But there is no question of any direct financial aid from Britain to make the purchase of Sidex possible: that is a myth.
  The reason for our actions is obvious, but those who tabled the motion still do not understand the purpose of all the help for Romania and other eastern European countries.
  Adam Price: That is ridiculous.
  Mr. Murphy: Of course it is not ridiculous. Let me give an example. My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, is going to Prague next week. He will take with him Welsh business people, who will try to secure as much business—and, therefore, trade and jobs—for Wales as possible. That would not happen if the Czech Republic had not been helped. If such countries are not helped to attain a certain standard by the European Union, and by developed countries throughout the world, how on earth can we be expected to trade with them?
  A classic example was the privatisation of Sidex. Without it, the chances of an improvement in the Romanian economy and of Romania becoming part of an enlarged European Union would have been very slim.
  Adam Price: Will the Secretary of State tell me why no assessment was made of Mr. Mittal's record as an employer in Ireland, where there was the same binding five-year agreement regarding employment as exists in Romania? Mr. Mittal ripped up the agreement two weeks after it was terminated, throwing 600 people out of work. If that is repeated in Romania, how will the Government and the country look to the Romanian people?
  Mr. Murphy: It has not been repeated. Besides, although the hon. Gentleman and others seem to think that all this business happened yesterday, it happened nine months ago.
  Ensuring that we help Romania, which was the purpose of the letter, depends on the success of the steel plant, Sidex. It was holding up the Romanian economy, because it was in the grip of old-fashioned, Soviet-style, communist economics. It had to change, and this was an ideal opportunity.
  Mr. Nigel Evans: The Secretary of State has just informed the House that the Under-Secretary of State for Wales will be going to the

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  Czech Republic with representatives of Welsh companies to promote Welsh business. Will the right hon. Gentleman say what constitutes a Welsh business? How many people does a company have to employ in Wales for it to be considered a Welsh business?
  Mr. Murphy: The hon. Gentleman is better than that question implies. Would he suggest, for example, that some of the American companies that between them employ 3,000 people in my constituency are Welsh? They are American, not Welsh. This nonsense about semantics is rubbish, as the hon. Gentleman, and everyone else, knows.
  I turn now to the question of how this country has helped the Romanian economy. Last year, UK exports to Romania amounted to £340 million. Do Opposition Members consider that to be worthless or meaningless? Should the companies in this country that produced that £340 million of exports to Romania be discarded? The increase is substantive, compared to just a few years ago. Companies such as Unilever, Glaxo and Shell have operations in Romania, and that is a pointer to the future.
  We have not yet touched on the question of what the National Assembly thinks should be done with regard to eastern Europe. A recent report to the Assembly from the Wales European Centre stated:
  "There is evidence of increasing interest in securing trading links by individual Welsh companies in the central European countries…enlargement of the EU will vastly increase the opportunities for Welsh business."
  That is what it is all about.
  Mr. Alex Salmond: The Secretary of State was not consulted about the matter under discussion, but he has looked into the mind of the Prime Minister and declared him to be innocent of any undue influence. Will the right hon. Gentleman look into the mind of Mr. Mittal for a few seconds? Given what we know about Mr. Mittal's global interest, why did he give £125,000 to the Labour party? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that that was a matter of principle?
  Mr. Murphy: I am not in the business of looking into people's minds. All I know is that the acquisition of Sidex had to be applauded by our Government and by other Governments in Europe. That is why the European loan was made. The EBRD press release about the acquisition of Sidex makes it clear that the European Union, the World Bank and the EBRD all agree the acquisition did the development of the Romanian economy nothing but good.
  Of course, the principle that strong economies and trade are good for all of us is exactly why the European Union has an objective 1 programme. In my view, it is good that there are no nationalists in government in France or Germany: if there were, the chances of money coming to Wales would be zilch.
  Pete Wishart: The question has been asked already, but did the Prime Minister know about the donation by Mr. Mittal of £125,000 to the Labour party? Did any Secretary of State, special adviser or civil servant know about it?
  Mr. Murphy: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said already that he did not know. All those matters are on the record.
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  I wish to return to the question of whether the factors to which I have referred in some way affected the Welsh steel industry. About 18 months ago, we heard that there were to be dramatic changes to the Welsh—and British—steel industry, and to Corus. It fell to me, as Secretary of State for Wales, to have meeting after meeting with senior officials from Corus, including with its chairman and chief executive, Sir Brian Moffat. The meetings were held in my office, and were attended by other Ministers and people from the National Assembly.
  Time after time, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister asked Corus what the Government could do to help the company out of its troubles. Time after time, the answer was, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."
  Mr. Blunt: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the Secretary of State, but I fear that, just now, he may inadvertently have misled the House. He said from the Dispatch Box that the Prime Minister has said, in terms, that he did not know that Mr. Mittal was a donor to the Labour party. I am not sure that the Prime Minister has said that. If the Prime Minister has not said, in terms, that he did not know about the donation, will you confirm that the Secretary of State will return to the House as soon as possible to put the record straight?
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): That is not a point of order; it is a point of debate.
  Mr. Murphy: The Conservatives are more interested in that than they are in the Welsh steel industry. As I have said, time after time, we had meetings with Corus, and. time after time, it said that the Government could not help. The hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr talked about compulsory purchase—I assume that he means nationalisation—but it did not want that, and neither did we. All the time, we asked whether there was anything that we could do. Corus has denied that the Mittal situation had any effect. None of it had the slightest effect on Corus's decision to cut 3,000 jobs in Wales and 6,000 jobs in the United Kingdom as a whole.
  There was nothing that the European Union could do because of strict regulations on state aid, all of which were examined. There is no question of Corus's decision being affected by anything other than the fact that it wanted to do what it eventually did—shed those jobs. It blamed certain things such as the euro, and hon. Members might get involved in that argument. It also blamed over-capacity but, whatever the reasons, it did not blame Mittal.
  Mr. Evans: It is important to clarify this point because I do not believe that the Prime Minister has ever denied that he knew that the £125,000 donation had been made. Has the Prime Minister ever stated that he did not know that that donation had been made before he signed the letter?
  Mr. Murphy: I have already answered that, and I shall not go over it again now.
  Some of my hon. Friends have referred to the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation—some Conservative Members referred to it disparagingly. However, it is the biggest steel trade union. Its general secretary stated:
  "As the union involved in trying to save UK steelworkers jobs and preserve this strategically important UK industry, the ISTC can state unequivocally that we received the full support of the Prime Minister and the Welsh First Minister."

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  Indeed, he went on to dismiss the allegation that a donation to the Labour party was linked to the Corus closures, and stated:
  "I explained this to Adam Price, Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr following his decision to raise this matter…and he apologised. I am dumbfounded that he continues to make this spurious connection."
  Lembit Öpik: I listened with interest to what the Secretary of State said about our international responsibilities. Knowing about eastern Europe, on account of my roots, I have a lot of sympathy with his remarks. On the core subject of the debate, if it can be shown that the political parties who are attacking the Government have represented in a political context individuals or groups who have given money to those parties, does he feel that to some extent that undermines the credibility of the points made?
  Mr. Murphy: Of course. We might all be tempted to go down that line. The events of a previous Parliament make the subject of today's debate pale into insignificance. However, the jobs to which I referred are significant.
  The Government remain implacably opposed to tariffs. The Prime Minister has made his views clear in a letter to and a conversation with President Bush. Of course, we understand that the US steel industry needs restructuring, but we believe that tariffs are against the interests of the European Union and Europe.
  I represent a valleys constituency and, as has been mentioned, a steel seat. There are still steel jobs in my constituency, although, of course, many of them have been lost in the past few months. I did not read about the problems of the steel industry in a newspaper or see them on television. I have lived in steel communities in the Gwent valleys all my life. Last week, I visited Ebbw Vale—a great steel town—where I worked for 17 years. The town has taken a real knock thanks to the closure of the steelworks, not because of Mittal but because of Corus's decision. However, the people have not given up. They are not quitters, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Llew Smith)—who was here this afternoon—will agree, there is as much dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit in Ebbw Vale as there is in many towns in England and Wales.
  What the people of Ebbw Vale want from Government are not handouts or even expressions of sympathy, but the solid support needed to help them pick themselves up and get moving again. The Government and the Assembly are providing just that. We have a £32 million recovery package to assist the Gwent communities hit by the Corus decisions, and we are putting money into new training and retraining packages, with £1 million going into the Wales union learning fund.
  In Ebbw Vale, the Assembly is putting in the money needed to reopen passenger train services and to establish the Ebbw Vale learning campus and create a centre of excellence. We are also providing assistance for the other communities that have been hit. For example, £4 million is going to the community in Bryngwyn.
  Today, Plaid Cymru Members have ignored all that. They have not said a word about the regeneration of our steel communities. They are not interested in hearing good news stories about Wales. They ask for more money from
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  a state to which they do not want to belong in the first place. By their friends, of course, we shall know them. The hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr was cheered by the Conservatives, and I wonder what people in his constituency will say about that. The two parties are united by many things, not least of which is their deep frustration at the successes—economic, social and electoral—of the Labour Government and those parties' opportunistic willingness to exploit the suffering of our communities under stress just for the sake of political points scoring.
  That will not wash, and it did not wash in Ogmore. Nobody is fooled. When all the dust has settled on this farrago of nonsense, one thing will be remembered: Plaid Cymru's rhetoric about internationalism has no weight, no sincerity and no credibility.
  4.46 pm
  Mr. John Whittingdale: I congratulate the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) on choosing this subject for the debate. There is no doubt that it is a matter of great importance not just to the steelworkers in Wales, but to steelworkers across the country and to everyone who cares about the probity and integrity of government.
  The motion tabled by Plaid Cymru encapsulates the concerns of Conservative Members too, and I shall invite my colleagues to support it in the Lobbies. It is noticeable that the motion does not refer to Wales or to the Welsh industry. It refers to the problems afflicting the whole steel industry in the United Kingdom. It is therefore extraordinary that the Government have chosen not to put up a Minister to reply to the debate from the Department that is responsible for that industry. Nothing could more clearly demonstrate the fact that the Government have something to hide than the failure of a Minister from the Department of Trade and Industry to come to the Dispatch Box today.
  Mr. Frank Roy: On the point about the United Kingdom steel industry, will the hon. Gentleman tell the House what he did when the Conservative party was in power for 18 years? Year after year in that period, the Conservative party made steelworkers redundant, including 10,000 in my constituency.
  Mr. Whittingdale: One of our achievements was to help to make the British steel industry one of the most efficient and competitive in Europe. It most certainly was not that when the Conservative Government came to office.
  Mark Tami: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that, in 1980 in Alyn and Deeside, Shotton steelworks lost 15,000 jobs in a single day? If that is the achievement of the Conservative party, it is a very sad one.
  Mr. Whittingdale: This is not an exercise in delving back into history, but that was part of the process that made British Steel the most efficient company in Europe. The more that the hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members attempt to distract from the main issues that the debate is about, the more the people listening out there

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  will be convinced that the Government are desperate to avoid having to answer the real questions that have been put to them.
  This is not the first occasion on which Ministers from the Department of Trade and Industry have refused to come to the Dispatch Box or that the Government have attempted to duck the issue. When the issue was first aired in the Chamber at DTI questions last month, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson) was deputed to answer on behalf of the Government. I have great respect for the hon. Lady, but she is an Under-Secretary of State whose responsibilities in the DTI have nothing to do with the steel industry. Yet those who are responsible—the Secretary of State and the Minister for Industry and Energy—were content to sit on the Bench next to her and watch her while she squirmed.
  Last week, in the St. David's day debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) again set out the questions that steelworkers in Wales and across the country want answered. Yet in his response, the Minister did not mention the issue even once. It is clear that the Government will do anything to avoid having to answer questions on this matter. The Secretary of State's speech so far has done nothing to counter that impression.
  Mr. Paul Murphy: The hon. Gentleman is aware, I am sure, that this debate is sponsored by Plaid Cymru. It happens only once a year, for half a day, and it is conventional for Wales Office Ministers to reply to it. More significantly, does the hon. Gentleman accept that when we talk about the Welsh steel industry, the fact that his party does not have one single Member of Parliament representing a Welsh constituency puts his credibility at risk?
  Mr. Whittingdale: As I have pointed out, the motion on the Order Paper does not refer to the Welsh steel industry but to the United Kingdom steel industry. In his speech, the right hon. Gentleman appeared to suggest that the minority parties could bring any Minister to the Dispatch Box to answer their debate. That is clearly not the case. This debate should be answered by a DTI Minister, and it is plain that DTI Ministers are not willing to do so. Indeed, the only party that appears willing to come to the Government's aid in this debate so far is the Liberal Democrat party.
  Mr. Llwyd: It strikes me as arrogant of the Government to suggest that the Secretary of State for Wales should reply to the debate even before they saw the motion. The right hon. Gentleman said to me last week that he thought that he would be replying even before seeing the motion, and the motion does not mention Wales.
  Mr. Whittingdale: The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. If the minority parties were able to bring any Minister they wanted to answer their debate, it would not be the Secretary of State who has been put up today, but the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
  Lembit Öpik: I understand the hon. Gentleman's criticisms of the Liberal Democrats. If I may clarify matters, I made my earlier contribution because I do not
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  like hypocrisy in the Chamber. I hope and expect that the hon. Gentleman will make no criticisms of other parties if his own is not capable of achieving high standards. What bothers me most in this debate is the effort made to besmirch political parties, when the truth is that politics as a whole is involved. No public interest is served by such efforts.
  Mr. Whittingdale: If the hon. Gentleman really were so concerned about hypocrisy, he would be a little more critical of the Government than he appears to be.
  I want to talk about the UK steel industry, which is the issue before us. The UK steel industry, as I said earlier, is one of the most productive in the world, employing 50,000 people. However, the industry is suffering from declining output and competitiveness, with thousands of redundancies having been declared in the past 18 months alone. In part, the industry is suffering from the same problems as the rest of manufacturing—the weakness of the euro, cheap imports and the cumulative impact of the extra tax and regulation that have been introduced by the Government, not least the climate change levy.
  In addition, the industry is having to operate in a global market that is suffering from severe overcapacity. In a written answer to me yesterday, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said that there is no precise estimate of global overcapacity, but that estimates ranged from less than 80 million tonnes a year to more than 200 million tonnes a year. The United Kingdom Steel Association uses the latter figure, while some estimates are higher still.
  Through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Governments are negotiating to reduce the surplus inefficient capacity in steel with more than 100 million tonnes identified for closure within the next four years. It was in recognition of that need that the last Conservative Government pressed the European Commission not to allow the aid to be given to Irish Steel which was going to be given to pave the way for a takeover by Mr. Mittal's Ispat company. As a former DTI Minister said:
  "Irish Steel, in a subsidised way, was just edging out British Steel products and that led directly to the loss of British jobs."
  He made it clear that that was the view not only of British Steel but of the trade unions and indeed of Labour Members who were lobbying the Department to stop the takeover from going ahead.
  What has changed since then? It is certainly not the problem of overcapacity, which—if anything—is worse. This time, why did the Government, instead of trying to encourage the reduction of global capacity, work against that by backing Mr. Mittal's proposed takeover of the Romanian steelworks?
  First, we were told that such support was no different from that given by the Government to any other British company trying to win a contract abroad—except that LNM is hardly British. It is a curious definition of "British" that allows a company whose headquarters are not in London, as the Secretary of State for Wales suggested, but in a Caribbean tax haven, and which employs fewer than 0.1 per cent. of its work force in this country to qualify for support to promote its interests not only from the Government but from the Prime Minister in a personal capacity.
  We were then told that the letter was merely one of congratulation after the deal had been signed, yet a spokesman for the Romanian Government has since said

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  that it played a decisive part in winning the contract. Then we were told by the Minister for Europe, that it was a battle with the French. He said:
  "It's better for a company with British staff, and British connections…to get a contract ahead of a French company."
  However, while Mr. Mittal's LNM company has been in the UK only since 1995 and employs 91 people in this country, Usinor, the French company, has had a British arm since 1923 and has more than 250 people on its payroll. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said:
  "The French company fell out months earlier. That was widely known."
  We were then told that the letter had been drafted by the British ambassador to Romania, that the Prime Minister had barely glanced at it before signing it and that he would have had no idea that the beneficiary had given any money to his party. Yet we now know that the original draft referred to Mr. Mittal as a friend of the Prime Minister and that that reference was removed by Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister's chief of staff. I was interested to hear the Secretary of State say that that was not the case although the "World at One" programme had clearly identified Mr. Powell as responsible.
  The Prime Minister then said that he certainly had not known that Mr. Mittal was a Labour donor, nor that he had any connection with the LNM company, despite the fact that the reason why the company is called LNM is that those letters stand for Lakshmi N. Mittal—something that must have been in the briefing note supplied to the Prime Minister when he signed the letter. We also know that not long before signing the letter the Prime Minister attended a party for major contributors to the Labour party, at which Mr. Mittal was present.
  The suggestion that Mr Mittal's company was British or that the Government's support for it was part of a battle to win some lucrative contract in the teeth of French competition does not bear scrutiny. In fact, the position is even worse than that, for we now know not only that the connection between Mr. Mittal's company and this country is tenuous at best but that LNM has been actively working against our national interest.
  Irish Steel, now named Irish Ispat, went into liquidation last year, owing money to hundreds of businesses in this country. Many of them are small firms such as Mawdlseys in Gloucestershire, which is owed £260,000 for work done with no indication that it will ever be paid. Even the Government are owed money in unpaid VAT, yet the Prime Minister was happy to write to the Romanian Prime Minister recommending Mr. Mittal's firm.
  Mr. Bryant: If all that the hon. Gentleman says is true, why did the Conservative party refuse to stop receiving money from foreign organisations and businesses until forced to do so by the law?
  Mr. Whittingdale: As I pointed out, the last Conservative Government intervened to try to prevent Mr. Mittal's company from taking over an overseas business. We were standing up for British steel and British jobs, rather than supporting a company which plainly is not British and which is threatening British steel and British jobs.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: I apologise to my hon. Friend and to the Secretary of State for not
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  having been present for the earlier part of the debate, but I was present for the debate on Welsh affairs on Thursday. The line that the Secretary of State took then was that the Government had acted out of the goodness of their heart to help build up Romania and deprived areas of eastern Europe. However, the line that the Prime Minister has consistently taken is that they were acting to help British industry and back a British company. Can my hon. Friend tell me which line the Secretary of State has been taking today?
  Mr. Whittingdale: Part of the problem is that the Government's defence of their actions has changed every five minutes. We have been given a dozen reasons why the Prime Minister chose to intervene, and each one that is probed is shown to be incredible and untrue. That is why nobody believes the Government's explanations any more.
  I return to the threat to the UK steel industry.
  Mr. Paul Murphy: The hon. Gentleman has not yet touched—he may do so later in his speech—on the significance of the enlargement of Europe, and Romania being part of that. Does he agree, first, that the enlargement of Europe, which includes Romania, is a good thing for British industry, and Welsh industry, for that matter, and secondly, that a privatised Sidex is much better for competition than a communist-controlled state industry, heavily subsidised, which does not produce a level playing field for our own steel industry?
  Mr. Whittingdale: I am utterly delighted to welcome the Secretary of State to the ranks of those who support privatisation. That is a fairly new theme for the Labour party.
  I support enlargement of the European Union. I support Romania coming into the EU. I want to help the Romanian economy. However, I do not want to do so at the expense of British steel, British industry and British jobs. That is what is at stake.
  Mr. Murphy: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Whittingdale: A last time.
  Mr. Murphy: This question is crucial to the debate. Every time the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development gives a loan to a country such as Romania or Bulgaria, of course there will be a risk of competition. That is inevitable, but the consequence is that the trade which this country will have with the burgeoning economies of those countries will mean more jobs, more work and better conditions. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
  Mr. Whittingdale: Once again, the explanation is changing by the minute. First, we were told that the Romanian steel works would have been acquired by the French, had the Prime Minister not intervened in support of a supposedly British company. There was no question of the steel works not having a purchaser if the company had not gone ahead. The point at issue, which the right hon. Gentleman should know, as he represents a large number of people involved in the steel industry, is that the biggest threat to the steel industry is overcapacity. That is

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  why Governments across the globe are working to try to reduce overcapacity. The right hon. Gentleman's Government have maintained overcapacity, which must be damaging to the long-term interests of British steel and British jobs.
  There is a greater threat to the steel industry, and it is much more immediate: the potential prospect of import controls imposed by the US Government. Perhaps the most extraordinary revelation of all in this saga is that fact that Mr. Mittal, we discover, is actively campaigning in America for the imposition of tariffs on steel imports from the UK.
  At Department of Trade and Industry questions last month, the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson), replied to me that
  "the industry faces concerted unilateral US action on steel imports that would create fresh barriers to transatlantic trade and fresh distortions in the global steel industry. That is the real issue facing the UK steel industry."—[Official Report, 14 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 302.]
  She was entirely right. The threat of US import tariffs is the greatest threat facing the steel industry. It will directly place at risk 400,000 tonnes of UK steel exports, and it will indirectly risk adding to the steel surplus elsewhere, further depressing prices and threatening jobs. We are told that an announcement on the matter is expected tomorrow.
  The Secretary of State said that the United Kingdom will support retaliatory action against the United States if import controls are imposed, and the Prime Minister raised the issue with President Bush, yet once again no Minister from the Department of Trade and Industry is willing to come to the Dispatch Box to speak about this immediate and extremely serious threat to the UK steel industry, despite it clearly being one of the main topics for debate today. Ministers are embarrassed that one of the prime lobbyists for US import controls is none other than Mr. Mittal. Ispat Inland, Mr. Mittal's American steel company, gave more than £400,000 to the lobbying organisation that is pressing the US Government to impose import tariffs; yet the Prime Minister was happy to write to the Romanian Prime Minister recommending Mr. Mittal's firm.
  Why did the DTI not advise Downing street that preserving global steel-making capacity was the last thing that the UK steel industry needed? Why did it not tell No. 10 of the hundreds of British small firms that were still owed money as a result of Mr. Mittal's Irish takeover? Why did it not warn the Prime Minister that his friend was actively campaigning in the US against UK interests? It did not because, as we are now told, it was not even consulted before the letter was signed. It is the maxim of Sherlock Holmes that once we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. The one explanation left for the Prime Minister's intervention in support of Mr. Mittal's bid is that it was a payback for the support that he had given to the Labour party.
  I am not necessarily suggesting the Prime Minister wrote because Mr. Mittal rang him up to call in a favour. However, we know from Sir Richard Packer, a former permanent secretary, the extent to which the culture of cronyism permeates the Government's activities. In a
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  masterly understatement, Sir Richard said that it was grossly disproportionate for the Prime Minister to write to his Romanian equivalent supporting Mittal's bid for Romanian assets. His explanation is that Downing street must have contacted the British ambassador in Romania to inform him that Mittal was known cordially to the Prime Minister. The ambassador would have realised that, in Sir Richard's words, examining closely Mittal's precise entitlement to help from Her Majesty's Government would be only too likely to result in the Foreign Office being told that he was proving "unhelpful". According to Sir Richard, once officials know that Ministers view certain developments or people favourably, they will do their best to help the endeavour or the individual. The result is that help is given not because it is in the British national interest, but because it is in the interests of the Labour party.
  Last week, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said that the Government were not going to stop talking to business. No one is suggesting that they should, but the right hon. Lady should know only too well that what is poisoning the Government's reputation is the growing perception that the way to influence the Government is not by speaking to Ministers and officials, but by supporting the Labour party. As the Secretary of State said in a speech:
  "we should all be worried about what happens to the health of our democracy if such cynicism takes hold."
  The Minister for Industry and Energy (Mr. Brian Wilson): The hon. Gentleman mentioned Sherlock Holmes. Before he gets too deeply into conspiracy theories, I want to test one out on him. Is he aware that Tuscaloosa, the Corus subsidiary in the US, is a member of the American Iron and Steel Institute, which is campaigning for the introduction of the US steel tariffs? Does he agree that that suggests that companies behave in different ways according to the location of an interest within a multinational? Yesterday I visited Corus at Stocksbridge. It is a fantastic business that is working closely with the Government and greatly appreciates our support. Will the hon. Gentleman spin the same ludicrous Sherlock Holmes conspiracy theory charge against me if I support, encourage or collude with Corus in any way in future because of what its American subsidiary says?
  Mr. Whittingdale: First, I would be very surprised to learn that Corus had authorised its American arm to give £400,000 to the campaigning organisation that is pressing for the imposition of US import controls. Secondly, I am sure that the Minister will want to visit LNM Holdings in this country and to congratulate it on its work in support of British interests, but he will be hard pressed to find anybody, as most of the people involved do not live or work in this country.
  Despite all the best efforts of the Secretary of State and the Minister to brush this matter under the carpet, it is not going to go away. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition wrote to the Prime Minister pointing out that the statements made by his spokesman have now been clearly shown to be untrue. Unless these matters are cleared up, they will leave an indelible stain on the Government. The only way of avoiding that is to conduct the full, independent public inquiry for which the motion calls. It is for that reason that I urge the House to vote for the motion.
  5.10 pm
  Alan Howarth: I think that Plaid Cymru and, I am sorry to say, the Conservative party, have not exercised good judgment on this matter. No one believes that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would be improperly influenced by a donation to the Labour party; the country knows that it is simply not in his character. As long as Opposition parties continue cynically to peddle this garbage, they will do no more than demonstrate the bankruptcy of their own thinking and the fact that they have absolutely nothing useful to say about policy and how to support the British steel industry and help it to thrive. They have not done themselves any good politically, as was evident, in the recent Ogmore by-election, and they have done politics a disservice. By flaunting an obsession with sleaze—and, indeed, fabricated sleaze—they persuade all too many of our fellow citizens that politics is a squalid affair. That is a damaging thing for them to do.
  Mr. Salmond: Will the right hon. Gentleman cast his mind back to when he sat in Parliament as a member of a different party and the Labour party ran a sustained campaign against the Conservatives—some of us felt that it was very justified—on the basis of sleaze? What did he think of that campaign? Did he think that the personal probity of the then right hon. Member for Huntingdon, John Major, was in doubt? His views on these matters seem to have developed as he has developed his political career.
  Alan Howarth: I believe absolutely in the personal probity of the then Prime Minister and I take the same view now as I took then: such things do politics no good at all.
  It is absurd that it has been alleged that the Government were indifferent to what might happen to Corus and that their sole concern was to benefit Mr. Mittal and LNM. At least since summer 2000, and for many months afterwards, my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench did everything that they possibly could to find ways to get alongside Corus and see what could properly be done to avert the threatened closures and support Corus and the UK steel industry. I have a thick file of correspondence and notes of discussions from that time with the First Minister, my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales, Trade and Industry and Education and Employment, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. In that period, my right hon. Friends experienced great frustrations that derived partly from the nature of the rules of the European Union, hut also very much from the attitude of Corus. As we know, the European Union rules on state aid are stricter in respect of steel than of coal or the automotive industry. The steel aid code of the European Coal and Steel Community prohibits aid for the rescue from closure of a steel plant.
  Mr. Simon Thomas: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Alan Howarth: Not at the moment; perhaps I shall do so later.
  Exceptionally, under article 95 of the ECSC treaty, it is occasionally possible, if there is unanimous agreement from the European Council, to go further in providing aid.
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  The unions, including the ISTC—it gives me pleasure once again to express my thanks and congratulate the ISTC on the part that it played—proposed a scheme to preserve most of the jobs that were earmarked for cuts in Corus's announcement of 14 February 2001. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister met representatives of the steel unions. Having been present at that meeting, I can bear witness to the fact that he listened with the utmost care to the case that they made to him, was persuaded by it and supported it.
  Consequently, the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry agreed to approach the European Commission and member states on the basis of article 95. A working party of Whitehall officials, Assembly officials, union representatives and Corus personnel was set up to pursue that project. However—the ISTC will bear witness to this—Corus participated only reluctantly. It did not take the initiative seriously and confirmed its closure decisions before it had received the EU response to the application under article 95. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales said, it was determined to take out the capacity that it took out.
  In the months that preceded the announcement of its decision, Corus refused to share its thinking with my right hon. Friends or with any others who were naturally extremely concerned and had a locus in the matter. For example, Corus would not join the Llanwern taskforce. In December 2001, Sir Brian Moffat met my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Trade and Industry and the First Minister, but he did not clarify the company's restructuring plans. I understand that he was similarly unwilling to share his thinking with the Chancellor.
  My right hon. Friends naturally discussed the matter with the Prime Minister, who was intensely concerned about what might happen. The sole demand that Corus made was that the Government should act to lower the value of the pound—the demand that Plaid Cymru made then and has continued to make. That was disingenuous. It is not open to the Government simply to engineer a fall in the value of the pound, and to have done so would have had dangerous consequences for inflation and interest rates, damaging the industry that we were seeking to help.
  As hon. Members from all parties can confirm, Corus was equally unforthcoming in meetings of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs and with Welsh Labour Members of Parliament. Those meetings were therefore unproductive.
  In his announcement on 3 May 2001, the First Minister said:
  "We have worked almost on a daily basis with the unions to press the company to come to its senses and think long term."
  More recently, Michael Leahy, the general secretary of the ISTC, confirmed:
  "We received the full support of the Prime Minister and the Welsh First Minister."
  So it is grotesquely wrong to allege that Ministers were not willing to do all that they could to support Corus, and especially shabby to suggest that it was because of some possible donation.
  Mr. Thomas: Of course, the hon. Gentleman is talking about allegations that have not actually been made.
  Let me return to his earlier point that the European Coal and Steel Community treaty forbids member states to give aid to companies like Corus or to the UK steel industry

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  in general. That treaty is up for review in July. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) that it should address the extension of investment aid, rather than operational aid, to the UK and European steel industries? That is especially important given the tariffs that are being imposed by the United States.
  Alan Howarth: When a treaty of such fundamental importance is up for review we must be willing to approach it in an open-minded spirit. However, I would be wary of contemplating an opening of the gates to permit national competition in subsidies for any industry. We have had a great deal of experience of that, and by and large it does not make good sense.
  When it tragically proved that Corus could not be dissuaded from making large-scale redundancies—involving, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State reminded us, the loss of 3,000 steel jobs in Wales—the Assembly, supported by the Government, produced an excellent package to support those made redundant, their families and the communities that depend for their livelihoods on making steel. The original announcement provided for £66 million of support, which was followed by an additional £26 million. Of that, the Government directly put in an initial sum of £16 million. Of course, the Assembly was in a strong position to produce a large-scale package precisely because of the success that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had achieved in the previous comprehensive spending review.
  We in Newport are deeply grateful for the help that was given to us—the on-site advice centre at Llanwern, with the Employment Service, the Benefits Agency, Careers Wales, Education and Learning Wales and a variety of organisations, some from the voluntary sector, all providing a model of integrated support. That quality of support continues; only last month, a new advice centre was set up at the citizens advice bureau in Newport, funded by ELWa, for people directly or indirectly affected by last year's job losses at Corus. Case workers have been allocated to housing offices in the Alway and Ringland wards in my constituency, so I am very grateful for the sensitive support that we are continuing to receive.
  The Government negotiated with the European Commission to enable modernised iron and steel employees readaptation benefits scheme—ISERBS— payments to be made. Since then, the Welsh Development Agency has held meetings with about 100 companies in the Corus supply chain, which was so damagingly affected.
  The promised urban regeneration company is of particular interest for Newport because of its exciting potential. For more than a year, Newport county borough council and I have called for an urban regeneration company to be established for Newport, and I want to express my thanks again to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his unwavering support for that project.
  The far-reaching complexity of the direct and indirect impact of Corus's decisions on the supply chain, the retail economy and the communities that make steel requires a multi-agency, integrated and sustained response. It is not just a matter of immediate damage limitation—ensuring
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  that benefits are paid, that counselling is provided and that reskilling programmes are quickly made available—but of developing a coherent long-term strategy that involves rebalancing the local and sub-regional economy, so that we achieve a better balance in south-east Wales between the public and the private sectors and between manufacturing and services and a more diversified economy, supported by the inward investment that the WDA continues to seek for Wales.
  We need to provide education and training of the very highest quality because, in a competitive global economy, unless our skills match those to be found anywhere in the world, our future will not be promising; we indeed need to be a learning society. We need investment in infrastructure, not only in road and rail, but in information technology. We need a sensible strategy on land use, and a commitment to very high standards of urban design. We continue to need a sensitive approach to nurturing and supporting the health, well-being and strengths of the community—for example, the voluntary sector networks that are immensely important in Wales and certainly in Newport. We also need to ensure that, in our arrangements to carry forward that strategy in the future, we hear the voice of local people—those who have borne the brunt of industrial change and for whom our policies are principally intended.
  That analysis was confirmed and amplified by the excellent steel communities study, led by Professors Fairbrother and Morgan of Cardiff university, which was submitted to the Assembly in July last year. That integrated process ought to be led and owned locally and democratically, so I was delighted when the First Minister wrote in a letter to me on 29 June last year:
  "In an area such as Newport, joint public/private sector action within the well focused and disciplined format of a company initiated and driven by the local authority would add real value…The sharing of objectives, budgets and decisions—together with the Chancellor's promised tax incentives—have the potential to make a real difference."
  As good as his word, on 31 January, the First Minister announced pump-priming funding for the new URC for Newport of £10 million immediately from the Assembly and £10 million over three years from the WDA, with a promise that the value added through the URC's activities would be recycled back into Newport to enable us to develop the process further.
  I would only say that we need early clarification of the structure and terms of reference of the URC. As it is, yet another consultancy has been set up, and I understand that we must wait some little time for the answers to those questions. I hope that when we have the advice of the consultants, it is that the mandate of the URC should be Newport-wide, but of course it must operate within the strategic context of south-east Wales and the five counties regeneration forum, which includes not only the Gwent local authorities but the WDA, ELWa and the Assembly. We have been waiting over a year for clarification on those points, and my constituents may be forgiven for being a little impatient now.
  We have had a mass of consultants, academic studies, agencies, boards and taskforces. All the different layers of government have been involved. They are all full of good will and make valuable contributions of ideas and resources. I pay particular tribute to Mr. Allan Martin, who willingly took on the chairmanship of the Llanwern taskforce. He and his colleagues have done great service

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  in south-east Wales. However, this cat's cradle of overlapping programmes. Budgets and accountabilities will not do. We need all the players around the table of the URC as quickly as possible, contributing their particular skills and resources in a unified effort. That way, there will be an opportunity for leadership, and we will achieve the integration of effort, decisions, action, momentum and results.
  Meanwhile, the communities who draw their livelihood from steel in the United Kingdom await tensely the decision that we expect to hear announced by the Bush Administration tomorrow. Last June, President Bush announced the possible activation of section 201 of the US Trade Act 1974 to protect the USA from steel imports. Already, there has been a host of measures that, to me, look pretty protectionist, and in the first 10 months of last year US steel imports were down by 25 per cent.
  The US International Trade Commission is now calling for blatant protectionism—tariffs of up to 40 per cent. and quotas—in what would be clear violation of the rules of the World Trade Organisation. The problem is that uncompetitive US steel producers face great difficulties in a period of global overcapacity, and of course it is election year in the US. We well understand the miseries of restructuring. In the 1980s and 1990s, Wales and Europe as a whole went through that process. Throughout, however, European markets were kept open and strict rules on state aid for the steel industry were formulated and adhered to, even during the period when the number of steelworkers employed in the Community, enlarging as it did during that period, halved.
  The ability of Corus to maintain its newly reduced configuration in the United Kingdom depends on the strength of its UK customer base, and any swamping of the UK market by cheap imports displaced from the USA would be a major disaster. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State stands shoulder to shoulder with EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy in making it absolutely clear that the cost of restructuring the US steel sector should not be shifted on to the rest of the world. The EU supplies about a fifth of steel imports into the USA, and we would be worse affected than Canada, Mexico and Brazil.
  Europe should be open-minded about possible federal or state subsidies for what are termed the "legacy costs" of pensions and health care for the industry. It might not be a wise decision for the Americans to take, but it should be a decision for them. We cannot accept that there should be tariff barriers leading to a diversion of steel exports to Europe in order to shelter the US industry from the necessary structural change.
  As Mr. Lamy has said, to listen to the debate in Washington one would think that only US steelworkers have families and mortgages, which is not the case, as we all know. I am glad therefore that my right hon. Friend said firmly yesterday:
  "Should the US propose significant action we would strongly support any moves by Pascal Lamy to seek WTO settlement action…We defend our right to consider options for preventing serious injury to the industry, including the possibility of safeguard measures."
  There are problems about the slowness of the WTO procedures. It can take more than a year for the WTO to arrive at an initial finding. The European Union's procedures have also been criticised as glacially slow. However, the will now exists in the EU to act rapidly and effectively.
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  In the time that it might take the EU or the WTO to get their acts together, our industries and communities could be badly hurt. The EU is permitted by the WTO rules, unilaterally and without seeking authorisation, to restrict imports of dumped steel from third countries. It must take that action if tomorrow's announcement proves as negative as it may be. I hope that the diplomacy undertaken by the Government and the European Union have persuaded President Bush against the decision that we apprehend that he might take. The Prime Minister's phone call to the President last Thursday and the call made by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to the United States Commerce Secretary yesterday make it clear that in this and other matters, my right hon. Friend and his Ministers are acting firmly and decisively in the interests of the British steel industry.
  5.31 pm
  Dr. Vincent Cable: I congratulate Plaid Cymru on identifying a topical subject. I do not know whether it owes more to good luck or good management, but the party's timing in introducing a debate on steel the day before the American announcement was certainly deft.
  The central charge made by Plaid Cymru was that the Government had acted wrongly in accepting political donations from a man and a company said to have acted against United Kingdom interests. The problem is that one charge is right and another probably not right. The right charge, emphasised by the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) for the Conservatives, is that Mr. Mittal has campaigned for tariffs in the United States. If that is true, that action is damaging. Its impact would be somewhat diluted, however, if the Minister for Industry and Energy was correct in saying that Corus had done exactly the same. If that is true, Mittal is just one of a series of lobbyists who have behaved badly, but he is not unique in that.
  I have greater difficulty with the other charge, which is that Mittal activities in Romania are contrary to the interests of the British steel industry. The Secretary of State made some telling points on that. I fear that I detected in at least some of the remarks of the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) a strong hint of economic nationalism. That did not increase the force of his many good points.
  The logic of what will happen with Mr. Mittal's venture in Romania is either that it will have no impact on the UK industry or that it may even prove favourable. There are two reasons for that. First, one of the consequences of privatisation in eastern Europe is that it effectively stops the normal practice by which state-owned steel companies dump products by selling below cost or at variable cost. When a company is privatised, there is no incentive to do that. Why should Mittal sell at a loss? He is interested in short-term profit and it would make no sense for him to sell at a loss. The argument that he would undercut British workers' jobs is patently implausible. In fact, Mr. Mittal's intervention will probably increase discipline in the industry.
  The second point is that Mr. Mittal is, to put it bluntly, an asset stripper. He will remove a lot of capacity from the Romanian industry. That is probably why he has taken it over. One of the central problems with the steel industry, globally and in eastern Europe, is that capacity

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  is too great. He is not doing it for idealistic reasons, but Mr. Mittal will, because it fits the logic of his business, probably act in ways that will, in a back-handed way, turn out to help our steel industry.
  Mr. Simon Thomas: The hon. Gentleman makes an optimistic assessment of the likely effect on the steel industry. Will he consider an alternative scenario that is not an imaginary but a real one? When Ispat took over steel in Ireland, it had a five-year contract to keep the plant open. Two weeks after that contract ended, the plant closed. As a result, several companies, including Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff, lost a huge amount of money owed by Ispat—one of Mr. Mittal's companies. That company now finds it hard to obtain lines of credit in the United Kingdom because so many investors have had their fingers burned by Ispat's dealings in Ireland. Now the hon. Gentleman may be right—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions are meant to be brief.
  Dr. Cable: I did not entirely follow the hon. Gentleman's rather complicated story, but if it is true that the Irish plant was shut, as he says, I would have thought that that undermined his argument that Mittal is investing overseas in a capacity that competes with UK workers. None the less, on this particular charge, the argument that the Romanian enterprise is taking jobs away from British workers is extremely flimsy.
  The serious issue, which the Conservative spokesman and the right hon. Member for Newport, East (Alan Howarth) were right to emphasise, is the damaging consequences of what may happen tomorrow. Whether or not we get a statement from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, we should spend some time reflecting on this matter. The problems in the United States steel industry have very little to do with trade. There are two central problems, one of which is that there has been a big technical change in the industry. The mini-mills, which represent the new technology for steel production, are gradually replacing the big mills, and the big mills are losing vast amounts of money.
  The second problem for the American steel industry is that the dollar, like the pound, is massively over-valued for manufacturing industry, which is losing pots of money. Manufacturers are running to the Government—just as they do here—to appeal for help. As the right hon. Member for Newport, East mentioned, there is a way to help. If the American Government were seriously interested in the welfare of the workers, there would be plenty of ways of helping them—through retraining or pensions, for example.
  The manufacturers—the companies—which are very close to the Bush Administration are not interested in that, however. They want something that will increase their profit margins, and the best way of doing that is to introduce a tariff, because that pushes up their domestic prices. This is naked self-interest by the producer interest groups in the United States, backed by the United States Administration.
  This battle—this trade war—could well have wide ramifications not only for the steel industry but for many others if it gets out of control, and the issue that we must
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  now face is how we are going to respond to it. There is one sensible response and one very unhelpful one. The unhelpful response is to start clamouring—as one or two Members did—for Europe to put up its own barriers against so-called cheap imports. I think I heard the phrase "floods of cheap steel" being used, in the context of needing to put up our own barriers against them. That would be wholly unhelpful. First, that response would do nothing to deter the United States, which is not an exporter of steel. Secondly, it would do great damage to our own steel-using industries, which employ far more people than the steel industry. It is an entirely perverse, illogical response that would do a great deal of harm.
  What ought to happen—I agree that it is difficult—is that the European Union, pushed by the British Government, should act within the framework of international law. The World Trade Organisation has shown that it has teeth. Only a few weeks ago, it instigated a powerful action against the United States over illegal subsidies. There is no doubt that the European Union, acting within the rules—I think it is article 19 that applies to the kind of safeguard actions that obtain in the US—has every right to introduce targeted retaliatory action against the United States.
  The real test for the Government is not how the Prime Minister responds to Mittal but how he responds to his friend President Bush. The Prime Minister has invested an enormous amount in that relationship, and he may well now have to confront him on the ground that the American Administration arc doing something very damaging to the western world, to Britain and to international trade—something which will have to be fought. That is the issue with which we may well be confronted in the coming weeks.
  A second issue relates to the lobbying that took place on behalf of Mittal. The Plaid Cymru spokesman expressed genuine shock at the way in which British officials and ambassadors cheerfully run round doing errands for companies—in this case, one with a rather tenuous relationship to the United Kingdom. He is right to be shocked. It may surprise him to learn—I do not think that it will surprise the Conservatives, because they saw this in action when they were in government—that, unfortunately, this is the way British Governments of all parties behave.
  I know that because, as a civil servant, I drafted many of the letters that go to British ambassadors telling them to fight for company X or company Y. Many of the mainstream British companies with a lot of jobs here are just phantom companies whose representative a Minister may have met at a cocktail party. I do not know whether such companies gave donations. There is a deeply embedded tradition—based on the old idea of Great Britain Ltd.—that it is the job of Ministers to run errands for companies that portray themselves as British. It is a dangerous tradition, particularly in a world of globalised companies. As the Secretary of State rightly said, Toyota and Ford have more right to be called British companies because of the jobs they create than many companies which call themselves British and fly the Union flag.
  The system whereby British officials and ambassadors and the Ministers who direct them are running round the world, as the Foreign Secretary did with BAE Systems last week, selling Hawk jets to India, is not the sort of thing in which the British Government should he engaged.

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  I hope that the Government will take to heart the painful lesson learned from the Mittal affair—that that is an area of Government activity that needs to he tightened up.
  Another area, where Government activity needs to be tightened up is that of political donations. No one pretends that the Government are unique in accepting money from companies, but we are travelling down a slippery slope, heading towards an American type of system whereby Governments of all parties take money from large companies who expect favours in return. It may well be that no commitment to return the favour has been entered into, but the expectation is there.
  In the United States, that process has reached an advanced stage. Companies give money and they expect ambassadorships and to be on commercial delegations for negotiation purposes. Here the process is much less advanced, but it is a dangerous and corrupting process. If the Government saw the danger that is being created, they would stop it.
  The way to stop the process is to put a severe cap on donations to political parties. The Government have taken the first step in political reform, which the Secretary of State rightly described as a major step forward, by making the process of donations transparent. The next step is to say that companies should not give money to political parties. Companies such as BP and Shell do not do it anyway because they realise that it tarnishes their image. That should now become part of our electoral law. There should be a strict limit on individual donations to political parties. A combination of that reform, possibly augmented by state funding, is needed to clean up British politics. If Plaid Cymru's motion helps us a little along that road, it will have performed a public service.
  5.42 pm
  Llew Smith: Most hon. Members would accept that when the Government say or do anything that I think is wrong I say so, and vote accordingly. I have too much respect for the community that I have the privilege to represent to do anything else. I have long said that I am opposed to the Labour party taking donations from big business. That is not a recent idea but one that I have held for many a long year.
  To say that is not to accept the arguments that have been reiterated by the nationalists during the past few weeks, however. It is ironic that those who now pretend to be the champions of the Welsh steel industry and its workers were hardly to be seen when some of us were involved in the struggle to defend those plants and jobs.
  In my constituency of Blaenau Gwent, which was hit worse than any other community in the United Kingdom, the local trade union officials had no contact with the local nationalists. The nationalists spent most of their time writing in the correspondence columns of the local newspapers attacking the Labour Government and everyone else who was trying to support the unions and defend the jobs. What the) have said during the past few weeks is utter nonsense and I want to concentrate on two of their arguments.
  First, the nationalists have argued that jobs have been lost and plants have been closed, as in my constituency, because the Government did not offer Cows a favourable enough package, since they were more interested in placating and responding to the views of Mittal. Secondly, and linked to that, they have argued that the lack of
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  Government support resulted in the failure of the workers' buy-out and, in particular, the buy-out by the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation at the Llanwern plant. Both those accusations are nonsense.
  When we were campaigning to save the plant and the jobs, and in many other ways to save our communities, I had many meetings with the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Wales, Assembly Members, local authority representatives, trade union officials both local and national, and the chief executive of Corus. It became obvious to me when I had meetings with the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Wales that they had the impression, from talking to and negotiating with Corus, that it was not interested in any package, no matter how big or small.
  One could argue that I, the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State would say that anyway. However, 1 and other Labour Members met Moffat and asked him what he required of the Government in order to maintain the jobs in the UK steel industry, and in particular in my plant in Ebbw Vale. His response was direct. He said that there was no package, no matter how big, which could persuade Corus to go back on its commitments. He said that Corus had a vision—if vision is the right word—of the steel industry's future and that it intended to go forward with that.
  When we met Moffat we also put to him the charge that Corus was unwilling to support a workers' buy-out or the proposed buy-out by the ISTC of the Llanwern plant. Once again we asked him whether there was any Government package that could persuade Corus to sell that plant to the ISTC. Once again, Moffat was direct in his answer. He said that there was no package, no matter how big, which would persuade Corus to sell Llanwern to the ISTC, because to do so would be to increase the competition against it.
  Some of us found that not only offensive but ironic. Throughout our political lives we have always been told by the right that public ownership equals monopoly and is bad, while capitalism—free enterprise, as it is laughably called—equals competition. But here we had the situation where a union was willing to buy out a plant in order to maintain jobs and the community, but was refused the opportunity to do so because one of the bastions of capitalism, of that free enterprise system, refused the union the right to do so. That is a funny type of competition. I came away from that meeting utterly despondent about the future not just of my plant in Ebbw Vale but of the steel industry in general.
  The nationalists have done a great disservice to working class communities and steel communities such as my own. Contrary to the opinions that Corus may express, there is no doubt that it is the guilty party. I remember when Corus was formed. I had a phone call from one of its managing directors, Vickers. He rang me at 8 am from Holland saying that he wanted to confirm that there was no threat to the Ebbw Vale plant, that it had a secure future and that everything on the horizon was good. But it was obvious from day one that those were merely words, because it was clear that Corus was bent on asset-stripping the industry.
  If anyone doubts that, they should look at the old balance sheet. Corus appropriated £863 million from the surplus in the British Steel pension fund and paid out £694 million to its shareholders. When we met Moffat he

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  accepted that if Corus had not paid out that £694 million as a massive sweetener, its shareholders would not have agreed to the takeover. Corus also paid out millions upon millions of pounds to former directors, and, in particular, to its chief executive, Bryant. It also handed out millions upon millions of pounds to senior managers, once again to placate them and to line their pockets.
  I have spoken to several people in and outside the industry since then. Many have expressed shock and horror at Corus's possible involvement in that act of asset stripping. To me, it was no surprise at all. Moffat is on record as saying that the company is in business to make money, not steel.
  It is true that people in my community who devoted their lives to the steel industry worked for money—they had to pay the rent or the mortgage, and feed their children each and every day—but their involvement in the steel industry was somewhat different. They took pride in that industry and craft, and took great pleasure in building the Llanwern plant into the most effective and productive in the world. In return, they received a closure notice from people whose only interest in the steel industry is the money that they can make from it. The nationalists argued in the past few weeks that the blame lies entirely with the Labour Government, but in doing so they diverted attention from the real enemies: Corus, Moffat and the shareholders, who asset-stripped that industry and did their damnedest to wipe out my community.
  As a past student of Coleg Harlech, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know that one of my predecessors was Aneurin Bevan. Nye had something important to say—a phrase that he often used—on issues such as this:
  "This is my truth: now tell me yours."
  What I have said today is my truth, and I know it to be true because I was there. I was part of the struggle to maintain those jobs and that industry. It is sad that the nationalists have not followed that example. Once again, they have come down on the side of the bosses against the workers.
  5.52 pm
  Pete Wishart: I am delighted to follow those bizarre closing remarks, and I promise to be brief.
  I want to start on a positive and perhaps consensual note by expressing my gratitude to the Government Whips for helping us to secure today's debates. You may be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there is a new arrangement whereby we in the minority parties now represent ourselves in dealing with Government Whips. We have found that productive and useful, and we are delighted to be relieved of the dead hand of Liberal Democrat representation in Committee. Towards the end of our relationship, our Liberal Democrat colleagues were actively acting against our interests, so we are pleased to be shot of them. It is important that the minority parties have something to contribute, and we are pleased that the necessary structure and arrangements are now in place. We look forward to many more such days.
  I want to congratulate my hon. Friend—it is good to be able to say that, as an SNP Member—the member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price). I hope that I have not put back SNP/Plaid Cymru relations by perhaps
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  pronouncing the second part of his constituency incorrectly. It is he who has unearthed and led on this issue, and who has tried to expose a new, murky dynamic involving donations by key individuals and business men, and key Government concessions. He has dominated the issue and become the major opposition, and I congratulate him on unearthing it.
  The SNP has major concerns about what my hon. Friend has uncovered. As the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr. Roy) will know, we in Scotland once had a viable, productive and efficient steel industry. Ravenscraig was one of the largest steel producers in Europe. In fact, it made excellent flat-rolled steel, produced in the distant steel mill in Kazakhstan that is now owned by Mr. Mittal, which he acquired with the assistance of Government money. I wish that a Mr. Mittal had been around in the 1980s, when the Scottish steel industry started to experience difficulties. Perhaps we could have encouraged him to try to get Government investment in Scotland. If such a figure had existed in those days, we might well have secured some jobs and retained a steel industry to call our own.
  We are concerned not only about recent events in the steel industry, but about a further "cash for access" issue. Scotland on Sunday recently highlighted the case of Snowie, a waste company that donated some £5,000 to the Labour party in Scotland. Five months later, it secured some £30 million-worth of work. Snowie handed over the money after it was awarded clean-up work by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Scottish Executive, following the foot and mouth epidemic.
  There is also the case of Ballathie Estates, a hunting and fishing estate on the River Tay, in my Perthshire constituency. Its director, Mr. John Milligan, was recently appointed chairman of the Scottish new deal advisory taskforce after giving some £25,000 to the Labour party.
  Finally, there is the case of Hunter Esson, a director with Aberdeen-based Esson Properties, who said that he could not imagine why anyone would think that his company's £5,000 donation to Labour had any impact on the decision to grant it planning permission to build on greenbelt land.
  Mr. Roy: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that that donation was dependent on the granting of planning permission? Is he saying that that director had to pay for planning permission?
  Pete Wishart: I am coming to that point.
  All those cases might indeed be legitimate and above board, and I am not trying to suggest that any wrongdoing took place, but the perception is that something was not quite right. We should remember that this is the Government who were going to remove sleaze from politics, who were going to be whiter than white, who were going to clean up politics. They have had five years to do so, and the key question that must now he asked is this: what do such companies think they are getting in return for the money that they give to the Labour party? We have not received a satisfactory answer or explanation. Perhaps they are simply big investors in this socialist—or third way—Labour party, but I suggest that it goes beyond that.
  It is not simply a question of what Mr. Mittal thought he was getting in return for his £125,000 donation to the Labour party. Why were the Government intervening in

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  the first place in the fate of a Romanian steel plant that Mr. Mittal wanted to acquire? Anyone who carries out even five minutes' research into the current state of the steel industry will know that there is massive overproduction and overcapacity throughout the world. As has been mentioned, a Mittal-owned plant is lobbying the Bush Government ferociously to impose curbs and ensure tariff control for the United States.
  I agree with the warning from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) about the Labour party's business links. He is the one brave soul in the Labour ranks who has questioned the judgment of the Downing street aides who allowed the Prime Minister to sign the letter to his Romanian counterpart. The hon. Gentleman said:
  "What I'm not happy with is an outcome where you have a company seemingly supported by the British Government which is acting against the interests of British workers."
  That is the key issue, and I could not have put it better myself. We cannot allow any perception of a conflict between Government support for business and support for the Labour party, and that is why I ask Members to support the motion.
  5.58 pm
  Dr. Hywel Francis: As a representative of the steel constituency of Aberavon, I take this opportunity to thank on my constituents' behalf the Secretary of State for Wales, whose constituency of Torfaen is also a great steel constituency. He and the Labour First Minister of the Assembly have made great efforts to support the Welsh steel industry in the past year, which has arguably been the most difficult in our history since the war.
  I also welcome the Government's commitment to referring the United States to the World Trade Organisation if it introduces steel tariffs. Hon. Members on both sides of the House should welcome that, and we should also welcome the support of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for the introduction of safeguards to ensure that steel currently sent to the US by non-EU countries is not dumped in the EU. Further to that, the House should demand that Corus in the US—Corus Tuscaloosa—unequivocally oppose US tariffs.
  While my constituency has not borne the job losses experienced elsewhere in Wales, we have had our own terrible tribulations, with the tragedy on 8 November 2001, when the explosion at the No. 5 blast furnace in Port Talbot resulted in the deaths of three steelworkers. Thankfully, all the injured men have now been discharged from Morriston hospital, thanks to the dedication and skills of staff in the burns unit.
  This debate affords those of us from steel communities the opportunity to review the very considerable efforts that have been made in the last year by the Labour Government and the Labour-led National Assembly in partnership with many bodies, including my own union, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation.
  The pretext for this debate, on the face of it, is one company and one political donation, but we believe that the real issues facing the industry, steelworkers and our communities are being addressed by the Labour Government in real, tangible and constructive ways. As secretary of the newly formed all-party parliamentary group on steel, I am well aware of the efforts made not only by our Labour Government here in Westminster, the
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  Labour-led Welsh Assembly and the many Labour authorities in Wales and throughout the United Kingdom but by the many agencies and private sector companies that have worked together in social partnerships to rebuild and diversify our local economies.
  In my own constituency. We have the welcome news from Corus of the £75 million investment in rebuilding the No. 5 blast furnace. We also have the announcement by the Welsh Assembly of the establishment of an advanced technology centre at Port Talbot, which will bring together Government agencies and the very best applied research in our Welsh universities to drive forward innovation in the industry. We have the continuing very good progress of the new Baglan energy park, again through public and private social partnerships, notably with General Electric, the Welsh Development Agency and Neath Port Talbot county borough council—a Labour authority that has been outstanding in its efforts to diversify the local economy. Next Monday, we launch our own Afan community credit union, with strong support from the ISTC and the Welsh Assembly—yet another example of how we are getting on with the job of rebuilding and serving our steel communities.
  Across Wales, great efforts have been made by the main steel union, ISTC, and all the other unions in the industry, Steel Partnership Training, UK Steel Enterprises and Steel Action. All those bodies have placed great emphasis on the acquisition of new skills and new learning opportunities. I am proud to say that one such initiative, the newly formed Port Talbot union academy, links into the new local community learning network in my constituency, established through objective 1 funding, which our Government achieved.
  Too many Opposition politicians tend to undervalue the efforts and achievements of the past year. Who on the Opposition Benches applauds my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Llew Smith), who has consistently championed the steelworkers of Ebbw Vale? In the wake of the redundancy announcement last year, through his efforts and the efforts of Lord Brookman of Ebbw Vale, as well as those of the local Labour Assembly Member, Peter Law, and the Labour authority, we have the reopening of the passenger train service to Ebbw Vale and the new UK steel enterprise innovation centre. The new centre will be launched at Victoria, near Ebbw Vale, at a cost of £3 million, to assist local start-up enterprises.
  It is clear that steel and manufacturing are still major players in the Welsh economy. Manufacturing accounts for more than 18 per cent. of employment in Wales. Corus has made it clear to our Government that Wales is now a place where world-class steel production can take place and says that it is committed to achieving that.
  Much has been done in the past year that deserves praise. The Prime Minister and other Ministers supported the attempted ISTC workers' buy-out at Llanwern. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister have all been unequivocal in their condemnation of possible US tariffs on British steel exports. The possible announcement tomorrow of such tariffs will add to the existing difficulties faced by large companies such as Corus. They have already identified issues relating to tax, transport and energy costs, which they consider to be challenges for them, and the imposition of a US tariff would only add to those problems.

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  It would be appropriate for this debate to focus on those challenging issues rather than the irrelevance of trying to link political donations to the Government's policies. As internationalists, and as supporters of European enlargement and the modernisation of the global steel industry, we should be proud of what our Government are doing in Westminster and Cardiff.
  I trust that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will convey to both the Prime Minister and Mr. Mittal our expectations that every effort should continue to be made to prevent such tariffs from being introduced. That should be done in the spirit of extending and strengthening our Government's commitment to developing corporate social responsibility.
  I arranged for the all-party steel group to write to Mr. Mittal last week urging him to support the aims of our group, in particular our desire to ensure a fair deal for the UK steel industry and to aid the regeneration of steel and former steel communities.
  We would all concur with the words of the First Minister of the Welsh Assembly, Rhodri Morgan, earlier this year when he said:
  "The new blast furnace which will be constructed at Port Talbot will not only be a memorial to those who lost their lives but also a symbol of the endurance of an industry vital to Wales and its continuing contribution in the years ahead to this country and the communities that serve it".
  He continued:
  "There are no quick fixes to problems as entrenched as those of our long neglected industrial communities. I believe that the programme set out"—
  by the Welsh Assembly—
  "is a new start and the strongest possible expression of faith in the future of these communities".
  Modern Wales was built on and built by those great steel communities. Historians have written that the building of Margam steelworks in my constituency was a symbol of Labour's commitment to the reviving of south Wales in the post-war period. Margam in its day was the greatest steelworks in Britain and the historian Dr. John Davies saw its creation as one of the three great political landmarks of post-war Wales.
  I find it encouraging—indeed, prophetic—that the rugby sides enjoying success this year are from the great south Wales steel towns of Aberavon, Newport, Pontypool and Ebbw Vale. Unlike Opposition Members, we can speak legitimately for steel communities and former steel communities in Wales and throughout the United Kingdom. We are proud of what our party in government is doing to address the serious challenges facing our industry. That is why Labour Members took the initiative to establish the new all-party parliamentary group on steel, and I urge all Members, of whatever party, to assist us in our objectives of ensuring a fair deal for the UK steel industry.
  This year, steelworkers in Port Talbot celebrate a centenary of steel making. The industry continues to be a very significant contributor to the economy of the region. It is my belief that Labour's policies assist, even in these most difficult times, in sustaining our steel communities and in assisting those who wish to develop new initiatives to achieve a more diverse local economy.
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  I shall end with the words of David Ferris, the chair of the unions at Port Talbot steelworks. We would all do well to listen to and show some respect for the steel unions. I only wish some parties—daffodil Tories all—had done so after the explosion in Port Talbot. David Ferris said this to me yesterday:
  "What Labour is doing today is to be welcomed by all of us: it is comparable with our achievements after 1945."
  6.8 pm
  Mr. Bill Wiggin: I congratulate the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) on his speech and it is no accident that my speech is written on a brown envelope. It is nice to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), who demonstrated clearly how the Government give with one hand and take with the other.
  I wish to question the role of the Secretary of State for Wales in this debate. I was led to believe that his role was to act as a liaison between the National Assembly and the Government, and to perform his duties by ensuring that the funding for the Assembly was as successful as possible. It is a great shame that he has come before us today to defend the actions of the Prime Minister.
  It is the role of the Prime Minister that is called into question by the letter that he signed in support of Mr. Mittal and his purchase of the Romanian steel mill. The question about the Government's support for that has not been answered. Many hon. Members have already asked how many other companies have been assisted in the same way as Mr. Mittal. How many other small businesses have been helped by a letter from the Prime Minister? I have written to the Prime Minister many times and I have even invited him to come to Hereford to see our hospital for himself. However, he has not written back to me. We need to know how many other companies have been helped. [Interruption.] I am not sure that I could afford £125,000. If I could manage 50 grand, who knows, perhaps I could be running the BBC.
  One of the temptations for a governing party is the potential corruption that any funding from a company could bring. The Government knew about that when they took office in 1997. Their crime is that they did not learn from what history taught them. Whether or not Mr. Mittal is as British as I am is a question that needs to be answered. How were the donations given, and did the Prime Minister know about that before he signed the letter?
  The human side of this affair is the effect it has on people's jobs. Anyone who has been made redundant will know the misery and despair that goes with it, and usually it is through no fault of their own. I have been made redundant once in my career, and it is a terrible thing. Before Labour Members jeer, they should wait until after the next election when they will realise what it feels like. I should have hoped that they would show sympathy for people who may have lost their jobs through the Government's actions, and I am disappointed that I have been heckled. We should have great sympathy for workers who have lost their jobs
  Llew Smith: There is a slight difference between someone being made redundant in Blaenau Gwent, which is one of the poorest communities in the United Kingdom

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  where people have difficulty paying their mortgage or rent, and someone like you who may be have been made redundant in the past—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman must remember to use the correct parliamentary language in the House.
  Mr. Wiggin: Redundancy does not matter; what matters is the misery that goes with it. It does not matter who it applies to: what matters is what is going on.
  Llew Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Wiggin: I shall give way again, because the hon. Gentleman did not finish his remarks.
  Llew Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there is no difference between a person who is made redundant and has nothing in the bank and a person who is made redundant who has £1 million in the bank?
  Mr. Wiggin: If the hon. Gentleman is implying that I have £1 million in the bank, I have not: I wish I did. No Romanian has bunged me anything recently. [Interruption.] My envelope is from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions.
  I hope that we get a more truthful answer when the Minister winds up the debate. I also hope that he will describe the criteria he is using to judge the Welshness of the companies that are accompanying him to the Czech Republic. Perhaps he will take the opportunity, highlighted by the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Llew Smith), to apologise to all those who have been put out of work by the Government's actions. Will he tell us how many other companies have been helped? The Liberal Democrats tell everyone that they oppose the Government, so why were they so quick to leap to their defence in that shameful fashion?
  The lessons from this scandal, which has rocked the Government, are that Governments must be brave enough to resist such temptation and that none of us must ever underestimate the misery and sadness that goes with redundancy. Every effort must be made to prevent that, especially in Wales.
  6.14 pm
  Mr. Martin Caton: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin), who is always amusing, even though he talks nonsense. It is an even greater pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis). I pay tribute to the work that he has done following the terrible tragedy in the steelworks in his constituency. He has visited families and given support, but most of his efforts have been unsung, and he deserves credit for them.
  It has been something of a groundhog day for those of us who attended the Welsh day debate last Thursday. It is more in sadness than in anger that I contribute to the debate. Opposition Members have chosen to link two important issues, each of which should be the subject of debate in the House at this time and in the weeks and months ahead.
  The first issue is the danger to our democracy and to the perception of democratic politics of political parties relying on large donations from individuals, business or
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  industry. The second is the recent history of the steel industry in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom and, just as important, the future for steel and other manufacturing industry in our country. Plaid Cymru has tied those tremendously significant matters together with a connective tissue that artificially tries to make the central focus an unsubstantiated allegation of Government impropriety.
  At its nonsensical extreme, articulated by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) in last week's Welsh day debate, the link becomes causal. That must be the implication of his call for the Government to ask
  "the 6,000 people who lost their steel jobs in the United Kingdom whether they prefer to be on the dole while the Prime Minister supports competitors in Romania."—[Official Report, 28 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 881.]
  The same line was taken by the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price), who asked:
  "Does the Prime Minister care more about his billionaire friends…than the families in the steel communities that have loyally supported the Labour party for more than 100 years?—[Official Report, 28 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 917–18.]
  What about this afternoon's debate? In a reply to an intervention asking whether the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr was really suggesting that the Prime Minister wrote his letter to the Romanian Government deliberately to undermine the British steel industry, his hon. Friends and Conservative Members shouted yes, and he said, "I think I'm getting somewhere". That is the level of the accusation.
  Not only is an unjustified and unjustifiable link being made between a donation to the Labour party and a letter from the Prime Minister to the Romanian Government, but the impact of the letter on that Government's actions has been exaggerated out of all proportion. We are supposed to extrapolate from that that if the Prime Minister had shown a similar commitment to Welsh and Teesside steelworkers, perhaps by writing a timely letter, thousands of jobs could have been saved. That is pure cloud cuckoo land, and everyone, including Opposition Members, knows it.
  A debate is rightly beginning about future funding of political parties. As has already been said, the Labour Government have introduced a transparency that was not there before, and they have capped total expenditure on general elections. Those are both valuable steps forward. Like many right hon. and hon. Members across the House, I believe that we should go a lot further.
  With large political donations there is always the danger that donors will want something in return. Many of the people whom we represent believe that there is or may be a payback time with such donations.
  Pete Wishart: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Caton: I am afraid that I do not have time to give way.
  At a time when fewer and fewer people are taking part in the democratic process, that must be a cause for concern.
  Adam Price: So we are right.
  Mr. Caton: It is justifiable to raise the issue of party political donations, and Opposition Members could

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  usefully have focused on it. Their accusation about the actions of the Prime Minister is unsubstantiated. They have had hour after hour to substantiate it, but they have completely failed to do so. I should like to talk about the more important issues that they failed to raise.
  The hands of all political parties must not just be clean: they must be seen to be clean. It is right to consider issues such as state funding of parties, radically reducing the total spend available to each party at elections, and extending the provisions in kind available to each political party, as we do with television time for party political broadcasts. I am sure that there are many related ideas on which we could and should focus. The debate could have centred around those ideas, as part of our discussion on how we re-engage with the sections of the Welsh and British public who have become deeply cynical about politics. What is, perhaps, even more important is that we could have used this debate to concentrate on the future of the United Kingdom's steel industry, in the light of recent history and in the context of manufacturing generally. We could have raised a range of issues—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must not have these continual sedentary interventions—
  Mr. Caton: A range of issues—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That applies to Members on both sides of the House. I call Mr. Caton.
  Mr. Caton: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  It is a shame that, instead of discussing those issues, we are discussing an untenable thesis that attempts to shift responsibility for last year's steel closure programme to the Labour Government. That is clearly unfair to the leadership of my party. I guess that that is politics, or at least a sort of politics; but it is a travesty of history, as was demonstrated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Alan Howarth) and my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Llew Smith). It also does a grave disservice to the steelworkers and their families who were victims of the mismanagement and intransigence of Corus.
  I speak as the representative of some of those whose lives were shattered by the announcement of the closure programme just over a year ago. The Bryngwyn works, in Gorseinon in my constituency, was the smallest target on the hit list of Sir Brian Moffat, chair of Corus; but it employed 127 people, and its closure—which ended 100 years of steel making in Gorseinon—has had a real impact on the village and the surrounding area.
  Last February and March I spent hours in the Bryngwyn works and in trade union offices in Swansea talking to workers and their representatives, with our local Assembly Member Edwina Hart and with local councillors, trying to put together a strategy that could have saved the plant. The work force came up with proposals—painful ones from their point of view, which would have meant the acceptance of some job losses and the mothballing of one production line to reduce costs and keep the works going until the wheel turned full circle and steel production was more profitable—but those proposals were rejected out of hand by the Corus management.
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  I said that I spoke as a representative of those affected by the closure. I also speak as a member of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, which engaged in two gruelling evidence sessions with Sir Brian Moffat and members of his management team.
  Mr. Llwyd: I was a member of the Committee too.
  Mr. Caton: Indeed, and I suspect that the hon. Gentleman will concur with my interpretation of what happened.
  What became clear during those sessions—ironically, the first took place on St David's day and the second on the day after May day—was that 6,000 people in Wales and on Teesside would be sacked come hell or high water, and that nothing that government at any level could offer would change the decision. All the things that Corus had moaned about in the preceding months—the climate change levy, the comparative values of the pound and the euro, its demand for great rebates—were no longer key factors. Corus had decided that it could not export, and that demand from United Kingdom home markets was inadequate. To improve its stock-market value it wanted to downsize, and to downsize quickly.
  When we asked Corus why it had paid £700 million to shareholders when British Steel merged with Hoogovens, it said that that was to make the merger fairer in terms of the cash that each side brought to the marriage. When we asked why, if it had needed to dispose of cash, it had not invested it in the UK steel industry—this, I think, is relevant to points made by Opposition Members about variations in European rules to allow investment aid, and they may find Sir Brian Moffat's answer instructive—we were told that the last thing the industry needed was more investment. But when I asked what Corus was doing with a laminator process from Bryngwyn after its closure, the management representatives admitted that it was over 30 years old and redundant.
  That is typical of the company's failure to invest to improve quality in plants such as Bryngwyn, but it was only the first in a list of failures that we heard about during our two sessions. We heard of its failure, after the merger, to honour its commitments to maintain the then current configuration of plants, and to maintain and improve market share; its failure to engage and involve its work force and its representatives at any stage and any level when the new strategy was being developed; its failure even to discuss with the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation the possibility of letting a union-led consortium take over Llanwern and bring a new initiative to steel production on the site; and its failure, even at the end, to take seriously an alternative proposed for all the plants involved—presented by the unions, and backed by the Government and the National Assembly for Wales—that would have involved access to European Union and Government money to help maintain production for at least another year. Corus rejected that proposal, but admitted under questioning in the Select Committee that it had never even costed it.
  The company's overall failure also included a failure to listen to Government and to explore with Government, either at Assembly or at UK level, ways of saving jobs. Even so, under questioning Sir Brian Moffat acknowledged that he had been told by the Prime Minister that the Government would help in any way they could.

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  It is just plain wrong to blame the Government for what has happened. Government at various levels is trying to pick up the pieces, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out. I pay tribute to those who have contributed to the £4 million regeneration programme in Gorseinon—
  Mr. Evans: As the hon. Gentleman will know, Allied Steel and Wire, which employs more than 1,000 people in Wales, is complaining about the climate change levy. What representations will he make to his Chancellor of the Exchequer before the Budget statement about its removal?
  Mr. Caton: I shall make no such representations. I strongly support the levy. In certain circumstances when industry has specific problems—as was the case with Corus—the Government have reduced it. As Sir Brian Moffat told us, however, the levy was costing £8 million at a time when there was talk of a loss of £1 million a day. It was not a significant factor. At one stage there was an attempt to build it up into a significant factor, and the Conservative party jumped on it, but it was not the major issue.
  Mark Tami: I had discussions with the unions at Shotton, which spent weeks preparing alternatives to the proposed job losses. The management of Corus took just five minutes to look at those proposals and reject them out of hand. It was a cruel pretence for Corus to go through the process when it had no intention of giving serious consideration to any of the alternatives. It had made up its mind, despite all the good efforts of unions and Government to find a solution.
  Mr. Caton: That was exactly the experience we had with Gorseinon, and I am sure that every steel plant facing closure or cuts had the same experience.
  Llew Smith: My hon. Friend said that during cross-examination of Sir Brian Moffat he had asked questions about the moneys handed out to shareholders. Did he have an opportunity to raise the subject of the moneys appropriated by Corus from the workers' pension fund, and did he have an opportunity to remind Sir Brian that much of the fund had been built up when the steel industry was in public ownership, and that it had therefore been appropriated from taxpayers?
  Mr. Caton: We did not focus on that in the Select Committee, but I have often heard my hon. Friend explain what went on. It was an absolute crime, and he is right to focus on it.
  I hope that lessons have been learned from last year's experience. I certainly welcome the investment at Port Talbot mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon. I think, however, that lessons will never be learned from history if we allow it to be distorted. That is one reason why we should reject the Tory-supported Plaid Cymru motion.
  6.29 pm
  Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: I shall begin by referring to the fine speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr
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  (Adam Price). [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams) laughs, but she was not here to hear it. That is how interested she was.
  Mrs. Betty Williams: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to point out that I was present to hear the speech from the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price).
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order for the Chair.
  Mr. Llwyd: If I have misled the House, I apologise.
  My hon. Friend the Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr made a powerful speech. We must remember that it was he who discovered the trail of deceit from Mr. Mittal to No. 10 and back, the various favours and the less than truthful accounts that have been given. It is clear that the interests of one party have been put above those of the UK steel industry. The speech was full of passion, and I congratulate my hon. Friend, and my researcher Alun Shurmer, on their hard work and research.
  The Secretary of State made a rather desperate start to his speech. He wanted to refer to education, health and transport, among other devolved matters. However, by praying in aid such matters so that he would not have to refer to Mittal, he caused us to go around the trees and the woods. We discussed everything. I have a high regard for the right hon. Gentleman, but it was a desperate start.
  The Secretary of State assaulted Plaid Cymru, of course, for raising the issue. Uncharacteristically, he attacked us over our participation in the House. That was interesting. We are here far more often than he is. The latest figures show that all Plaid Cymru Members have voted more often then he has recently, so I object to what he said.
  The Secretary of State may have been a bit peeved to have received the hospital pass. He did not want to deal with the debate, any more than I should like to play against England at Twickenham in a few weeks. The right hon. Gentleman struggled valiantly, and made a valiant effort, but without any real success. He started in a hole and kept on digging: in the end, we lost him altogether.
  A sort of explanation or apology was made for what went on—a clever bit of historical revisionism about what Corus did. The Secretary of State made it clear that the ISTC is worth listening to, but that the GMB and other unions are not, because they say things that are not favourable to the Government. That is another classic case of revisionism. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Soviet Union, where revisionism was big. It may be coming back into fashion with new Labour.
  The point is that Mittal gave money to the Government, and the Prime Minister wrote a letter. When the ISTC gave money to the Government, it had to write a letter. It was a rather desperate attempt to bail out this discredited Government.
  if the Sidex deal represented so much benefit to Britain—and I accept that assisting Romania was a laudable objective—was it right that the British taxpayer had to pay for Romanians to come here and sign the deal? The Prime Minister explained that he wrote the letter because it was already a done deal. Where is the logic in that? Moreover, Romania has open government, and the

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  Romanian Government's website makes clear what the letter said. It was patently obvious to all at the time that Lionel Jospin was in Romania to argue on behalf of the French company. That company has better British credentials than the Romanian firm.
  In any event, it was not a done deal. The Prime Minister misled everyone in that regard. We were told that LNM was a British company, but clearly it was not. The French company was far more British, according to the definition used.
  I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale). He dissected what had happened, and referred to the deletion of the word "friend" from the draft of the original letter. We do not know who did that, although the "Today" programme said that it was no less a person than Mr. Powell. The hon. Gentleman referred to a speech in the Welsh day debate by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), which mentioned steel in Wales. I did not speak about the matter then, as I knew that this debate was coming, but there was no mention of steel when the Ministers replied to that debate. That shows how deep their conviction was that day.
  The hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford spoke about the Irish lspat company. He described how it owed millions of pounds to people everywhere, including in these islands. He noted that it sacked 600 workers without a by-your-leave only a fortnight after promising to adhere to a five-year contract. I do not think that the company is a good employer.
  However, the main thrust of the speech from the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford had to do with the culture of cronyism that pervades the Government. It is obvious to all that the Government keep the door wide open for people with money. That perception grows as day follows night. We need a full and independent inquiry into what happened.
  The right hon. Member for Newport, East (Alan Howarth) tried to show that he and other hon. Members had been active during the Corus debacle. I have no doubt that he was. Who am I to doubt the sincerity of those Members? However, I was a member of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs when we took evidence. The big question is, where were the Government for the two years before the Corus announcement was made? In that time, it was known that Corus was losing millions of pounds each month. Why did the Government not intervene when something could have been done?
  I well recall one Welsh debate about three and a half years ago when the previous Member of Parliament for Caernarfon stated that Corus was in great difficulty and that we should concentrate on it. In response, Labour Members called him a scaremonger and a whinger—the usual stuff. That was a disappointing response, and nothing was done as a result.
  My point is that it was all very well for the Government to jump in and act when it was too late, but where were they when they could have been doing something effective? They have acted too late, and done too little.
  I also want to correct a factual inaccuracy in the speech of the right hon. Member for Newport, East. Corus joined the European Commission in opposing any action to impose tariffs as a safeguard, but it supported later
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  objectives. The right hon. Gentleman contended that the company had been in the US, arguing for tariffs. I am afraid that that is not correct, according to my information.
  Alan Howrath indicated dissent.
  Mr. Llwyd: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but there we are.
  Mr. Martyn Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Llwyd: I am sorry, but no. The hon. Gentleman has not taken part in the debate.
  The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Llew Smith) offered his usual bluster. Of course we sympathise with the people who have lost jobs. We do not lay all the blame on the Government, but we do consider that the Government acted too slowly. The hon. Gentleman referred to the unfortunate failure of the ISTC buy-out. There is no argument about the fact that everyone was disappointed about that.
  The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent as usual referred to Nye Bevan. The subliminal message is that the hon. Gentleman might be as good one day. I rather doubt that.
  The hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) looked at the wider issue of political donations, and the mire of political sleaze in Scotland. It is bad down here, and pretty bad up there. We can see that every day, and it is very worrying. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that we should examine business links, which do no person or party any favours. We urgently need full, thorough and public investigations into that matter, and into the general subject of the debate. We must ensure that similar things do not happen in the future.
  The hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) referred to the explosion at the Port Talbot plant. All hon. Members sympathise with the families of the bereaved, and with those who were badly injured. The investment of £75 million by Corus is most welcome, but it was an insurance payout. That means that the company did not dig into its reserves, but I hope—and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does too—that there will be more investment.
  The hon. Member for Aberavon has been in the House a relatively short time, but he has sadly become rather tribal. I counted the number of times that he found fault with everyone, although he made it clear that he thinks that the Labour Government are doing perfectly well. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman has been sucked into the system, which is a shame. I used to think that he was an independent thinker. The hon. Gentleman did not deal with the Mittal affair. He is a clever man, but he had no answers to the questions that have been posed. In the circumstances, it was sensible of him to avoid the matter so assiduously.
  The hon. Member for Aberavon referred to the Prime Minister being opposed to tariffs. When did he start being opposed to tariffs? This week. When is the announcement to be made? Tomorrow. That is not very good stewardship of the economy or the country; it is very poor. It has been known since July of last year that the section 201 application was likely to be processed. This week, of all times, the Prime Minister's website says that he has warned—"warned", my God—President Bush.

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  The hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin), reading from a brown paper envelope—no smear intended—referred to the agony of redundancy, with which we all sympathise. The lion. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) made some good points about accepting large donations from industry. He, too, probably believes that it is time to consider the matter dispassionately, not today but in another forum. I sympathise about what happened at Bryngwyn, and I was also on the Welsh Affairs Committee at the time. As he said, when big business makes a payment, it is looking for something. However, he did not ask what Mr. Mittal was looking for. I would ask that question.
  I made the point about the French company being more British than the one that was backed. I also want to refer to Ispat's attempt to purchase the Irish plant. That was disgraceful, and, oddly, in 1995, the Department of Trade and Industry objected to it on the basis that it would be against the interests of British industry. Now, however, it apparently has full support.
  This is our first opportunity to have a full parliamentary debate on this subject. The Prime Minister should rightly be here to reply. He should not have given a hospital pass to the Secretary of State for Wales. The Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions had to come here to explain himself. Why cannot the Prime Minister make time to do so? He makes time to go everywhere else in the world.
  One or two questions remained unanswered about the United States tariffs. Mr. Mittal paid £400,000 to put up those tariffs against British steel interests. United Kingdom taxpayers' money was actively being used to undermine UK steel jobs at the same time as Corus was rapidly going down. At the same time, by a happy coincidence, £125,000 was donated to Labour. We remember the Ecclestone affair, the Hindujas, Mr. Mandelson and Mr. Vaz—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must refer correctly to Members of the House.
  Mr. Llwyd: I refer to the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) and the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson). The others are not yet Members; no doubt they will be parachuted in when they have paid enough.
  I shall quote from the final sentence of an early-day motion tabled by the Minister for Europe when he was in opposition. It states that the House
  "calls on the Prime Minister to instigate an immediate independent inquiry and instruct the Chairman of the Conservative party to open all Party accounts to public scrutiny, so that British voters will at last understand that 'The best government that money can buy' leads to the sleaze and corruption evidenced by these findings."
  That sums up the present position.
  6.44 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Don Touhig): Before the debate began, Plaid Cymru was complaining to the press and others that Wales Office Ministers were being put up to answer the debate today. They did not want my right hon. Friend or me to take part. Apparently, Welsh Ministers are not good enough for the so-called party of Wales.
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  The debate has shown that at least Labour Members have a real interest in the future of the steel industry, since they, like me, represent steel workers. It has also shown that the issues that affect steel are common throughout the United Kingdom and the European Union, and that whingeing is no substitute for policies—a fact which, sadly, the nationalists have still not learned.
  We have heard some very good and important contributions, such as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Alan Howarth), who dealt extremely well with the history of the Government's support and efforts to persuade Corus not to make people redundant. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) warned us of the dangers of economic nationalism, and he was right to do so. He argued that the Sidex sale to Mittal would not hit British jobs saying that the argument that it would was flimsy, and I agree with him in that respect. He also pointed out the importance of the issue of political donations, and I remind him and the House that the Labour party legislated to make them transparent.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Llew Smith) asked where the nationalists were when we were trying to defend steelworkers and keep their jobs. We did not see them. We supported the steelworkers all along the line and we certainly supported the attempt by the ISTC union to buy the Llanwern steelworks. I was with my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent when we met Sir Brian Moffat of Corus and tried to persuade him to change his mind. He would have none of it. He was determined not to sell the Llanwern steelworks to the ISTC because, as my hon. Friend said, that would increase competition for him. My hon. Friend has a staunch record as a defender of his community, and we have seen that again this evening. The hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) also made a contribution.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) welcomed the Government's stance on steel tariffs and the Americans. I have no doubt that the Government will reinforce their position at every opportunity. He also referred to attempts by the ISTC to buy Llanwern steelworks. He rightly derided as irrelevant the nationalists' attempt to link the donation from Mr. Mittal to the Prime Minister's letter to the Romanian Prime Minister. He spoke about our steel heritage but he also stressed the importance of a modern Wales. He spoke legitimately as a Member representing a steel area—a steel town that has produced steel for the last 100 years.
  The hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin)—the Tories have formed a new alliance—congratulated Plaid Cymru on securing this debate. He clearly demonstrated that there are close links between the two conservative parties in Wales. My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) paid tribute to the efforts made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon following the awful tragedy at Port Talbot steelworks. He also strongly attacked the nationalists and the Tories for their smears—their trademark throughout. It is a travesty of history to say that the job losses at Corus are the responsibility of this Government. We have done everything possible to prevent those job losses. My hon. Friend the Member for Gower spoke movingly of his efforts and those of his colleague in the Welsh Assembly to try to avoid the closure of the works at Bryngwyn.
  The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) said that Corus's difficulties had been known about for years, and asked what the Government were

  207
  doing. All I can do is refer to his remarks at a meeting of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, when he said to Sir Brian Moffat:
  "You have already confirmed today and it was in the Western Mail yesterday, that there have been 145 meetings with Ministers and Members of Parliament over the last two years."
  That is what we were doing in the two years before Corus announced the job losses.
  The remarks made by the hon. Members for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) and for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) were very similar. The hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr said that the Prime Minister had asked the Romanians to sell the Sidex plant to Mr. Mittal. That is not true. He went on to say that this Government had given financial support to Mr. Mittal to buy a steelworks in Kazakhstan. That is not true. He went on to say that there had been a late bid by the French to acquire the Sidex steel plant, but that is not the case. He went on to accuse one of the Prime Minister's staff, Jonathan Powell, of amending a letter, but that is not the case either. For good measure, the hon. Gentleman then decided to impugn the integrity of our ambassador in Romania. That is the level that we have come to expect of the hon. Gentleman's contributions.
  Mr. Roger Gale: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Touhig: No, the hon. Gentleman has only just come into the Chamber.
  The hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr went on to insist that there were links between Mr. Mittal's donation to the Labour party and the Prime Minister writing a letter, but the hon. Gentleman then added that the evidence may be circumstantial. He cannot have it both ways. He ended his speech with every clichèknown to man, save "God is love" and "Please adjust your dress before leaving the cubicle."
  Adam Price: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Touhig: The hon. Gentleman has had his chance. He left the Chamber part way through the debate, perhaps to give another television interview, and I am having my say now. He had his earlier.
  The hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford congratulated Plaid Cymru on the choice of subject for the debate and said that Conservative Members would join Plaid Cymru Members in the Lobby tonight. That is nothing new. The Tories and the nationalists are always in the same Lobby.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to the letter that the Prime Minister had written to the Prime Minister of Romania. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke earlier, he referred to the fact that the Sidex sale was important to economic reform in Romania. In a written answer to a question tabled by the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred to Romania and said:
  "Privatisation of its steel industry through the sale of Sidex is an important element in its economic reform which will help to establish a level playing field between EU and Romanian steel
  208
  producers and should lead to a reduction in levels of state subsidies which disadvantage UK steel producers."—[Official Report, 14 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 612W.]
  That is exactly the same message as we had from Corus more than a year ago.
  Mr. Gale: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Touhig: No, I will not give way. Sit down.
  If there is one thing that has characterised this debate, it is the remarkable similarity between the arguments deployed by the Conservatives and by their partners in Wales, Plaid Cymru. It has been a rerun of last week's debate on Welsh affairs, when we could not insert a cigarette paper between the arguments of the two parties. In Wales, Plaid Cymru Members say that they are socialists, yet night after night they troop through the Lobbies and vote with the Conservatives. They will do that again at 7 pm and they will do it again in the days to come. The Tories and their new partners, the daffodil Tories, are working together against the interests of the people of Wales.
  Indeed, so similar were the contributions of the hon. Members for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr and for Maldon and East Chelmsford that they could go on the stage as a double act. We have had Laurel and Hardy; we have had Morecambe and Wise; now we have smear and innuendo—the typical way in which they sought to distort the real truth of this argument.
  The debate has been very instructive. The fact that the Tory party has no understanding of our steel communities is not news to anyone—not to those in Gwent, Clwyd, Teesside, Corby or Lanarkshire. However, what constantly amazes me is the Conservatives' brass neck. These are the friends of Asil Nadir, Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer. They look more often like a remand centre than a political party, yet they come here to lecture us on standards in public life. The cheek of it! They have no shame. The Labour party and the Labour Government opened up scrutiny of political donations. We do not even know who paid the Conservatives' 1997 election bills, because they have not released that information.
  As for the Welsh nationalists, they are silent as the grave when asked about their attempts to raise funds from foreign backers in the United States. We do not hear much from them about that. Those who thought that devolution might lead to greater maturity on the part of Plaid Cymru have been sadly disappointed, although few Labour Members will be surprised by that.
  What has been surprising, however, is the complete lack of thought in Plaid Cymru's arguments in this debate. It tells us that it wants a Wales in Europe; that has been its whole theme. Until now, Britain has not existed. It has been the place that nationalists have wanted nothing to do with, but today they have argued against policies needed to strengthen Europe, to encourage trade within Europe and to help the European Union grow.
  Plaid Cymru Members tell us that they want strong regional policies and structural funding in Europe, but apparently that must not apply to parts of Europe that are not called Wales. That point again emphasises their narrow, nationalist approach. They go on, as they did earlier, about their concerns about tariffs. We have concerns about tariffs, but Labour Members in the European Parliament are not arguing with their colleagues

  209
  in support of tariffs. One cannot have it both ways. One is either for or against tariffs, but the nationalists clearly do not know what they are for and what they are against.
  The nationalists did not stop to think about the issue that they were raising today. Like children going into a sweet shop, they thought that they had a good story with which they could knock the Government. They immediately sought to exploit it during the Ogmore by-election, but did that work? No, it did not, because a Labour Member—we won—now represents Ogmore in this Chamber.
  At the heart of this argument is a letter sent by the Prime Minister to the Prime Minister of Romania. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already referred to it, and it is not a secret that the Prime Minister wrote to the Prime Minister of Romania. I have the letter here that was published on 25 July last year by the Romanians at the signing ceremony. However, the Hercule Poirot of Plaid Cymru, the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr, now gives the impression, supported by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, that they have just discovered it.
  The hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr then sought to link the letter that the Prime Minister sent to a donation that Mr. Mittal made to the Labour party, but that donation has been known about since May and June of last year. It is not yet another great Hercule Poirot discovery, but just a sham. Both the letter and the donation have been in the public arena for eight or nine months.
  As to the impact of the Prime Minister's letter to the Romanians, I refer to a comment made by the Prime Minister of Romania on 11 February when he was asked about articles in the British press that referred to our Prime Minister's letter. The Romanian Prime Minister said:
  "I would like to make it very clear. A privatisation like the one at SIDEX cannot be done on the basis of a letter, irrespective of from whom it would come. Secondly, the letter came at a moment when, after months, the examination and evaluation process had been completed and a decision had been taken."
  He said that the letter came as his Government were preparing to sign the contract. That is the truth of it; there is no link whatever.
  After months of unending bad news, weak leadership and three electoral trashings in eight months, Plaid Cymru thought that it had a stick with which to beat the Government, but it has got it wrong yet again. We know the rotten nature of its policies. They are like so many decaying teeth; they are falling out in front of it.
  At the end of the debate, Plaid Cymru will still have a second-rate leader and third-rate policies. As has been shown in the debate, the party is governed by narrow bigotry, a little Wales-ism and a hatred of anything that succeeds. It does not even qualify for a fifth-rate political party tag. Bankrupt of real policies, badly led, riven with divisions and afraid to tackle the language of extremists, this rag-bag bunch masquerading as a political party have failed Wales today. I invite my hon. Friends to come into the Lobbies with me and deliver it a resounding defeat in the vote.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 192, Noes 318.

  Division No. 180]

  [6.59 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Hammond, Philip

  Allan, Richard

  Harris, Dr Evan (Oxford W)

  Amess, David

  Hawkins, Nick

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Hayes, John

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Heald, Oliver

  Bacon, Richard

  Heath, David

  Barker, Gregory

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Baron, John

  Hendry, Charles

  Barrett, John

  Hermon, Lady

  Beggs, Roy

  Hoban, Mark

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Bellingham, Henry

  Holmes, Paul

  Bercow, John

  Horam, John

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Blunt, Crispin

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Boswell, Tim

  Hunter, Andrew

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Brady, Graham

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Brazier, Julian

  Johnson, Boris (Henley)

  Breed, Colin

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L

  Keetch, Paul

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Kennedy, Rt Hon Charles

  Burnett, John

  (Ross Skye & Inverness W)

  Burns, Simon

  Key, Robert

  Burnside, David

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Burstow, Paul

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Burt, Alistair

  Knight, Rt Hon Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Butterfill, John

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Cable, Dr Vincent

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Lamb, Norman

  Cameron, David

  Lansley, Andrew

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Laws, David

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Cash, William

  Lidington, David

  Chope, Christopher

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Clappison, James

  Loughton, Tim

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Luff, Peter

  Collins, Tim

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Conway, Derek

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Cotter, Brian

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  Malins, Humfrey

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Maples, John

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Mates, Michael

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

  Duncan, Alan (Rutland & Melton)

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Sutton Coldfield)

  Duncan Smith, Rt Hon lain

  Moore, Michael

  Evans, Nigel

  Murrison, Dr Andrew

  Ewing, Annabelle

  Norman, Archie

  Fabricant, Michael

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Fallon, Michael

  Öpik, Lembit

  Field, Mark (Cities of London)

  Osborne, George (Tatton)

  Flight, Howard

  Ottaway, Richard

  Flook, Adrian

  Page, Richard

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Paice, James

  Francois, Mark

  Paterson, Owen

  Gale, Roger

  Pickles, Eric

  Garnier, Edward

  Price, Adam

  George, Andrew (St Ives)

  Prisk, Mark

  Gibb, Nick

  Pugh, Dr John

  Gidley, Sandra

  Randall, John

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Goodman, Paul

  Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

  Gray, James

  Rendel, David

  Grayling, Chris

  Robertson, Angus (Moray)

  Green, Damian (Ashford)

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham)

  Greenway, John

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  Grieve, Dominic

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Hague, Rt Hon William

  Rosindell, Andrew

  211

  Ruffley, David

  Thurso, John

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Tonge, Dr Jenny

  Salmond, Alex

  Tredinnick, David

  Sanders, Adrian

  Trend, Michael

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Trimble, Rt Hon David

  Selous, Andrew

  Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Shepherd, Richard

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Simmonds, Mark

  Watkinson, Angela

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Webb, Steve

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

  Weir, Michael

  Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

  Whittingdale, John

  Soames, Nicholas

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Wiggin, Bill

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Willetts, David

  Spink, Bob

  Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Williams, Roger (Brecon)

  Steen, Anthony

  Willis, Phil

  Streeter, Gary

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Stunell, Andrew

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Swayne, Desmond

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Swire, Hugo

  Younger-Ross, Richard

  Syms, Robert

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Mr. Simon Thomas and

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Pete Wishart.

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Alexander, Douglas

  Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Allen, Graham

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Clelland, David

  Austin, John

  Coaker, Vernon

  Bailey, Adrian

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Baird, Vera

  Cohen, Harry

  Banks, Tony

  Coleman, lain

  Barron, Kevin

  Connarty, Michael

  Beard, Nigel

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Cooper, Yvette

  Corston Jean

  Benn, Hilary

  Cousins, Jim

  Bennett, Andrew

  Cranston, Ross

  Benton, Joe

  Crausby, David

  Berry, Roger

  Cruddas, Jon

  Betts, Clive

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Blackman, Liz

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Cummings, John

  Blizzard, Bob

  Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

  Borrow, David

  Dalyell, Tarn

  Bradley, Rt Hon Keith (Withington)

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Davidson, Ian

  Brown, Rt Hon Nicholas (Newcastle E & Wallsend)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

  Bryant, Chris

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Dawson, Hilton

  Burden, Richard

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Burgon, Colin

  Denham, Rt Hon John

  Burnham, Andy

  Dismore, Andrew

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Dobbin, Jim

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

  Doran, Frank

  Cairns, David

  Dowd, Jim

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Drew, David

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Drown, Ms Julia

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Casale, Roger

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Caton, Martin

  Efford, Clive

  Cawsey, Ian

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Challen, Colin

  Ennis, Jeff

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Farrelly, Paul

  Chaytor, David

  Field, Rt Hon Frank (Birkenhead)

  Clapham, Michael

  Fisher, Mark

  212

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Loma

  Laxton, Bob

  Flint, Caroline

  Lazarowicz, Mark

  Follett, Barbara

  Lepper, David

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Leslie, Christopher

  Foster, Michael (Worcester)

  Levitt, Tom

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Foulkes, George

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Francis, Dr Hywel

  Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

  Galloway, George

  Linton, Martin

  Gapes, Mike

  Love, Andrew

  Gardiner, Barry

  Lucas, Ian

  George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

  Luke, Iain

  Gerrard, Neil

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  McCabe, Stephen

  Gilroy, Linda

  McCafferty, Chris

  Godsiff, Roger

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian

  Goggins, Paul

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  MacDonald, Calum

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  McDonnell, John

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  MacDougall, John

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  McFall, John

  Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Hanson, David

  McIsaac, Shona

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  McKechin, Ann

  Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Healey, John

  McNulty, Tony

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  MacShane, Denis

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Hepburn, Stephen

  McWalter, Tony

  Heppell, John

  McWilliam, John

  Hewitt, Rt Hon Ms Patricia

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Heyes, David

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Hill, Keith

  Mallaber, Judy

  Hinchliffe, David

  Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

  Hodge, Margaret

  Marris, Rob

  Hoey, Kate

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Martlew, Eric

  Hope, Phil

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

  Miliband, David

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Miller, Andrew

  Howells, Dr Kim

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Moffatt, Laura

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford)

  Mole, Chris

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Moran, Margaret

  Hurst, Alan

  Morgan, Julie

  Hutton, Rt Hon John

  Morley, Elliot

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Mudie, George

  Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

  Mullin, Chris

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead)

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Jamieson, David

  Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

  Jenkins, Brian

  Naysmith. Dr Doug

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W& Hessle)

  Norris, Dan

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Organ, Diana

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Osborne, Sandra (Ayr)

  Joyce, Eric

  Owen, Albert

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Palmer, Dr Nick

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Pearson, Ian

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Perham, Linda

  Kelly, Ruth

  Picking, Anne

  Khabra, Piara S

  Pike, Peter

  Kidney, David

  Plaskitt, James

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Pollard, Kerry

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Pond, Chris

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

  Pound, Stephen

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Prosser, Gwyn

  213

  Purchase, Ken

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Quin, Rt Hon Joyce

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Rammell, Bill

  Stringer, Graham

  Rapson, Syd

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Raynsford, Rt Hon Nick

  Tami, Mark

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Taylor, Rt Hon Ann (Dewsbury)

  Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

  Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

  Timms, Stephen

  Rooney, Terry

  Tipping, Paddy

  Ross, Ernie

  Todd, Mark

  Roy, Frank

  Touhig, Don

  Ruane, Chris

  Trickett, Jon

  Ruddock, Joan

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Ryan, Joan

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Salter, Martin

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Sawford, Phil

  Tynan, Bill

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Sheerman, Barry

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Sheridan, Jim

  Wareing, Robert N

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  Watson, Tom

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Watts, David

  Singh, Marsha

  White, Brian

  Skinner, Dennis

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Wills, Michael

  Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe)

  Winnick, David

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Woodward, Shaun

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Wray, James

  Soley, Clive

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Southworth, Helen

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Spellar, Rt Hon John

  Wyatt, Derek

  Squire, Rachel

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Mr. Nick Ainger and

  Stevenson, George

  Mr. Phil Woolas.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
  The House divided: Ayes 306, Noes 181.

  Division No. 181]

  [7.14 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Bryant, Chris

  Alexander, Douglas

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Burden, Richard

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Burgon, Colin

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Burnham, Andy

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Austin, John

  Cairns, David

  Bailey, Adrian

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Baird, Vera

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Banks. Tony

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Barron, Kevin

  Casale, Roger

  Beard, Nigel

  Caton, Martin

  Benn, Hilary

  Cawsey, Ian

  Bennett, Andrew

  Challen, Colin

  Benton, Joe

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Berry, Roger

  Chaytor, David

  Betts, Clive

  Clapham, Michael

  Blackman, Liz

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Blizzard, Bob

  Borrow, David

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Bradley, Rt Hon Keith (Withington)

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Brown, Rt Hon Nicholas (Newcastle E & Wallsend)

  Clelland, David

  Coaker, Vernon

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  214

  Cohen, Harry

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Coleman, Iain

  Hope, Phil

  Connarty, Michael

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

  Cooper, Yvette

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Corston, Jean

  Howells, Dr Kim

  Cousins, Jim

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Cranston, Ross

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford)

  Crausby, David

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Cruddas, Jon

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Hurst, Alan

  Cryer, John (Homchurch)

  Hutton, Rt Hon John

  Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

  Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

  Dalyell, Tam

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Davidson, Ian

  Jamieson, David

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Jenkins, Brian

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W& Hessle)

  Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  Denham, Rt Hon John

  Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Dismore, Andrew

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Dobbin, Jim

  Joyce, Eric

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Doran, Frank

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Dowd, Jim

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Drew, David

  Kelly, Ruth

  Drown, Ms Julia

  Khabra, Piara S

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Kidney, David

  Edwards, Huw

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Efford, Clive

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  Ennis, Jeff

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Farrelly, Paul

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Field, Rt Hon Frank (Birkenhead)

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Fisher, Mark

  Laxton, Bob

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Lazarowicz, Mark

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Lepper, David

  Flint, Caroline

  Leslie, Christopher

  Follett, Barbara

  Levitt, Tom

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Foster, Michael (Worcester)

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

  Foulkes, George

  Linton, Martin

  Francis, Dr Hywel

  Love, Andrew

  Galloway, George

  Lucas, Ian

  Gapes, Mike

  Luke, Iain

  Gardiner, Barry

  McAvoy, Thomas

  George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

  McCabe, Stephen

  Gerrard, Neil

  McCafferty, Chris

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian

  Gilroy, Linda

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Godsiff, Roger

  MacDonald, Calum

  Goggins, Paul

  McDonnell, John

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  MacDougall, John

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  McFall, John

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  McIsaac, Shona

  Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

  McKechin, Ann

  Hanson, David

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  McNulty, Tony

  Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

  MacShane, Denis

  Healey, John

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  McWalter, Tony

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  McWilliam, John

  Hendrick, Mark

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Heppell, John

  Mallaber, Judy

  Hewitt, Rt Hon Ms Patricia

  Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

  Heyes, David

  Marris, Rob

  Hill, Keith

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Hodge, Margaret

  Martlew, Eric

  Hood, Jimmy

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  215

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Miliband, David

  Sheerman, Barry

  Miller, Andrew

  Sheridan, Jim

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  Moffatt, Laura

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Mole, Chris

  Singh, Marsha

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Skinner, Dennis

  Moran, Margaret

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Morgan, Julie

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Morley, Elliot

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Mudie, George

  Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe)

  Mullin, Chris

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Soley, Clive

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Spellar, Rt Hon John

  Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

  Squire, Rachel

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Norris, Dan

  Steinberg, Gerry

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  O'Neill, Martin

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Organ, Diana

  Stringer, Graham

  Osborne, Sandra (Ayr)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Owen, Albert

  Tami, Mark

  Palmer, Dr Nick

  Taylor, Rt Hon Ann (Dewsbury)

  Pearson, Ian

  Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

  Perham, Linda

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Picking, Anne

  Timms, Stephen

  Pike Peter

  Tipping, Paddy

  Plaskitt, James

  Todd, Mark

  Pollard Kerry

  Touhig, Don

  Pond, Chris

  Trickett, Jon

  Pound, Stephen

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Prescott Rt Hon John

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Tynan, Bill

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Purchase, Ken

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Quin, Rt Hon Joyce

  Wareing, Robert N

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Watson, Tom

  Rammell, Bill

  Watts, David

  Rapson, Syd

  White, Brian

  Raynsford, Rt Hon Nick

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  (Swansea W)

  Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

  Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

  Wills, Michael

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

  Winnick, David

  Rooney, Terry

  Woodward, Shaun

  Ross, Emie

  Wray, James

  Roy, Frank

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Ruane, Chris

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Ruddock, Joan

  Wyatt, Derek

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Ryan, Joan

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Salter, Martin

  Mr. Nick Ainger and

  Sawford, Phil

  Mr. Phil Woolas.

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Brazier, Julian

  Allan, Richard

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L

  Amess, David

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Burnett, John

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Burns, Simon

  Barker, Gregory

  Burnside, David

  Baron, John

  Burstow, Paul

  Barrett, John

  Burt, Alistair

  Beggs, Roy

  Butterfill, John

  Berth, Rt Hon A J

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Bellingham, Henry

  Cameron, David

  Bercow, John

  Cash, William

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Chope, Christopher

  Blunt, Crispin

  Clappison, James

  Boswell, Tim

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Collins, Tim

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Conway, Derek

  Brady, Graham

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  216

  Cotter, Brian

  Mates, Michael

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Sutton Coldfield)

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  Moore, Michael

  Duncan, Alan (Rutland & Melton)

  Murrison, Dr Andrew

  Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

  Norman, Archie

  Duncan Smith, Rt Hon lain

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Evans, Nigel

  Öpik, Lembit

  Ewing, Annabelle

  Osborne, George (Tatton)

  Fabricant, Michael

  Ottaway, Richard

  Fallon, Michael

  Page, Richard

  Field, Mark (Cities of London)

  Paice, James

  Flight, Howard

  Paterson, Owen

  Flook, Adrian

  Pickles, Eric

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Price, Adam

  Francois, Mark

  Prisk, Mark

  Gale, Roger

  Pugh, Dr John

  Garnier, Edward

  Randall, John

  George, Andrew (St Ives)

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Gibb, Nick

  Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

  Gidley, Sandra

  Rendel, David

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Robertson, Angus (Moray)

  Goodman, Paul

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham)

  Gray, James

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  Grayling, Chris

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

  Green, Damian (Ashford)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Greenway, John

  Ruffley, David

  Grieve, Dominic

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John

  Salmond, Alex

  Hague, Rt Hon William

  Sanders, Adrian

  Hammond, Philip

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Harris, Dr Evan (Oxford W)

  Selous, Andrew

  Hawkins, Nick

  Shepherd, Richard

  Hayes, John

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Heald, Oliver

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

  Heath, David

  Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

  Hendry, Charles

  Soames, Nicholas

  Hermon, Lady

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Hoban, Mark

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Spink, Bob

  Holmes, Paul

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Steen, Anthony

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Streeter, Gary

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Stunell, Andrew

  Hunter, Andrew

  Swayne, Desmond

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Swire, Hugo

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Syms, Robert

  Johnson, Boris (Henley)

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Thurso, John

  Keetch, Paul

  Tonge, Dr Jenny

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

  Tredinnick, David

  Trend, Michael

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Trimble, Rt Hon David

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Knight, Rt Hon Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Watkinson, Angela

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Webb, Steve

  Lamb, Norman

  Weir, Michael

  Lansley, Andrew

  Whittingdale, John

  Laws, David

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Wiggin, Bill

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Willetts, David

  Lidington, David

  Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Williams, Roger (Brecon)

  Loughton, Tim

  Willis, Phil

  Luff, Peter

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Younger-Ross, Richard

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Malins, Humfrey

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Maples, John

  Mr. Simon Thomas and

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Pete Wishart.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House recognises the fundamental strengths of the British steel industry, which is amongst the most efficient in the world; believes that, despite the regrettable decision of Corus to cut UK steel capacity, the industry has a long term future in Britain, as recently demonstrated by the decision of Corus to invest in the Port Talbot works; further recognises that the success of economic restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe, together with the enlargement of the European Union, is essential for the future of the British steel industry and other British manufacturing as it will extend markets and reduce hidden subsidies; congratulates the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for its work on restructuring the Romanian and other Eastern European companies, including through supporting the successful sale of the SIDEX steel corporation; and further welcomes measures put in place by the Government and the National Assembly for Wales to train and retrain former steel workers and regenerate communities affected by Corus job losses.
  7.27 pm
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have you had any indication from the Secretary of State for Health that he intends to make a statement to the House this evening, possibly at 10 pm, on the suspension of a civil servant in his Department? It apparently arises from the failure of the Department of Health to answer a number of parliamentary questions. As those were parliamentary questions, Parliament has a right to hear about the matter, rather than learning about it from the media. Hon. Members have not been properly notified; we should not hear about the matter on the news. The Secretary of State should make a statement in the House.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): I am not aware of the matter to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but he has made the point that he wanted to make. I have no knowledge of a statement being requested.
  Mr. Nicholas Soames: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. On a different matter, but connected with a parliamentary question, I seek your guidance in respect of an astonishing answer that I have received tonight from the Under-Secretary of State for Defence. I asked him on 6 February, which is a very long time ago—the answer is already a month late—to let me have the latest strength of the Territorial Army by unit and location, as against its establishment.
  I received a reply tonight, which states that the Under-Secretary regrets
  "that the strength and establishment of the TA by unit and location is not available".
  Even allowing for the Government's difficulty in assembling factual accuracy, to be polite, is it not astonishing that the answer to a question of such importance can be dealt with in such a way? As I have already waited a month for the answer, may I have your guidance on how it may be possible for us to establish the strength and establishment of the TA, which is, after all, the land defence of the United Kingdom?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but I have no responsibility for the content of ministerial answers.

Nuclear Power
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): I must inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
7.30 pm
Mr. Alex Salmond: I beg to move,
That this House notes that planning consents for nuclear and other power stations over 50 MW require consent under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989, and that in Scotland section 36 powers are the responsibility of Scottish ministers accountable to the Scottish Parliament; further notes the confusion in Government policy on this matter in light of the reported remarks by the Hon Member for Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley on Wednesday 27th February, suggesting that Westminster would have the final say over approving nuclear power stations in Scotland; reaffirms that in all circumstances Scottish ministers accountable to the Scottish Parliament should have full planning powers over the siting of nuclear and other new power stations above 50 MW in Scotland; believes that planning decisions on nuclear power in Wales should be taken in accordance with the views of the National Assembly for Wales; and calls for the development of energy strategies in Scotland and Wales which make full use of indigenous energy resources, including gas, clean coal technology, and the enormous potential for renewable supply.
In the previous debate, my colleagues from Plaid Cymru pressed for clarity on the Government's response to the accusations and information that they were bringing before the House, but clarity came there none. I hope that we have better luck in getting clarity on Government thinking on the development of power stations, especially nuclear power stations, in Scotland.
For those hon. Members who are not familiar with the story as it has developed over the past week, the chaos and confusion at the heart of the Government became evident in an interview that the Minister of State, Scotland Office gave to the BBC "Reporting Scotland" programme last week. On the development of energy, especially nuclear power, the hon. Gentleman said:
"Anyone looking at it logically would think it wouldn't be for a legislature which has powers devolved from Westminster to then thwart the policy of a UK Government on areas which are clearly reserved to Westminster, such as energy … It would look a wee hit daft if, in reserved areas, decisions were being made north of the border which had a very significant impact south of the border."
The hon. Gentleman may think that daft, but many Members of the Scottish Parliament and people in Scotland would think it daft to give powers to the Scottish Parliament in 1997, as confirmed by the people in a referendum, only to take them back a few years later.
The hon. Gentleman set out Government policy but, to be fair, it lasted only 12 hours. The following morning, again on the BBC—the recipient of so much information from the Government—the Minister for Industry and Energy responded by saying:

"The position is unambiguous. If anyone wants to build a power station of any kind in Scotland, it will be a matter for the Scottish Executive to determine. End of story."
We want the Government to clarify their policy. Where is the final decision to be made on the development of new power stations, including, more controversially, of nuclear power stations? Does the power lie with the Scottish Executive—responsible to the Scottish Parliament, "end of story", as the Minister for Industry and Energy said—or does it not behove the Scottish Parliament to thwart the

219
United Kingdom's energy policy, as the Minister of State, Scotland Office said? They cannot both be right. One must represent Government policy.
We know what is in the Scotland Act 1998. The Minister for Industry and Energy has been specific on the powers. In a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) and me in November, he made it clear that the powers rightly lie with the Scottish Executive. Incidentally, I know that the letter is important because the Prime Minister's office phoned my office on Thursday to request a copy. I have no idea why the right hon. Gentleman's office did not just ask the Minister. However, the letter confirmed the planning policy guidelines as set out in section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989, under which the power of consent for a power station of more than 50 MW lies with the Scottish Executive, responsible to the Scottish Parliament.
The power is not narrowly drawn. The guidelines for planning policy set out the criteria against which a decision should be judged. They include the policy of the Scottish Executive and the Government's policy on reserved matters, national planning policy guidelines, European policy, the draft structure or local plan, the environmental impact of a proposal, the design of a proposed development, access, the provision of infrastructure, the planning history of a site, the views of statutory bodies and other consultees, and legitimate public concern or support expressed on the relevant planning matters.
Until the intervention of the Minister of State, Scotland Office on the BBC last week, it was widely assumed that the power lay with the Scottish Executive. Our suggestion that there might be a reserve grab-back power that the Westminster Government would want to exert over the Scottish Parliament was described by the former First Minister of Scotland, Henry McLeish, in a letter to John Swinney on 23 August as "a sensationalist view". He accused the Scottish National party leader of publicising a sensationalist view, but only a few months later the Minister of State, Scotland Office has confirmed what my colleague argued might be at the back of the minds of the Government in London.
Mr. Simon Thomas: The hon. Gentleman refers to the accusation that his suggestion was a sensationalist view. Unfortunately, that view has come true in Wales: section 36 agreements were not devolved to Wales. In addition, the Government in London are increasingly attempting to take back the devolved powers that the National Assembly for Wales has over power stations between 1 MW and 50 MW. They are trying that policy out in Wales. It is surely the Government's intention to introduce it in Scotland as well.
Mr. Salmond: No doubt my hon. Friend will consider the Welsh position in detail if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is worth pointing out, however, that the letter from the Minister for Industry and Energy to my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy and me also dealt with the Welsh situation. Although it confirmed what my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) says, the Minister for Industry and Energy also said that the views of the Welsh people will be taken into account when any decision is
220
made. We are beginning to wonder whether the views of the Welsh and Scottish people will be listened to, taken into account and then disregarded if they are seen as thwarting Government policy.
I am interested in the role reversal—the political cross-dressing—that is taking place. The Minister of State, Scotland Office is a lifelong professed devolutionist. He once described himself as an ultra-devolutionist—a "dog of war"—as he harried the Tory Government in the early 1990s, but he now seems to be adopting the position that Westminster should have reserved powers over such matters. The Minister for Industry and Energy, however, whose record on devolution and the Scottish Parliament is chequered, seems to be emerging as the champion of the Scots Parliament by saying that the powers should reside in Scotland—"end of story". What is going on? Have they swapped their positions? Only last week, someone told me that it was like "Alice Through the Looking Glass", with the Minister of State, Scotland Office arguing the pure Unionist position and the Minister for Industry and Energy arguing from the Scottish perspective. Stranger things have seldom happened in politics.
Although the issue is important for energy development in Scotland, especially as nuclear power might be foisted on an unwilling Scottish Executive, Parliament and population, I want to determine whether a theme is developing in the attitude of the Scotland Office to the powers that are being exercised in the Scottish Parliament.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mrs. Helen Liddell): The hon. Gentleman talks about nuclear power stations being foisted on the Scottish people. Does he therefore support Bruce Crawford MSP in calling for civil disobedience?
Mr. Salmond: I am not familiar with that, but I remember taking part in peaceful civil disobedience against nuclear dumping in Scotland with many members of the Labour party. The right hon. Lady's views may develop on such matters, but mine do not.
Mrs. Liddell rose—
Mr. Salmond: If the Secretary of State can contain herself for a second, I will give way in a moment. No doubt she will take the opportunity to clarify Government thinking on the matter and tell us where the decision will be taken so that Mr. Crawford and others can decide how to react.
Mrs. Liddell: The hon. Gentleman need not worry: I shall have plenty of opportunities to make those points. Even if he has not heard statements from Mr. Crawford about civil disobedience, will he clarify his own view and tell us whether he supports its use in trying to stop the building of nuclear power stations—yes or no?
Mr. Salmond: It depends on the circumstances that might arise. Let me take the point further. Let us imagine the circumstances in which a majority—[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has been asked a question; he must be allowed to reply.
Mr. Salmond: I do not think that Labour Members are necessarily going to like the reply. If the Secretary of

221
State can envisage circumstances in which a majority in the Scottish Parliament want it to exercise its powers to stop the building of a nuclear power station, and if we can envisage a position a la gauleiter from Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, the Minister of State, Scotland Office, who wants to impose a Westminster veto on such democratic decisions, many people in Scotland may say that peaceful civil disobedience is appropriate.
Mrs. Liddell rose—
Mr. Salmond: I shall give way to the Secretary of State once more. If I may say so, I should then like to make just a little progress. I do not think there has been any time in politics when the Secretary of State has given way to me three times in a debate, never mind three times consecutively.
Mrs. Liddell: So the hon. Gentleman confirms that the answer is yes and that he supports civil disobedience.
Mr. Salmond: If the right hon. Lady is confirming that she and her Government intend to override a democratic view of the Scottish Parliament—[Interruption.] She nods; is she agreeing with the argument that Westminster is going to override that process? She nods again. If that is what is happening, I can assure her that many people in Scotland will think that the sort of response that I have described is appropriate. She will not join us on the barricades. but that is no surprise whatever.
Mr. Brian H. Donohoe: When will we hear exactly what alternative the Scottish National party proposes?
Mr. Salmond: I have just given way three times to the Secretary of State. I hope that the Minister for Industry and Energy, the other hon. Member for Cunninghame, shares his near neighbour's enthusiasm for the rights of the Scottish Parliament. I hope also that I shall be given a chance to develop my speech and that we will hear more about exactly that matter.
I was asking whether what is happening is part of a pattern or a one-off blunder by the Minister of State. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is a pattern."] My colleagues say that it is a pattern in which the Scotland Office is arguing for taking back the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Executive. I think that such a pattern is evident in current issues, such as free personal care—[Interruption.] I say to the parliamentary Labour party that that is an important policy for many people in Scotland. It was pursued by the Scottish Parliament, but there was subsequently a dispute with the Department of Health and the then Department of Social Security about the payment of £22 million that was held back. No doubt, the Scottish Executive looked to the Scotland Office for some support and wanted it to advance the argument as the custodian of the Scotland Act—after all, that is what the Secretary of State recently called herself. Instead, it seemed to adopt a policy of arguing in favour of the UK Departments, but against the Scottish Executive and the spirit of devolution.
The position on Sewel motions is extraordinary. Some 31 such motions have been passed from the Scottish Parliament to Westminster. The SNP agreed with many of them, but last week we saw the procedure that is now being adopted, whereby such a motion goes through the
222
Scots Parliament and is subsequently transformed and amended by this place, but does not go back to the Scots Parliament for confirmation. I think that we can see a pattern developing. People have asked about the role of the Scotland Office in the post-devolution environment. [Interruption.] I think that we are identifying that role now—it is to argue against Scotland and the Scottish Parliament and to thwart the Scottish Executive. [Interruption.] If hon. Members do not agree, they will have to cite examples. On free personal care, Sewel motions, nuclear power stations— [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House must listen to the hon. Gentleman's speech. Hon. Members cannot constantly intervene from a sedentary position.
Mr. Salmond: The sedentary interventions would not get a lot better if Labour Members got to their feet, so I do not think that we should complain too much.
The second issue that I want to explore relates to the circumstances in which any reasonable Scottish Executive will envisage a configuration of power and energy development in Scotland that is different from what is envisaged in Westminster. We had a good debate in the Scottish Grand Committee a couple of weeks ago—
Lembit Öpik: Before the hon. Gentleman moves away from nuclear power, does he agree that although it is certainly right for the whole United Kingdom to be involved in decisions about nuclear power—a nuclear accident would affect an area of its size—the crucial point is that the Government should not ride roughshod over the concerns of people in Scotland and Wales? One gets the feeling that there is a significant danger of that happening under the current policy arrangements.
Mr. Salmond: There is a significant danger. Perhaps the Minister of State is involved in a much more subtle plan than any of us realise.
The Minister of State, Scotland Office (Mr. George Foulkes): A cunning plan.
Mr. Salmond: Yes, perhaps he has a cunning plan and is the Baldrick of Scottish politics. As a lifelong, heartfelt devolutionist, perhaps the only way he could see of raising the issue about the Scottish Parliament—this point of view has been suggested to me—was to give that apparently careless interview to the BBC last week. Some people think that he was being much more cunning and was merely starting the argument running because he wants the position of Scotland and Wales to be defended. [Interruption.] It is clear that some of his colleagues think that that suggestion is a bit far-fetched, but I still have faith in him, even if they do not.
I was about to consider circumstances in which any reasonable Scottish Executive might determine that Scotland's energy configuration was different from that south of the border. Currently, if all the power stations in Scotland are running at full strength, we have a capacity of 12,499 MW. The normal running capacity is 9,000 MW and peak demand in Scotland is 5,000 MW. There is currently huge overcapacity in Scotland.
We have a huge opportunity in relation to two significant developments. In that context, the absence of the Minister for Industry and Energy from this debate is

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extraordinary, given that he represents half the story. He sat through the previous debate, but is not speaking in this one, despite the fact that his position is interesting and important in relation to it. I understand that he has an alternative diary engagement; obviously, that has not kept the Scotland Office away, although I accept that there can be pressures on the ministerial diary. None the less, he expressed his view that there is huge potential for development of renewable resources in Scotland, and it was backed by the Scottish Executive, which said that the proportion of Scottish electricity capacity provided by renewables could increase from its current level of 10 per cent. to 30 per cent.
Furthermore, as the Minister of State knows from visiting Peterhead power station in my constituency, we have not only the most efficient combined cycle gas reactor in the world, but 800 MW of spare capacity that cannot currently be used because the connecting lines on the east coast are inadequate for advancing the major opportunity to use gas power that is currently sitting unused. Scotland has under-invested in gas power in comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom and perhaps has more potential in terms of renewables than anywhere in Europe, to echo the comments of the Minister for Industry and Energy. I welcome his initiative and the establishment of the renewables unit; even though there are initially only six jobs, an important signpost for the future has none the less been given in Aberdeen this week.
Those are all important developments, but no one who considers the situation from a reasonable position—and certainly not the Government's energy policy review—in terms of a Scottish perspective of renewing the existing stations or establishing new ones after the old ones have reached the end of their economic or technical life could suggest other than that our nuclear option will be controversial, given the significance and prominence of clean technology coal and the potential for expansion of gas power, as well as the huge potential for renewables. I can well foresee—
Mr. Frank Doran: The hon. Gentleman has been on his feet for 20 minutes, much of which he has spent nitpicking about who said what and on what radio programme. When will he deal with SNP policy? Once a year he gets the opportunity to initiate a major debate in the House of Commons, but he is navel-gazing.
Mr. Salmond: The SNP's policy is set out in the motion, which calls for the
"full use of indigenous energy resources, including gas, clean coal technology, and the enormous potential of renewable supply",
but the amendment on the Order Paper does not clarify the Government's position. The Government say that they have full confidence in the planning processes in Scotland, which the Minister seemed to undermine last week, but they do not tell us what those planning processes are. The SNP approach to these matters is crystal clear: the Government's policy is masked in total confusion. I have dealt with clean coal technology, the potential expansion of gas and the enormous potential of renewable supplies.
Mr. Peter Duncan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene on this important section of his impressive speech.
The hon. Gentleman is detailing his concerns about the anticipated decline in nuclear power and saying that he and his party will oppose it here, in the Scottish Parliament and, if necessary, on the picket lines outside planning offices. How does he plan to replace that power with renewable power, given that the political reality is that SNP activists the length and breadth of Scotland oppose each and every renewable energy proposal that I have come across?
Mr. Salmond: The hon. Gentleman is being foolish. He is repeating something that was said in the Scottish Grand Committee. I have looked through some of the cuttings to find out who is supporting wind energy projects in Scotland. In Galloway, as the hon. Gentleman should know, Alasdair Morgan MSP is very much in favour of them. In Fenwick Moor in east Ayrshire, the two local SNP councillors, Katie Hall and Annie Hay, are leading the campaign in favour. Adam Ingram, the MSP for South of Scotland, is supporting the Eaglesham Moor project in that area.
I came across one MSP who has spoken up against a renewable project in Scotland—Jamie McGrigor, the Conservative MSP for Highlands and Islands, who spoke against it in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), who, like Margaret Ewing, the former MP, supports it. So the only person of political significance who has actively opposed the development of wind energy is the Conservative MSP for the Highlands. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) says, "Not guilty." He is disavowing Mr. McGrigor's activities.
The hon. Gentleman is right, however, that there is an organisation that opposes wind energy projects the length and breadth of Scotland. During the past year, it has singlehandedly stopped 14 wind energy projects in the south of Scotland, which have been detailed by Alasdair Morgan, the MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale. The Ministry of Defence, controlled by the Government, has scuppered every one of those projects because it thinks that they are a danger—[Interruption.] Conservative Front-Benchers say, "Quite right, too." I can see that there is unity there. The MOD thinks that such projects are a danger to low-flying aircraft.
I am happy to acknowledge that people in every one of the Scottish parties may object to one scheme or another. In the course of my extensive research, I came across a Member of Parliament who stood out against a key development in the electricity infrastructure—the interconnector linking Scotland and Ireland. He conducted that campaign as an Opposition party spokesman against the Conservative Government, continued it even after the late Donald Dewar gave the interconnector planning consent, and revived it when the Scottish Parliament was established, on the basis that he was no longer bound by collective responsibility: that Member is now the Minister of State, Scotland Office.
The Minister may have thought that he had good reason to oppose the interconnector because there was strong local feeling against it, and that he was doing no more than representing his constituents, but it ill behoves

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someone who takes that position to start to complain about Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Smith objecting to a wind policy planning application somewhere in Scotland. Before he starts to pick on ordinary people around Scotland, he should look at his own track record of trying to thwart political developments.
John Robertson: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify his response to the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan)? Is he saying that he is totally in favour of all renewables at any time, anywhere in Scotland?
Mr. Salmond: I am in favour of the target announced by the Scottish Executive, which is supported by the Minister for Industry and Energy. It should be possible to raise the contribution of renewables from 10 per cent. to 30 per cent. over the next 20 years, albeit that it will be a tough target to meet. It will require investment and infrastructure in the west of Scotland, where many people have huge enthusiasm for renewables projects. Securing the gas expansion that goes with it will require a huge investment in infrastructure—not only electricity lines, but of the gas network on the east coast of Scotland.
A few days ago the Minister sent me a courteous letter about a matter that I raised in the Scottish Grand Committee—entry charges for the gas system at St. Fergus compared with other landfill terminals such as Bacton. Entry charges south of the border are much lower. The Minister gave me a comprehensive answer in which he says that that is the result not of Government policy, but of the auction system; that the price that is determined in the auction for entry is determined by the capacity in the system. For the past 10 years, the price of entry at St. Fergus has been many times higher than that at southern terminals because capacity has been inadequate. Although St. Fergus is the most economic place for companies to use, they cannot get into the system.
Mr. Michael Connarty: Has not the hon. Gentleman kept up with the science? Sheerwater and others now carry out gas cleaning on the field. They do not put it through St. Fergus, but straight into the gas grid, so St. Fergus is no longer the bottleneck that he describes.
Mr. Salmond: The hon. Gentleman is not in command of the subject. Expansion is under way at St. Fergus. In the past few days, Marathon announced a 675 km pipeline from the north-east of Scotland to Bacton. The pipeline, which goes an enormous distance at enormous expense, is required because Marathon cannot get through the network at St. Fergus owing to undercapacity in the system.
Mr. Doran: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive my saying so, that is nonsense. The gas goes to Bacton so that it can be exported to Europe.
Mr. Salmond: The hon. Gentleman may not be familiar with the science. If the system is reinforced on land, gas can be exported anywhere through the gas system. It is not necessary to use an expensive offshore pipeline if the pipeline on land has sufficient capacity to take the gas. That is elementary. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of Parliament for the north-east of Scotland; I suggest that he familiarise himself with the oil and gas industry that he is meant to represent.
Mr. Roy Beggs: I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman's enthusiasm for
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renewables. Will he and his party give a commitment to support hydro-generating projects that are at the planning stage in Scotland? Experience has shown that it takes years to reach such decisions, which is damaging employment opportunities in my constituency.
Mr. Salmond: For the first time in 40 years there is a new hydro project in Scotland, for which the SNP has expressed support. It will be a test of whether people are prepared to accept the further development of that enormous resource, which was originally developed because of the vision of a group of people after the second world war. The straight answer to the hon. Gentleman is yes, we would.
So far, I have considered whether there is a pattern of the Scotland Office grabbing back powers from the Scottish Parliament and Executive. We will be interested to find out whether the position that holds is that of the Minister for Industry and Energy or that of the Minister of State, Scotland Office. I have considered Scotland's potential across a range of electricity-generating options, which, by common consent, is enormous.
Mr. Connarty: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Salmond: I have given way once to the hon. Gentleman; I have given way 10 times in total so far—perhaps more—which is reasonable, so I shall now make some progress. The hon. Gentleman might strike it lucky before the end of my contribution, which is slightly longer than I originally intended.
We know that the Conservative party has been the only party unambiguously in favour of nuclear power. The Labour party went into the 1997 election with the same policy as that which the SNP and the Liberal Democrats now have: that the current nuclear power stations should be phased out when they reach the end of their technical or economic life. The most recent Labour manifesto made no mention of that policy. No doubt, the policy might emerge as this debate continues, but it has a lot of support in the Scots Parliament, so it is entirely reasonable to suppose that a majority of its Members may well not want to give section 36 permission to develop a new nuclear power station in Scotland.
That brings us to the crux of the debate. If such a majority exists and the Scottish Parliament and the Executive, who are responsible to it, decide to say no to a new nuclear power station in Scotland, will that decision prevail, as the Minister for Industry and Energy has said; or will there be a reserved power, such as that alluded to by the Minister of State, Scotland Office? The Minister for Industry and Energy said that that decision would prevail—"end of story." We want the Government to tell us whether they and the Scotland Office share his view; whether they are willing to argue and fight for Scotland and the Scottish Parliament; or whether they want to thwart the democratic will of the Scottish people.
8.2 pm
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mrs. Helen Liddell): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
has confidence in the process of granting planning consent for new nuclear power stations in Scotland and Wales; notes the benefits of addressing issues relating to energy policy within a UK framework;

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welcomes the contribution of the recent PIU Energy Review to the debate on energy policy; and welcomes the intention of HM Government and the devolved administrations to work in partnership in implementing an energy policy to ensure energy supplies are secure, competitively priced and sustainable.
The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) spoke for 32 minutes, and we got to the crux of the issue 31 minutes into his speech, but the Government welcome debate about the future energy needs of our country. We are addressing those issues, as any responsible Government should, and we are in the midst of a fundamental review of energy needs. That is why the Cabinet Office has recently published the performance and innovation unit's energy review, why we will consult on it and why we are planning to publish a White Paper later this year.
Energy needs must—I repeat, must—be looked at in a United Kingdom context, in the interests of all our people and of the entire United Kingdom economy and environment. It has taken a visionary Labour Government to see the need to look 50 years into the future and assess what the United Kingdom-wide demand for energy throughout that period will be and how it might best be met. It has taken a visionary Labour Government to develop a strategy that ensures current policy commitments are consistent with longer-term goals.
Ensuring security of supply, tackling climate change and maintaining low prices are key issues. However, tonight's debate is not about the vital issue of energy but about the Scottish National party's distorted priorities. Its motion is based on the false assumption that the Government have a master plan to build more nuclear power plants and are determined to foist them on an unwilling Scotland. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are no such proposals. The Government have looked at all the options for energy supply for the next half a century and refused to rule anything out.
Mr. Salmond: Last week, the Minister for Industry and Energy said:
"The position is unambiguous. If anyone wants to build a power station of any kind in Scotland, it will be a matter for the Scottish Executive to determine. End of story."
Does the Secretary of State support that position?
Mrs. Liddell: I urge the hon. Gentleman to be patient. I will get to that point, and to a number of other issues that he raised. I suggest that he relax and hauds his wheesht for a wee while longer. This Government will keep open all our energy options so that we can do what is in the best interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Salmond: If we cannot find out whether the Secretary of State supports the position of the Minister for Industry and Energy, will she say whether she supports that of her own Minister of State, who said that reserved area decisions made north of the border should not have a significant impact south of the border?
Mrs. Liddell: Again, the hon. Gentleman should be patient. He is wasting more time, having called an unnecessary vote at 7.15 pm to delay the start of this debate, spoken for 32 minutes without saying anything and sought to delay the progress of the debate. What is he frightened about? I will come to what my hon. Friends said on BBC radio, but his motion raises several other issues, and I intend to take them into account as well.
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I shall now return to the fundamental assumption behind the PIU energy review: the need for a balanced energy policy. That is essential not just for our continued economic strength, but for our strategic security. The specific and very narrow issue that the SNP wants to discuss tonight is hypothetical and light-years away from the priorities of the Scottish people. The SNP has used its one chance in the year to have the Floor of the House to discuss not how we can advance Scotland's competitiveness or secure an environmentally balanced energy policy, but how planning consents work and who says what when—and even that is based on a false premise.
Mr. Doran: is my right hon. Friend surprised that the leader of the Scottish National party has taken that view? He is sitting next to the man whom his party seems to be spending so much time promoting as the hardest working Member of Parliament, and next to him is the sleaze-buster general, who seems to be making it his job to root out sleaze wherever he finds it. None of them has a policy of any interest to the Scottish people.
Mrs. Liddell: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Indeed, I shall deal with those points later. The people of Scotland want to know how we can secure for our children a place at the centre of the knowledge economy, with a robust and competitive economic environment, but the SNP wants to talk about a mythical company producing a proposal at some point in the distant future to build a nuclear power station that the Scottish Executive then reject on planning grounds. So what? That is their right. Planning is devolved, and the fact that executive devolution was granted to the Scottish Executive by the Government in relation to the Electricity Act 1989 as well is a sign of the close partnership between the Government and the Scottish Executive. I did not hear the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan refer to that Act during his speech; he obviously did not get round to that in his research.
Mr. Salmond: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mrs. Liddell: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman for the third time.
Mr. Salmond: Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 is part of what we are debating. The right hon. Lady seems to be saying that that power lies with the Scottish Executive, who are responsible to the Scottish Parliament. Is that the end of the story? If so, what on earth was the Minister of State talking about last week, when he said that the policy in Scotland should not
"thwart the policy of a UK Government"?
Who will take the final decision—Westminster or the Scottish Parliament?
Mrs. Liddell: I know that the hon. Gentleman likes the sound of his own voice, but if he will keep quiet a little longer, he will be told the definitive position.
The SNP always sees these issues in terms of confrontation, tension and failure. Its argument, like that of the hon. Gentleman, is ill informed and has been inadequately researched. It falters precisely because of the partnership that exists between the Scottish Executive and

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the Government. I have no doubt that the SNP wishes that there were no such partnership. Its only hope of carving out a future for its separatist ambitions is to seek to foster such conflict. It is out of touch and out of tune with the growth of a modern Scotland.
Annabelle Ewing: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Liddell: No, I am going to make some progress. The hon. Lady may be lucky in catching the eye of the Deputy Speaker later.
Let me explain the position, as set out in the Scotland Act 1998, on planning consents in general, not just for nuclear power stations. Planning law is devolved. It is clear that the intention behind the Scotland Act was that the Scottish Parliament would have legislative competence for the planning regime in general, and that would include its application to airports and nuclear power stations, just as much as it has competence for the planning regime for any other type of development.
Nuclear energy, however, is reserved by dint of section D4 of part II of schedule 5 to the Scotland Act. The provisions of schedule 4 also make it plain that the Scottish Parliament has legislative competence for planning in reserved areas to maintain consistency of approach throughout devolved and reserved areas. That deals with the point that we are discussing tonight.
I ask the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan to listen carefully to my next point because it concerns the area that he did not see fit to research. Scotland Office Ministers have been involved in discussions on two recent policy reviews in which consent procedures for major projects have come up: the performance and innovation unit energy review and the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions Green Paper on new procedures for dealing with major infrastructure projects of national importance.
In both instances, the Scottish Executive were involved in consultations with the PIU and the DTLR. Both reviews drew attention to the UK dimension of some major infrastructure projects. One such dimension is the extent to which reserved law continues to apply to the development of such major projects—law that is a matter for this Parliament, and law that this Parliament must make with regard not just to England and Wales but to Scotland.
For example, some of the infrastructure projects referred to in annexe C of the DTLR consultation paper require separate authorisations under specific legislation relevant to those developments, quite apart from planning development permissions. In particular, the construction of power stations or overhead power lines needs authorisation under part I of the Electricity Act, as well as needing planning permission. There are similar specific authorisation procedures for pipeline developments.
That means that both Parliaments may have legislative competence to make law relating to controls governing such infrastructure developments. But there are other ways in which UK responsibility may apply. In the context of energy developments such as power stations, it remains the responsibility of the Government and of this Parliament to ensure that there are sustainable and secure
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supplies of energy for industry and for domestic consumers throughout the UK. We have to have regard to this country's need for energy supplies.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Will the Secretary of State take into account the forecasts that after 10 years we may have to depend on Soviet and middle east supplies for up to 70 or 90 per cent. of our needs? In light of her remark about secure supplies, that is a daunting prospect. Can some of us be forgiven for being in favour of Hunterston C as well as new nuclear power stations at Sizewell and, probably, at Hinkley?
Mrs. Liddell: My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is a daunting prospect. The motion in the name of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan commits the SNP only to the use of indigenous energy supplies. One of the jobs of the Energy Minister is to keep the lights on; SNP policy would not get anywhere near that.
Sir Robert Smith: Does the right hon. Lady recognise that the prospect may not be as daunting as it first seems? First, the premise of the energy review was an over-pessimistic view of the growth in energy demand that is not matched by any previous projections. Secondly, the forecasts underestimate the potential for the North sea to continue to provide the country with considerable gas reserves. Finally, we must recognise that the European Union is supplied from many diverse gas sources.
Mrs. Liddell: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not be diverted down that route. We discussed that in the Scottish Grand Committee, and a consultation exercise will follow the PIU report. The successor to the oil and gas industry taskforce looked at all those issues, and they are not as clear-cut as the hon. Gentleman suggests.
Mr. Salmond: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Liddell: No, I want to make progress.
I turn now to other issues raised by the motion. It states that the Minister of State, Scotland Office is reported in the press as saying:
"Westminster would have the final say over approving nuclear power stations in Scotland".
Let me be absolutely clear: he said no such thing. I have the transcript here in front of me. In his interview with the BBC, my hon. Friend said:
"the decision might ultimately rest with the Westminster Government".
He went on to say:
"I think it is very important to establish the position absolutely clearly at an early stage so that we know who has the ultimate responsibility."
That is the statement of a sensible Minister addressing significant issues.
Naturally, as always, the SNP wants to turn this debate from a matter of common sense into a constitutional wrangle. It sees conspiracy in everything because, as it emphasised again this weekend, it lacks vision and, indeed, the commitment to devolution that allows mature reflection on issues that require further analysis. SNP Members need to learn to leave their paranoia in the cloakroom if they wish to be taken seriously.

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What is more, the United Kingdom has international treaty obligations on energy and the environment, and as a responsible Government, working with a responsible Scottish Executive, we need to ensure that we do not build in obstacles to meeting those obligations, which are not devolved. These are complex matters requiring mature consideration. Responsible Ministers have to seek clarity in these complex areas before specific issues arise. There must be no question of the United Kingdom being restricted in meeting our international obligations, for example, in relation to Kyoto and the liberalisation of European energy markets.
As part of the DTLR review, we must be prepared to look at all the issues that are raised. That is what makes us a competent Government, and indeed a Government committed to ensuring that the devolution settlement works—something that the SNP is fundamentally opposed to. That is exactly the position to which my hon. Friend the Minister of State was alluding. He made it explicitly clear that Scottish Ministers have full planning powers on the siting of nuclear and other power stations. As an experienced and senior Minister, he made it clear that there are broader issues that it would be remiss of the Government to ignore.
I am conscious that the motion refers to Wales as well as Scotland, and I turn now to Wales, although I do not profess to have great expertise on Welsh planning matters.
Mr. Alan Reid: Before she turns to Wales, will the right hon. Lady answer a simple question? If a planning application for a nuclear power station in Scotland were submitted, who would have the final say over whether it should be built—a Scottish Minister or a UK Minister?
Mrs. Liddell: The hon. Gentleman plainly has not listened to what I have said. Planning consents are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Areas of executive devolution under the Electricity Act 1989 have been passed to the Scottish Executive. However, legislative responsibility for nuclear energy rests with Westminster.
Existing procedures for certain projects in Wales are a matter for the National Assembly. They involve a planning decision committee receiving an inspector's report following a public inquiry. The report brings together the relevant issues, including environmental concerns, and an environmental statement produced by the developer where necessary to meet environmental impact assessment requirements.
Cross-border infrastructure projects involving Wales are normally the subject of an application under the Transport and Works Act 1992. Decisions are normally taken by Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, and the Assembly must approve a draft order before a final order confirming a project can be made.
Planning responsibilities for major projects, such as power stations over 50 MW, are reserved to the United Kingdom Government and are not subject to the Transport and Works Act. Planning procedures for major projects
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are, of course, subject to the current DTLR consultation exercise, and I am sure that the National Assembly will make its views known to my colleagues at the DTLR.
Mr. Roger Williams: The Secretary of State has addressed Wales, but, for example, the Cefn Croes application for a large wind farm in Ceredigion was determined by a Minister at the Department of Trade and Industry. The Minister had the option of holding a public inquiry and there was considerable concern in Wales about the effect of the proposal on the landscape. He decided not to do that and issued permission. Should not the Government respond to the views of the people of Wales and hold public inquiries for contentious applications of that sort?
Mrs. Liddell: The hon. Gentleman may ask for that, and I shall undertake to ensure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales replies to him.
Let me return to the motion and examine energy policy. The whole House should thank the SNP for the information that we can glean from the motion. It provides rather more information about SNP energy policy than has hitherto existed. We can contrast its approach with the Government's approach to energy policy, which has been thoughtful, considered and mature. The SNP has nothing more to say about its energy policy than that it is an avowedly anti-nuclear party. Its decision to depend only on indigenous sources of supply puts in jeopardy the certainty of energy supplies.
The motion fails to take account of the maturity of the North sea and the certainty that we will soon be dependent on imports of gas. There is only one deep mine in Scotland, and it is experiencing geological difficulties. The SNP pays lip service to renewables, but in virtually every constituency where renewables issues arise, SNP activists campaign against them. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State pointed out at the Scottish Grand Committee that the proposal for Dailly in his own constituency is opposed by SNP activists on the not in my backyard principle once so loved by the Tories. The SNP's position is illogical, ill thought out and incompetent.
The new SNP leader John Swinney has said that he would
"not approve plans for any new nuclear power stations in Scotland—not now, not ever".
Tonight, we have heard the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan admit that he would be prepared to use civil disobedience to stop nuclear power stations being built. The SNP is gambling with the energy needs of Scotland.
Mr. John MacDougall: Does my right hon. Friend share my concern about the programme proposed in the SNP's indigenous resource strategy? I recently received a letter from the chief executive of Shell regarding the petrochemical plant at Mossmorran. Does my right hon. Friend agree with the chief executive that such a policy, and the loss of access to the rich Norwegian gas fields, would have a catastrophic impact on Mossmorran? Is not that another example of the loss of jobs that would result from an ill-considered policy?
Mrs. Liddell: My hon. Friend is correct and raises an issue of real concern to real people about real issues of

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policy. The SNP will long live to regret the sloppy drafting of the motion. SNP energy policy is a leap in the dark. Last weekend, it launched its "Talking Independence" campaign, and I wonder what its friends in Plaid Cymru have to say about that. We are told that SNP members will take presentations round the boardrooms of Scotland to persuade Scottish industry that its separatist policies will work.
Let us ignore for a moment the questions that the SNP will have to answer about how uncertainty, high taxation, insularity in the global marketplace and increased expenditure on defence, foreign embassies and re-fighting the cod war could possibly be good for Scottish business. Let us consider instead how its energy policy would radically hamper Scotland's competitiveness. While the rest of Europe seeks liberalised energy markets and the lower energy prices that would result from that, the SNP would take us back to tallow candles and gas lights.
Mr. Salmond: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Liddell: No.
Today's debate has exposed SNP energy and economic policy for the sham that it is. Rather than widen options for Scottish business, the SNP wants to narrow them. Rather than looking outward to seize the opportunities of energy liberalisation throughout Europe, the SNP wants to retrench, isolating the energy industry in Scotland, threatening security of supply, endangering the low energy prices enjoyed in this country and narrowing the range of energy suppliers available.
The SNP's energy policy is also—surprise, surprise—uncosted. The SNP has failed to spell out how it would pay for its policy on Dounreay and on the decommissioning of other nuclear facilities in Scotland if it were to lead Scotland to separation. In spite of the pledge in its 2001 manifesto that Dounreay would be
"supported as an international centre of decommissioning"
the SNP has not explained where the money would come from to cover the multi-billion pound price tag that UK taxpayers are currently picking up.
In a separate Scotland, the SNP would not only have to take on decommissioning costs for Dounreay, but pay for the closure and clean-up of other facilities at Rosyth and Faslane. Neither has the SNP given us the bottom line on unemployment. Not once have SNP Members talked about the consequences of their policies for ordinary people. They prefer to avoid concentrating on issues concerning the real people of Scotland, and revert, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan is proving as I speak, to the school debating chamber.
The SNP has blown this opportunity to try to play a constructive part in building a modern Scotland. It has set out for all to see the poverty of its ideas, the shallowness of its policies and its outdated obsession with constitutional wrangling. It is easy to see why the SNP was rejected by the people of Scotland. It will continue to languish on the fringes of the body politic.
The Government's amendment recognises the strength of the partnership between the Government and the Scottish Executive—a partnership endorsed by the people of Scotland and one that is making devolution work. I commend the Government's amendment to the House.
8.29 pm
Mrs. Jacqui Lait: When I was first appointed as shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, a Labour Member, after a Westminster Hall debate, said, "Welcome back to the bearpit of Scottish politics." I have to say that listening to what has gone on this evening reminds me more of a family quarrel, because most family quarrels are characterised by long-standing lines of argument that everyone knows, everyone has heard before, and everyone thoroughly enjoys, even though no one outside has the first clue what they are about. That certainly characterised the exchanges that we have just heard.
I congratulate the Scottish National party on securing this debate, although I slightly agree with the Secretary of State that it is a great shame that its annual outing should come down to the equivalent of a spat between two Ministers. I congratulate the SNP none the less. We were told that the terms of the debate were set in such a way that the Conservatives would be able to support them. Some hon. Members may have noticed the absence of the word "nuclear" from the motion, yet the first subject to be brought up was nuclear power, followed swiftly by an admission from the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) that he believed in civil disobedience. I cannot think of a quicker way of ensuring that the Conservatives would be unlikely to support the motion.
Mr. Salmond: I am puzzled as to why the hon. Lady thinks that this subject is not of sufficient importance. Only last Thursday, the sole Conservative Member of Parliament representing a Scottish constituency described this as a developing crisis at the heart of government. Was it a developing crisis last Thursday? Is it still a developing crisis? Has the hon. Lady changed her mind? She cannot disagree with her only Scottish representative.
Mrs. Lait: If the hon. Gentleman had possessed his soul in a little more patience, he would have recognised that I was going on to say, having listened carefully to the Secretary of State's explanation of the situation, that it raised more questions in my mind than the original alleged disagreement between the two Ministers. That is what I would like to explore tonight.
If I understand the right hon. Lady correctly, I do not think that there is any disagreement that section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 is devolved, and that the Scottish Executive would have the authority under the current planning structure to make a decision on a nuclear power station entirely on planning grounds.
Mrs. Liddell: There is a fundamental misunderstanding at the heart of what the hon. Lady is saying. The section 36 power is executive devolution; power to legislate remains with this Parliament.
Mrs. Lait: Yes, I accept that entirely. I am glad to have had clarification on the matter. I do not want this speech to turn into a dialogue, but it may well do so, because I am trying to extract the precise details of the situation.
As I understand it, under executive devolution, the Scottish Executive would have the power—entirely on planning grounds and no others—to agree or disagree on a new nuclear power station. If that is so—I accept the Secretary of State's point about the other part of the

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Electricity Act stating that the DTI would also have responsibility for related consents—and the UK Government had a strategic need for a new nuclear power station in Scotland, given that it would be a good thing for the Scottish Economy and the Scottish energy production industry to renew its nuclear power stations, and if the Scottish Executive were to turn down the consent for such a power station entirely on planning grounds, would there then be a continuing stream of applications from British Energy or any other company that wished to build a nuclear power station, based on the UK Government's strategic need for a nuclear power station in Scotland, or would Westminster insist on overriding the Scottish Executive?
Mrs. Liddell: I have heard of polyparenthetical sentences, but that one should probably take its place in "The Guinness Book of Records". The point to which the hon. Lady is referring is the very point that my hon. Friend, the Minister of State, Scotland Office, raised. There are issues, particularly in relation to large infrastructure projects, which are the subject of discussion at the moment.
Mrs. Lait: Right. Discussions—consultation exercises, whatever—are going on at this very moment between a Labour Government and a Labour-led Scottish Executive. What would happen if different political parties were running the UK Government and the Scottish Parliament? If there were a fundamental disagreement in those circumstances, which Government would take precedence? My understanding of what the Secretary of State has said is that, when push comes to shove, the UK Government would make the overriding decision. If that is the case, the fears expressed by the Scottish National party have some substance, because the final decision-making power right at the end of the system would rest with the UK Government.
Schedule 9 of the Scotland Act 1998 implies that there is a legal recourse only if Scottish Executive Ministers exceed their powers. There would be no legal recourse if the UK Government Ministers exceeded their powers. This brings into play the new planning review and the role of the UK Government in deciding on planning issues through the House of Commons. The statutory instrument procedure, which appears to be the procedure referred to in the consultation document, takes an hour and a half, as we all know. If the planning procedure comes into effect, how would it affect strategic decisions in relation to the Scottish Executive? It seems to me that it would override the Scottish Executive's planning powers under the Scotland Act 1988 and the executive devolution of the Electricity Act 1989.
I come inescapably to the conclusion that, however friendly the current UK Government are with the current Scottish Executive, should there ever be a conflict between the two Governments—we look forward to that happening sooner rather than later—there would he no legal recourse to a solution to such a conflict. That is precisely the point that came out of the debate between the Minister of State, Scotland Office and the Minister for Industry and Energy. That is why this debate is crucial; it goes way beyond the triviality of the motion tabled by the SNP and straight to the heart of the devolution settlement.
Mrs. Liddell: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way again, and I shall certainly not seek to interrupt her
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further. The best way that I can answer her point is to quote my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scotland Office in a recent BBC interview, which has been the subject of discussion this evening. He said:
"Well this is why we have to look at it to make sure that it is absolutely clear now in the context, not of a specific application but in the general context of public policy, important to determine what the position is."—
His syntax was not terribly good.
"Because if it came up in the context of a specific application then clearly other factors would be brought in to bear and wouldn't necessarily be considered in an objective way. I think it is very important to establish the position absolutely clearly at an early stage so that we know who had the ultimate responsibility, and that obviously has to take account of the responsibility of Westminster for reserved areas."
It is specifically that that my hon. Friend seeks to clear up.
Mrs. Lait: That is as clear as mud. The right hon. Lady is wriggling on the reality that Westminster retains control over the final decision on new nuclear power stations in Scotland. It is useful to have that clarification. It will he fascinating to see how the Government's consultation develops and what the reaction will be not just in the Scottish Executive but throughout the Scottish Parliament.
Scottish Executive Ministers could be overridden unless they set up a planning procedure similar to the one that the Government are suggesting for England and Wales, in which case there may be even more confrontation. The Government have yet again dodged some of the issues raised during the passage of the Scotland Bill in this House when we pointed out its inherent difficulties.
It will be interesting if the right hon. Lady does as it is rumoured she will and seeks to amend the Scotland Act with regard to the number of MSPs. That will require primary legislation, which might be a good opportunity to consider the responsibilities of the UK Government with regard to overriding the Scottish Executive on planning issues such as those relating to nuclear power stations.
I too want briefly to refer to Wales. Like the Secretary of State, I do not for a moment profess to any specific expertise in this area, but I want to draw her attention to the way in which, as far as we can make out, the Government overrode and took no account of the views of the National Assembly for Wales on wind farms. I simply ask whether that would be the approach to any nuclear power consents in Wales? Would the Minister for Industry and Energy override and ignore the National Assembly for Wales?
Mr. Simon Thomas: I believe that the wind farm to which the hon. Lady referred is Cefn Croes in my constituency, which was approved by the Department of Trade and Industry without reference to a public inquiry. I should say on the record that I supported that wind farm, but I felt strongly that there should be a public inquiry. The hon. Lady is right that that is a poor precedent for what might happen in terms of nuclear power development. I understand that the Conservative party supports nuclear power, but does the hon. Lady agree that it is vital that the people of Wales should decide what and where any such new energy development should be in Wales?
Mrs. Lait: That is a point with which I could only agree. It is crucial that the voice of local people and the

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National Assembly for Wales is heard. I do not wish to become directly involved in a constituency issue of the hon. Gentleman's, but as I understand it no account whatever was taken of the views of local people on Cefn Croes and, if that is so, apart from anything else, that overrides the basic planning approvals, and probably all hon. Members would agree that that is not the best way to proceed.
Conservatives, as many have already said, want to see balanced energy provision. Scotland produces 50 per cent. of its energy from nuclear power and exports 25 per cent. of its total production to other parts of the UK. so bringing income into Scotland. But Dounreay and Hunterston A are being decommissioned, Chapelcross is due for decommissioning in 2008. Hunterston B in 2011, and Torness not until 2023. As I understand it, there is no way that the Government's ambitious hopes for renewable energy could meet the gap if all those power stations were decommissioned.
Therefore, there is a need to ensure continuity of supply, particularly—the point made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)—given our increasing reliance on imported gas, the price of which is increasing on the continent, which will inevitably mean a price increase in the UK sooner rather than later.
We welcome the initiatives and commitments by Scottish Power and British Energy to renewables, but we also welcome British Energy's recent agreements to look at the potential for new nuclear power plants. It would seem sensible—this is the point that my MSP colleagues made to the PIU review—for nuclear power plants in Scotland to be sited at Hunterston and Torness where there is already an understanding of the benefits of nuclear power and where the infrastructure is in place. That may save the Secretary of State's bacon because there may be more understanding of nuclear power issues in areas where nuclear power stations already exist.
Mr. Russell Brown: The hon. Lady mentioned Hunterston and Torness, but what about Chapelcross?
Mrs. Lait: Chapelcross will be decommissioned in 2008. If British Energy and Scottish Power want to make a planning application for Chapelcross, that is their commercial decision. That is the basis on which I would want matters to proceed; I would not want Government interference.
Mr. Salmond: What is the position of the hon. Lady's party on the development of further combined cycle gas stations in Scotland? Only 15 per cent. of our capacity derives from combined cycle gas, but—according to the Government's own energy review figures—it costs a quarter as much as nuclear power. Does the hon. Lady think that its use should be extended?
Mrs. Lait: I hope that the hon. Gentleman heard me say that we believe in a balanced energy policy. If the private sector believes that that is the way forward and commercial reasons exist for pursuing it, the private sector should put forward proposals on ensuring the provision of sufficient energy at a reasonable price.
Mr. Salmond: Is the hon. Lady saying that she is content to let the market decide? Will the market control
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people's choice of gas or nuclear power, or does she envisage an ongoing Government subsidy for nuclear power?
Mrs. Lait: The problem is that the hon. Gentleman's argument is based on a very left-wing political stance that does not understand the market and the need to meet its requirements. [Interruption.] I do not want to get involved in a dialogue on this issue, but one must take account of the fact that science moves on. Some interesting developments are taking place in the provision of nuclear power and/or other forms of energy, which will transform the economics of power provision in the coming years.
We need to break free from parallel lines of thinking—whereby only one form of nuclear power provision exists—and develop new forms. We must look to those who are dedicated to providing decent energy for the UK at the lowest possible cost to offer suggestions on how to develop power provision. That is what we Conservatives support. Labour Members' support for privatisation and references to the market provision of energy is a major change in Labour's energy policy that we can only welcome. I want Scotland to continue to develop and produce energy, but I am concerned that the SNP's policy would limit Scotland's opportunities rather than enhance them.
8.48 pm
Mr. Bill Tynan: I welcome the opportunity to participate in this vital debate on energy. A constructive debate is necessary, and it is a shame that our discussion has so far been based not on future energy requirements but on the SNP's anti-nuclear stance. The performance and innovation unit's report makes it clear that many questions need to be answered, and it is absolutely essential that the consultation process be based on that report. The consultation process should not be restricted by the dogma of a particular party, but should range as widely as possible. We must consider how best to deliver a balanced energy policy, whether in Scotland or in England.
It is true that, at the moment, Britain is self-sufficient in energy, but that is coming to an end. The fact is that, according to current predictions, we will be a net importer of natural gas within three or four years.
If our present policy remains unchanged, as my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) said, gas will supply 70 per cent. of our electricity needs by 2025, and 90 per cent. of that will come from Russia, north Africa or the middle east. That is why we must seriously consider how we move forward, and recognise the social implications as well as addressing the economic and environmental issues.
Public consultation on the report must be wide-ranging. It will lead to the publication of a White Paper some time in the autumn, and I hope that the debate on it is comprehensive. Unfortunately, tonight's debate is based on the froth that we have come to expect from the Scottish National party.
The SNP says that there is an adverse reaction to nuclear energy in this country. Much has been said about Holyrood having the final say, but we could have avoided this debate if SNP Members had spoken to one another.

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The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) put a parliamentary question on nuclear reactors, and the reply from the Minister of State, Scotland Office said:
"Consent is required for new power station developments under the Electricity Act 1989. In Scotland, the power to grant consents is a devolved matter and the procedures are the responsibility of Scottish Ministers."
Mr. Michael Weir: Can the hon. Gentleman explain how that ties in with what the Secretary of State has just told us about the ultimate responsibility for decisions? She seemed to say that the ultimate responsibility lies in this place, which is at variance with what the hon. Gentleman has just read out.
Mr. Tynan: There is a danger that, if we try to perpetuate a lie, people may come to accept that as a truth. The position is quite clear. The reply to the hon. Gentleman from the Minister of State stated clearly that
"the power to grant consents is a devolved matter and the procedures are the responsibility of Scottish Ministers.— [Official Report, 6 November 2002; Vol. 374, c. 173W.]
SNP Members should have spoken to one another.
Mr. Alan Reid: If an application to build a nuclear power station in Scotland was turned down by the Scottish Executive, but the Government promoted legislation in this House to overturn that decision and grant planning permission, would the hon. Gentleman support that legislation?
Mr. Tynan: My position is quite clear: I do not expect that situation to arise, and I cannot answer a hypothetical question. The answer is the one that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave. The hon. Gentleman should accept it, as it suits his argument.
The SNP would rather be involved in splits and create division between the Scottish Parliament and Westminster than accept the fact that those two bodies work well with each other in the interests of the people of Scotland.
Mr. Peter Duncan: The hon. Gentleman rightly points out that the SNP is trying to create splits and division. I accept that, but as a Scottish Conservative who has a genuine interest in creating unity in the United Kingdom, I do not understand it. Before we began the debate, the confusion seemed to be whether this issue was the responsibility of Holyrood or Westminster. It now seems that either it is the responsibility of Holyrood or we do not know whose responsibility it is. That is my understanding, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman knows better.
Mr. Tynan: I do not want to go down that road. because I have already made it clear that I do not intend to speculate on what might happen in the future. However, as the Minister of State said to the hon. Member for Angus, it is clear that the Scottish Executive are able to grant planning permission for a power station.
I want to examine the SNP's energy policy, which is a shambles. The sooner we acknowledge the need for a balanced, integrated energy policy including coal generation, wind and wave generation and nuclear power, the sooner we can consider how best to develop that policy.
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I think every Member is in favour of renewable energy. That is why the Government have invested in research and development relating to sources of such energy. Not only are they exempting them from the climate change levy; under the renewables obligation, they are pumping some £260 million into alternative energy sources.
Mr. Simon Thomas: I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman has said about the money that the Government are spending on renewables. Will he tell us how much was spent on renewables in 1999–2000, and how much was spent on nuclear energy research?
Mr. Tynan: As a Minister might say, I do not know the answer but I will write to the hon. Gentleman.
Even British Energy, a private company, is currently prepared to invest £600 million in wind farms off the Isle of Lewis that have the potential to produce 600 MW. But our position would be untenable if we ruled out nuclear power per se; if we did so, we would end up without a policy to meet the requirements of our people.
Angus Robertson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has been generous with his time.
The hon. Gentleman said that it would be dangerous to rule out the decommissioning of nuclear plants. Like me, he is interested in the pursuit of policies in other European countries. It may not be well known that, in Germany, our allies in Europe are in government along with the hon. Gentleman's allies in Europe. Both parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens, have passed policy in favour of decommissioning all Germany's nuclear power stations. If that is right for Germany, why is it so wrong for us in Scotland?
Mr. Tynan: Whatever Opposition Members may think about the demise of nuclear power, 31 reactors are being constructed in 11 countries. Finland is on the verge of ordering a new nuclear power station. Moreover, 35 per cent. of the European Union's electricity comes from nuclear power stations, which makes nuclear power the largest single source of electricity in Europe. We must look again at nuclear power stations, and decide whether we are prepared to become dependent on other nations for our electricity.
I believe that the policy presented to us today would pose enormous problems. The Scottish National party needs to get its energy policy together, and I hope it will do so sooner rather than later.
8.58 pm
John Thurso: When I first read the motion, I considered it rather light—a bit of a Woolton pie, lacking in meat. As the debate has progressed, however, it has become clear that far from being a Woolton pie, it is something of a Beef Wellington. SNP members certainly seem to have found something pretty interesting below the crust.
Initially I concluded that the motion posed a pretty simple question, and that there ought to be a pretty simple answer. The pretty simple question was "Who is responsible for saying yes or no to planning for a nuclear plant, or any other power generation plant, in Scotland?". Was it Holyrood, or was it Westminster? The simple answer, I thought—having consulted the Scotland Act

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1998, and having heard what the Minister for Industry and Energy had to say—was that planning permission was a matter for Holyrood, and that that was where the decision would be made. Matters relating to generation and so forth would be dealt with at Westminster.
I have listened to this evening's debate, and believe that it amounts to the longest "don't know" in history. It is perfectly clear to me now that I do not have a clue whether it was a simple question with a simple answer.
The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) has quoted already the comments of the Minister for Industry and Energy. However, he left out a sentence. The Minister said, "The position is unambiguous", but he also said:
"All of the relevant powers are devolved to Holyrood."

Certainly, that was my understanding, and I think that that probably is the position, but I suspect that the Government do not really know. I hope, therefore, that the consultation will sort out where we are going.
Of course, Westminster Governments are always able to revisit the Scotland Act 1998, and the devolution settlement. Clearly, the concept of devolution is based on this Parliament remaining sovereign, with certain powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament. It is possible for any Government to propose to go back on the powers that have been so devolved. However, all supporters of devolution and of the settlement finally enacted by this House would find it unacceptable if a Government were to go back on the current settlement.
On countless happy evenings in another place, my noble Friends and I sat opposite Lord Sewel, trying to get the Government to accept a variety of amendments that would have widened the powers of the Scottish Parliament on a range of issues. In each case, the Minister knocked us back. We were told that we had to be careful and to ensure that what was put in place was right. We were told that the mechanism had to be workable, without ambiguity.
For many who took part in the debates in the other place—and I am sure that the same applies to those who took part in the debates in this House—the devolution settlement that we got was the minimum. It was really quite conservative, with a small "c". We were happy to get it, but we believed that, if anything, it was a settlement that could be taken further in the future. We did not think that the Government could go back on it, but there is a worrying undertone that the Government are considering bringing powers back to Westminster. I sincerely hope that the Government will not go down that road, and that the devolution settlement will be honoured.
Mr. Foulkes: The history of the past two and bit years has not been as the hon. Gentleman has described. The Government have introduced one executive order after another under section 63 of the Scotland Act, giving more devolution and power to the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament. Most recently, that has happened in relation to the ferries running between Rosyth and Zeebrugge, and between Campbeltown and Ballycastle. The picture is entirely different from the one that the hon. Gentleman has painted.
John Thurso: I welcome all that the Government have done in that regard. I did not accuse them of going back on the devolution settlement. I said that the worrying
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undertone to the debate causes me concern. My hope is that the process that the Minister described will continue, and that devolution will advance rather than retreat.
There are only so many ways in which a question can be asked and still secure a "don't know" for an answer, so I shall move on from a matter that I think has been done to death. I turn now to Wales, which my party believes would be better served with a devolution settlement that more closely resembles the settlement for Scotland. Such a settlement would give Wales a Parliament with the ability to enact primary legislation. People who believe in devolution, as I do, do not understand why it should not be right for the Welsh to have the same devolution settlement as the Scots. One day, the English may be able to have it too. We live in hope.
I hope that the Government will listen to the voice of the people of Wales—although, in that respect, the power clearly lies here in Westminster. I hope that the Government will accept the spirit of what is meant by the phrase "listening to the Assembly".
It seems to me that the real substance of what I had hoped would be debated this evening under the motion—I did not anticipate what was debated earlier, so I should learn to read Scottish National party motions more carefully—was energy policy generally for Scotland. To be perfectly honest, I thought that I would not find it too difficult to support the motion in the name of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) and his hon. Friends. However, I have read part of it reasonably carefully, and its defect is that it does not refer to the sustainability of energy. It refers to a strategy for developing indigenous sources of energy, and it refers to coal, gas and renewables. The key point missing, the inclusion of which would have made the motion perfect, was that the strategy should be one of sustainable energy.
Ultimately, sustainability is the key in terms of producing energy and—lying behind this whole debate—our commitment to Kyoto. We must reduce emissions—CO2 emissions are one of the biggest dangers that we face.
Mr. Salmond: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the misconceptions of the debate is that to conform with Kyoto one would have to go down the nuclear route? Clearly, renewables conform with Kyoto, as does combined cycle gas if it moves to 60 per cent. efficiency as has been achieved at Peterhead. Clean technology coal also has a much more beneficial environmental impact. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is a fallacy to say that the only way to conform to Kyoto is to be forced down the nuclear route?
John Thurso: May I say to the hon. Gentleman what has been said before? I urge him to have a little patience, as I hope to deal with that point later.
A consideration of carbon dioxide emissions is crucial, so we must examine some of the facts. I am lucky that I have in my constituency a scientist, Dr. Eric Voice, who was formerly at Dounreay but who now works independently as a consultant on emissions. I asked him to consider a number of factors with regard to carbon emissions in Scotland. The information that he gave me is extremely interesting, and may be helpful in this debate.
The last year for which reliable figures are available was 1998, when Scotland produced 72,300,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. Of that, 17 million tonnes—or, roughly,

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24 per cent.—were produced by electricity generation. We must recognise that only a quarter of emissions in Scotland are from that source. Of that generation, 19.7 terawatt hours are currently from nuclear power. If that were replaced by clean coal—medium sulphur bituminous coal—it would require 6,100,000 tonnes of coal, which would produce 20 million tonnes of CO2. That would double the CO2 emissions currently produced by our electricity industry. If gas were to be used, the figure would be about 12 million tonnes of CO2.
David Hamilton: Does that mean that the hon. Gentleman and the Liberal party oppose the expansion of the coal industry?
John Thurso: No, I do not think that that follows. I am merely trying to set out the scale of the problem. I shall then consider what we should do to deal with it.
Given the scale of the carbon emissions problem, those of us who are in favour of renewables—the use of which has support on both sides of the House, and of which the Liberal Democrats have always been strong supporters—should pose exactly the same question. What are the problems in achieving, for example, those 19 terawatt hours? If we were to use a 3 MW turbine, which is probably slightly better than the best currently available, and to assume a load factor of installed capacity of about 25 per cent., which is better than any turbine is currently producing, that turbine would produce about 6,570 MW per annum. That broadly means that we would require 2,891 turbines to produce the same generating capacity that is currently produced by nuclear energy. It is all perfectly possible, but the disadvantage is that one would require 2,000 sq km for those turbines. Clearly, that would present equal problems of which those of us who support renewables must be aware. It is more honest to say that we support renewables knowing what we seek to achieve.
The figures quoted mean that if we are to have a genuinely balanced approach and a genuine reduction in carbon dioxide, it is vital to work on our hydro schemes; they are a great asset in Scotland, and we must have new ones. We have to invest in renewables and the level of investment in them must be similar to that which we put into other technologies. We must also look at the way in which we use our energy, which means thinking a little bit out of the box. Scotland, particularly my constituency, has an ability to generate an immense amount of renewable energy but there is a difficulty in transporting it to the jobs and factories in the deep south. Perhaps we should be thinking about moving the jobs and factories up to where the energy is. Perhaps that will be part of the new reality of the future.
Our policy on nuclear energy is perfectly straightforward—to decommission nuclear stations when they come to the end of their useful lives. The current nuclear capacity buys time to make the investment required in renewables so that that they can become a proper and sustainable part of our energy future.
Mr. Peter Duncan: What is the hon. Gentleman's response to the statistic that the entire wind capacity in
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Scotland comes to only 20 per cent. and that that capacity would be lost if Cockenzie power station closed and was not replaced?
John Thurso: I am not sure that I completely understand the hon. Gentleman's question. I have been careful to talk about renewable energy, which is not just about wind—it is onshore and offshore. The Pentland firth has a tidal race that is consistent. not constant. We have wave power and biomass—indeed, a whole range of renewables. We must work out which renewable works at which time in the best way so that we can put the information together.
When the energy review is accepted, or rejected, by the Government—from what I have seen, I hope that they will accept much of it—I hope that we will have an energy policy that is designed to make the necessary investment and create a future energy market using our renewables. Despite all the "don't knows", I hope that the Scottish Parliament will take decisions on planning matters in Scotland.
9.14 pm
Mr. Russell Brown: I notice from the clock that between my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) and myself, we will probably have had some 26 minutes of Back-Bench speeches in a three-hour debate. I appreciate that you endeavour, as best you can, to control the situation, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it is somewhat disappointing that we may have only two Back-Bench speakers this evening.
I have been trying to determine whether the debate is about devolution issues such as the planning processes undertaken by local authorities, or whether it is no more than another opportunity for Scottish National party Members to state their views and their case against the nuclear industry and nuclear power generation.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland suggested earlier, section D4 of part II of schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998 makes it clear that nuclear energy is a reserved matter. Schedule 4 of the Act spells out that the Scottish Parliament is charged with the duty to legislate on planning and reserved matters. Why should that be? It is simply in order to ensure that there is consistency as regards devolved and reserved matters.
Whatever the nature of today's debate, I want to consider the issue that causes the SNP the most difficulty: nuclear power. The performance and innovation unit's energy review document issued in the middle of last month ruled nothing out. The longer-term role of nuclear power in energy policy was examined in the review, and the report merely recommended that the options for new nuclear investment need to be kept open.
What was the reaction to that? Regrettably, there was nothing but the usual SNP paranoia. The party saw that recommendation as a signal for new nuclear build. However, let us be clear: if new nuclear plants are to be constructed, the market will bring forward the proposals.
Mr. Salmond: When the hon. Gentleman says that the market will bring forward proposals, does that mean that the huge nuclear subsidy currently in the legislation will be ended? Is he talking about the market or about the rigged market?
Mr. Brown: I am talking about the market, and it is not rigged, as the hon. Gentleman has claimed on many occasions.

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The Government fully believe that the existing nuclear stations should continue and naturally they must operate at the current high safety and environmental standards that we expect.
Over the next 15 years or so, nuclear plants will continue to make significant contributions. During the next 20 years, we shall see the scheduled closure of the three Scottish stations—the two advanced gas-cooled reactors at Hunterston and Torness, and the British Nuclear Fuels Magnox facility at Chapelcross, in my constituency, which produces 196 MW of power. That amount may seem small and insignificant but it has some importance in our local area, although I shall not elaborate on that point.
It is important to remember the contribution made by nuclear power in the daily life of each one of us: 25 per cent. of the power generated in the UK is nuclear based and twice that amount—50 per cent. of electricity in Scotland—comes from a nuclear source. When those three stations close, a significant gap will have to be filled. Who can tell what replacement source will be found? I have to point out to Scottish and Welsh nationalist Members that it will not come just from renewables.
John Robertson: My hon. Friend may share my concerns about nuclear power. However, I am also concerned that if we do not consider all forms of energy we may be left with no energy at all in future.
Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend makes an important and interesting point. Secure energy sources will be vitally important.
I may not have searched hard enough, but I have yet to find anyone who is opposed to renewable sources of energy. None the less, despite the enthusiasm on all sides and the efforts that will be made in the years to come, I firmly believe that in no way can renewables replace our current levels of nuclear power generation.
Mr. Connarty: Some of us in Praseg—the all-party group on renewable and sustainable energy—are concerned that in Denmark, for example, a major wind farm proposal has just been withdrawn, and it is now admitted that there are problems with intermittent supply from sources such as wind power. The wind power strategy in Denmark is backed up with a punitive energy tax, which no one ever mentions when they talk about renewables. Renewables are attractive if energy is so expensive that people have to turn to other sources, as they do in Denmark.
Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend has a great deal of experience in such matters. As we all know, there is a price to pay for renewables.
UK-wide we have 15 operational nuclear stations and the effect of those stations is to reduce carbon emissions by 11 to 22 per cent., or 12 to 24 million tonnes of carbon. The figures vary widely, depending on whether we would replace that form of generation by gas or coal.
We should consider what is being said elsewhere about energy supply and energy policy. The House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union, in its report on the security of energy supply, recommended that the EU should aim at least to retain its present proportion of nuclear power and, importantly, that it should examine
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what is necessary to achieve that. The Select Committee also stated that it should be recognised that nuclear power is a key component of energy security and environmental performance, and provides more than one third of Europe's electricity. It will reduce the EU's CO2 emissions by more than 300 million tonnes in 2010.
Mr. Iain Luke: Does my hon. Friend accept that the growing involvement of the EU, as evidenced by the Green Paper published a year ago, means that the issue of consent on a national and regional basis may be circumvented by the need for the European Union to take powers to ensure the security of energy supply in future for the whole of Europe, on an individual nation basis?
Mr. Brown: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is right. There is much happening out there. We cannot remain in isolation. I hope that we in the House will look at the matter UK wide. Our perspective needs to be much wider than that of the nationalists.
Annabelle Ewing: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brown: Of course.
Annabelle Ewing: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way so graciously. Does he not agree, then, with his hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy, who said:
"The position is unambiguous. If anyone wants to build a power station of any kind in Scotland it will be a matter for the Scottish Executive to determine. End of story"?
[Interruption.]
Mr. Brown: The murmurings from the Front Bench are a noise to reckon with.
The House of Lords Select Committee recommended that the Government should maintain the UK's ability to produce not less than 20 per cent. of electricity from nuclear.
In its report on energy policy, the Select Committee on Trade and Industry made it clear that nuclear has a significant role in maintaining the security and diversity of electricity supply. It recognised that nuclear makes a key contribution to environmental objectives such as the reduction of greenhouse gases, and it urged the Government to make a clear statement on the future of nuclear energy as quickly as possible. It is that security of supply which means so much to the public.
At a local level, the nuclear power station in my constituency, Chapelcross, was the location of an incident in July last year, as some hon. Members know. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) saw fit to table an early-day motion on 18 July last year, part of which stated
"That this House …is extremely concerned that 12 fuel rods apparently remain unaccounted for and that there appear to have been attempts to cover up the incident."
Frankly, that is politics at the lowest level. Had the hon. Gentleman checked with the site, he would have been told that all 24 rods were accounted for the previous day. At no stage did that company attempt to cover up the incident.

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I do not suppose that the hon. Gentleman will apologise to the House but, more importantly, he should apologise to the work force at the site.
A number of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues visited the site. Before their arrival, there was great talk in the Scottish press of the need to shut down the plant which, during the visit, developed into a need to close it at the end of its lifetime. They walked away from that site visit stating that position clearly.
Mr. Weir: The hon. Gentleman knows that it has always been the policy of the Scottish National party to close the plant at the end of its technological or economic life. I am not responsible for what is said in the press, locally or nationally, but at no time have we called for the immediate closure of Chapelcross.
Mr. Brown: Although I do not believe everything I read in the press, I have some confidence in the trade unions at the site which picked up that message from the SNP.
At the time of the incident, British Nuclear Fuels began to shut down other reactors on the site so that it could concentrate its efforts on examining the problem in detail. However, that action caused Scottish Power considerable anxiety because it threatened its security of supply, and there was serious concern that there would be blackouts and power cuts.
At the end of last year, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets issued a consultation document on access to the Scotland-England interconnector. That is so vital to the economic viability of the Chapelcross site that a local petition was organised within the community which collected more than 5,000 signatures in a weekend. In addition, a number of individuals made representations on the matter, including politicians at a local and national level. If the SNP supports stations operating until the end of their lifetime, why was no support offered by the two list SNP Members of the Scottish Parliament from the south of Scotland, Christine Graham and Mike Russell? Mr. Mike Russell had previously visited the site, but those MSPs showed no support for it or its work force.
The Ofgem consultation closed on 21 January and it was due to issue its findings 10 days later. I want the House and the SNP in particular to be aware that Ofgem did nothing more than issue a holding statement last Friday, some four weeks late. Lying behind that delay is the fact that Ofgem has listened to the anxiety expressed by the work force, the company and local people, who are worried that the inability to use the interconnector will cause the site to close and the loss of 450 jobs.
In last week's statement, Ofgem said:
"Ofgem has taken on board the concerns raised. It is prudent, in the light of these concerns, for Scottish Power Transmission Ltd. to review its criteria to address system security issues"—
in other words, security of supply. A station that generates 196 MW may seem insignificant to many people, but it is fairly significant for the locality and greatly significant for Ofgem, the organisation that ensures that people receive a supply of electricity. Although the non-nuclear bandwagon sounds promising to those who want to climb aboard, once the lights are out it is not so easy to turn them on again.
9.29 pm
Mr. Michael Weir: The one thing that has become clear in this debate is why the Minister for Industry and Energy chose not to be present to hear it—he was here earlier, but has decided to make himself scarce. When we strip away all the obfuscation and unpeel the Secretary of State's excuses and dancing on pin heads, it is clear that he was incorrect and that he did not know who was responsible for planning permission for nuclear power stations in Scotland. Frankly, that is a deeply frightening thought.
It seems clear, as eventually emerged from the Secretary of State, that she believes that Westminster, not Scotland, will ultimately make the decision. That flies in the face of what the Minister for Industry and Energy said not only last week, but in his letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) and the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). He made clear time and time again his belief that the ultimate decision lay in Scotland. It appears, however, that the Scotland Office is now overriding the Department of Trade and Industry on these matters. Again, that is deeply worrying.
The debate was opened by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan, who set out, in a typically powerful speech, its context, which relates not only to nuclear aspects and energy resources but to the whole constitutional position. With regard to that context, the Minister of State said:
"It would look a wee bit daft if, in reserved areas, decisions were being made north of the border which had a very significant impact south of the border."
Will he tell us whether that means that, if the Scottish Parliament makes a decision that has an impact in England—I can think of several such decisions that might be on the way—Westminster will try to take back the powers from it? That is the subtext of what is happening, leaving aside the whole energy matter.
Mrs. Liddell: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether he agrees with his parliamentary leader on the use of civil disobedience?
Mr. Weir: The Secretary of State seems to be hung up on that issue. The question of what will happen if Westminster decides to overrule the democratically elected Scottish Parliament will be decided when that happens. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan said on the matter. He clearly answered the right hon. Lady's question and I have nothing to add. I say to her that there is a long history. I will make an admission in that regard: way back in the 1970s, I visited Torness, which did not have a nuclear power station at the time, but was being occupied as a protest against the building of such a power station. It is sad that, 20 years later, we are having to advance the same arguments yet again.
It was interesting that the Minister of State seemed quite happy to be described as the Baldrick of Scottish politics. I seem to recall that Baldrick's only friend was a turnip, so perhaps the description is fairly appropriate.
John Robertson: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that there may be a slight conflict in what he is saying? On the one hand he is talking about democracy, while on

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the other, he is talking about civil disobedience. Will he tell me how those ideas marry up, and perhaps give us some of the nationalist policies that seem to be missing from every contribution we have heard from those Benches?
Mr. Weir: Democracy also extends to the Scottish Parliament. We have a devolution settlement that has been overridden unilaterally from Westminster. That is the implication of what has been said, and that is why the Scottish people are prepared to protest. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman, who I believe has a long history in the trade union movement, is opposed to such use of civil disobedience, which has played a large part in the history of the labour movement and, indeed, in parliamentary democracy. I would therefore ask him to think again. [Interruption.] Unlike Labour Members, I am capable of writing my own speeches and I do not pass them around.
We must examine our position in view of, for example, our undertakings under the Kyoto protocols. The performance and innovation unit report lumps nuclear power together with renewables as low carbon producers. It treats nuclear power in the same way as renewable resources. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) made a good point about sustainability, which we ultimately seek in energy supply. However, since the advent of the Kyoto protocols, the nuclear industry has absurdly pushed itself as environmentally friendly. It conveniently forgets that, although we might reduce carbon emissions, we would store up a huge problem of nuclear waste which would take generations to tackle. Perhaps we could never deal with it.
The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) mentioned the market. We are considering a nuclear industry that will create a problem that will last not for years but for generations. We have witnessed all too clearly what can happen even to large energy companies.
The Government appear to have swallowed the nuclear argument hook, line and sinker. The latest spat between Ministers is simply another straw in the wind. The creation of the assets management agency was announced recently. It is an expensive excuse to make nuclear generators more acceptable to investors by removing their historical liabilities. However, they will continue to accrue if new stations are built.
The Scottish Parliament's planning powers present a substantial road block in the way of the nuclear industry in Scotland. I believe that the Government's attempt to remove it has led us to our current position. The SNP's policy is clear. We have consistently called for investment in renewables. I have done that in this Chamber and in Westminster Hall. Different forms of energy are available in Scotland.
David Hamilton: An energy policy should be a British policy. Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Department of Trade and Industry has invested between £40 million and £50 million of subsidy in Scottish Coal? Could the Scottish Parliament have done that? It would not have had the money; a British Government had to do it. Energy policy should be left not to Scotland but to Britain. We should discuss a British energy policy. I shall not mention nuclear power or civil disobedience, but I
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strongly believe that we should consider an energy policy that covers Britain and is devised by a British Government.
Mr. Weir: On money, it was announced last week that the Scottish Executive underspent by more than £200 million. That is interesting, because they also underspent last year.
We must invest in a basket of different sorts of energy. Nuclear power has no place in it. We have discussed the cost of nuclear power, but the Government's advisory group for the PIU's energy review mentioned the cost of different forms of energy. It stated that, without Government subsidy, the cost of nuclear power was approximately 6.5p per kW. The cost of current new-build designs was down to 3.9p per kW, but onshore wind costs less than 2p a kW and offshore wind, between 2p and 3p a kW.
Nuclear energy is much more expensive in the first instance than other forms of energy, especially renewable energy sources. That has been mentioned in the Select Committee on Trade and Industry report on the security of energy supply, but when the Committee took evidence from representatives of the nuclear industry, they clearly stated that financial assistance was required to bridge the gap—that is, to make nuclear power more acceptable economically. They talked about a subsidy of about 1p per kW. So going down the nuclear energy route is much more expensive than the renewable and sustainable route.
The hon. Member for Beckenham is correct to say that the nuclear power stations are due to come off stream in the next few years. As I have said on numerous occasions in this Parliament, if we are to bridge the gap that will be created, investment must be made now in all the renewable sources. Although the Government always talk about renewable energy sources, they have not made that significant investment.
Let us compare the investment in the nuclear industry with that in renewable sources. For example, in 1999 alone, £26 million was investment in research and development in the nuclear industry. Some £3.7 billion will be needed to cover the liability of the Magnox stations, which have been mentioned already, and United Kingdom electricity consumers have already paid some £2.6 billion to fund nuclear energy through the non-fossil fuel levy. So there has been massive investment in the nuclear industry over the years, and it will continue to need a subsidy if we are to go down the nuclear route.
The hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) clearly made a pro-nuclear intervention. He talked about an integrated coal, wind and wave system, but the point is that, to have an integrated system, investment is needed now, and we have been trying to make that point. There is nothing strange or hidden about the SNP policy on energy; it has been made clear, particularly by me, on many occasions.
Mr. Connarty: The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned the policy on the present state of Scottish Coal. The last deep mine is in trouble; it needs £5 million to get through a major fault, but it has not been mentioned by the SNP. Is the SNP abandoning Scottish Coal and the last deep mine in Scotland?
Mr. Weir: Coal is mentioned in the motion, but not in the Government amendment. I responded to the

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hon. Member for Midlothian (David Hamilton) on the coal industry, and I have spoken about it previously, as well as the need for clean coal technology. The Government ultimately say that their policy is pro-nuclear. That is what we clearly hear from Labour Members, but I wonder whether that policy will be persuasive even to the current Scottish Executive.
I remind hon. Members that, when announcing new targets for renewable energy sources in a speech on 19 February, Jack McConnell, the Scottish First Minister, said:
"Scotland has an enormous resource of renewable sources … we already expect to exceed our initial target of generating 18 per cent. of our electricity by 2010 from renewables.
Today I want to signal our intention to increase that target …we will consult on it …but I hope we can work towards 30 per cent. of our electricity coming from renewable sources by 2020."
That figure is much higher than this Government have suggested, and it is a clear signal that even the current Scottish Executive—let alone the next—is more committed to renewable sources than the Government. I hope that, if they truly represent the views of the Scottish people, they will oppose any new nuclear stations that this Government try to foist on them.
Mr. Robert Key: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Weir: I am sorry, but I am running out of time.
I remind hon. Members that the Scottish Executive commissioned a study by Hassan Consulting which pointed out that Scotland could supply its energy needs from renewables. It said:
"The scale of this potential is illustrated by one stunning statistic: there is enough potential energy from onshore wind power alone to meet Scotland's peak winter demand for electricity twice over. In all, the total resource amounts to 75 per cent. of the total UK existing generating capacity."
Scotland can meet its energy needs from renewable resources. It does not need nuclear; it does not want nuclear; and it will oppose nuclear.
9.45 pm
The Minister of State, Scotland Office (Mr. George Foulkes): I congratulate the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) on his enormous generosity in absolving anyone else of responsibility for his speech. I am sure that SNP researchers in particular will be deeply grateful that their reputation has been restored.
A number of hon. Members have made the point that one of the most astonishing things about today's debate is that, given the opportunity of a once-a-year, three-hour debate on the Floor of the House, the SNP chose to discuss an apparent difference between the Minister for Industry and Energy and me about a hypothetical decision that might be taken a number of years from now. Let us think of the topics that it might have chosen. It could have selected the whole energy review as it affects Scotland. We have drifted on to that subject, but it could have been the main focus of our discussion. It could have selected the implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Bill, which aims to crack down on drug dealers and money launderers—issues of real concern to my constituents and the rest of Scotland.
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The SNP could have spoken about the Scottish economy, but we know now why it dodged that subject. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) has made dire predictions and accused my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State of talking up Scotland, and he has fervently hoped and prayed for a downturn in the Scottish economy, but his predictions have been proved entirely wrong. Output has risen sharply in the service sector, according to the Bank of Scotland report published yesterday, and manufacturing output is at last on the turn.
Mr. Salmond: At last.
Mr. Foulkes: Indeed. Given last week's seismic event in Perth, one would have thought that the SNP would jump at the opportunity to debate its now explicit commitment to independence and separation—but of course that represents the policy of the Swinney wing of the party, rather than the Salmond wing.
As we are on the subject of energy, let us examine the hon. Gentleman's credentials to talk on the subject. Where better to look than at his weekly column in the News of the World? The Register of Members' Interests shows that the hon. Gentleman receives between £10,000 and £15,000 per annum for the column, so it must be good, it must be accurate and it must he authoritative. He says:
"The problem for London Labour"—
he always calls us London Labour, no matter that we come from Glasgow, Dundee and elsewhere—
"is that they are looking to create a new generation of nuclear power stations"—
wait for it—
"when existing ones like Dounreay reach the end of their life."
Dounreay? An existing nuclear station? As my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) pointed out, the existing power stations are Torness in East Lothian, Hunterston in Ayrshire and Chapelcross in Dumfriesshire. Dounreay is a prototype fast breeder reactor, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) knows only too well. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan referred to Dounreay reaching the end of its life. There is something else he should know: Dounreay is currently being decommissioned.
Mr. Salmond: I may be one of the few Members to have visited every fast reactor in the world, with the sole exception of one in Russia. I am sure that the Minister has not done that.
Let us get to the nub of the matter. The quote from the Minister for Industry and Energy is important and has been well advertised. He said:
"The position is unambiguous. If anyone wants to build a power station of any kind in Scotland, it will be a matter for the Scottish Executive to determine. End of story."
Forget all the fluff and flannel: does the Minister support that? Is it correct, or is it not?
Mr. Foulkes: The hon. Gentleman's authoritative column in the News of the World includes a picture of Dounreay, next to which appears the caption, "Atomic dud". It is not Dounreay that is the atomic dud. I think we all know who that is.

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If we had had a substantive debate on the energy review, we could have talked about the Prime Minister's vision in setting the PIU to consider energy policy for the next 50 years. That review was chaired by my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy. I was there to represent the interests of Scotland and closely consulted Ministers and officials in the Scottish Executive to ensure that Scotland's views were properly known. The review had the important remit of ensuring security and diversity of supply. Several Members have mentioned security of supply, particularly for gas imports. Diversity of supply means providing more than one, or one and a half, areas of supply.
Annabelle Ewing: Let me return to the central point of the debate. Does the Minister stick by what he said in answer to me at the Scottish Grand Committee on 13 February? He said then that responsibility for agreeing on new power stations was devolved to the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament, which accords with what the Minister for Industry and Energy said. Does he agree with that, or does he now adopt the new view expressed in his recent BBC interview?
Mr. Foulkes: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State dealt with that point extremely well.
If we had discussed the energy review, we would have been able to discuss what the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross rightly called our important commitment to hitting our Kyoto targets. The review recommends a major expansion of energy efficiency.
Mr. Salmond: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Foulkes: No, no, no. The hon. Gentleman had 32 minutes. and he spent half of them attacking me. I have only eight minutes in which to reply, so he can sit down.
The energy review recommended hugely increased, challenging targets for renewables, which will not be easily achieved. SNP Members deceive people if they lead them to believe that the renewables obligation can be easily kept.
Mr. Alan Reid: Will the Minister tell us who has the final say on whether a nuclear power station can he granted to Scotland? Is it a Scottish Minister, is it a United Kingdom Minister, or does the Minister not know?
Mr. Foulkes: I love multiple choice questions. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has explained the position. Since the hon. Gentleman represents the provisional wing of the Liberal Democrats and is an unreconstructed Luddite, perhaps he might come and talk to me afterwards.
Let us do the SNP the courtesy of examining its energy policy and taking it seriously, no matter how difficult that may be. Let us go back to the words of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan, not this time in the Press and Journal, the house journal of the SNP, in a weekly column for which he also receives between £5,000 and £10,000, but from his column in the News of the World.
"Gas, clean coal technology and renewables—that would be a sensible, cheaper and Scottish energy policy",
says the tabloid tipster. Let us be honest, as, to give her credit, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) has been on this point. Nuclear power stations will come to
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the end of their lives over the next few decades. Our coal power stations will also come to the end of their lives, as my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (David Hamilton) knows only too well. Of course, coal is still an important energy source. One third of the UK's electricity needs were met by coal last year. Apart from Longannet, however, Scotland now has no indigenous deep-mined coal, yet the Scottish National party opposes all open-cast applications. That would mean that we would have to rely even more on imported coal, and that there would be more CO2 emissions, even with the clean coal technology that this Government support.
Mr. Connarty: Will my hon. Friend, unlike SNP Members, answer the question that Scottish Coal is asking at the moment? Will our Government look seriously at the problems involving the fault that Scottish Coal has found? It will require at least £5 million to tide it over until it gets back into production. Will we look at the matter seriously, unlike the SNP, which has refused to talk about it this evening?
Mr. Foulkes: Yes, we have already given Scottish Coal £41 million. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have had discussions with Scottish Coal's management and with the unions, and we are looking at the issue very seriously. This is an important matter.
As my right hon. Friend said, oil and gas reserves are being extended by the pilot initiative that she started, which is now under the stewardship of my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy.
Mr. Key: Where is he?
Mr. Foulkes: He is in Scotland, fulfilling a long-standing engagement.
Mr. Salmond rose—
Mr. Foulkes: The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan has had many opportunities to speak.
Oil and gas reserves are finite, even when we take into account all the work that we are doing with carbon sequestration. That leaves us with renewables, which the Government strongly support. The renewables obligation will mean that there will be a £1 billion market for renewables by 2010, which will represent a very significant part of our energy sources. There are problems of transmission, however. Power lines and under-sea cables are expensive, and they are not popular, as we know from the Northern Ireland interconnector.
Furthermore, all these developments need planning approval, and that is not a foregone conclusion. So, over the next few decades, we could be faced with having to decide between agreeing to an application for a new nuclear power station, and having increased electricity costs, more CO2 emissions and seeing the lights go out all over Scotland at peak times. None of us would be very popular if that were to happen. That will not be an easy decision, and I am not sure that whoever has to make it will welcome the responsibility. Surely, however, it is right that we should attempt to clarify now exactly who will be making those decisions.

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I confess to the House that I made one mistake. The mistake was to believe that, if I raised an important issue in public—open government at work, if you like—the SNP Opposition would be willing to have a sensible debate about it, instead of the Pavlovian reaction that we have seen today. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross has rightly pointed out that it was I who raised the issue. Every time an issue is raised, however—be it on energy policy, immigration policy or defence policy—the nationalists are never prepared to discuss its merits properly. Instead, they claim that everything would be better if it were decided in Scotland. That is the magic bullet that will solve every problem.
The nationalists are obsessed by the constitution, because their only political aim in life is to break up Britain—people, especially Conservative Members, should recognise that—to tear the United Kingdom apart, and to lead us into a constitutional confrontation. [Interruption.] I was just trying to wake the hon. Member for Beckenham up, Mr. Speaker. At the weekend, the nationalists had to admit that a separate Scotland would not automatically be a member of the European Union. It could reject policies such as the common fisheries policy, raising the spectre of a new cod war. This is only one of the many uncertainties we would face if Scotland were ever duped into a divorce from the rest of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Salmond rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 43, Noes 303.

Division No. 182]

[9.59 pm

AYES

Allan, Richard

Öpik, Lembit

Barrett, John

Price, Adam

Beith, Rt Hon A J

Pugh, Dr John

Brake, Tom

Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

Breed, Colin

Rendel, David

Brooke, Mrs Annette L

Robertson, Angus (Moray)

Burstow, Paul

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Calton, Mrs Patsy

Salmond, Alex

Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

Sanders, Adrian

Carmichael, Alistair

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

Cotter, Brian

Stunell, Andrew

Ewing, Annabelle

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Foster, Don (Bath)

Thurso, John

George, Andrew (St Ives)

Tonge, Dr Jenny

Gidley, Sandra

Tyler, Paul

Hancock, Mike

Webb, Steve

Heath, David

Weir, Michael

Holmes, Paul

Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

Williams, Roger (Brecon)

Kirkwood, Archy

Younger-Ross, Richard

Lamb, Norman

Laws, David

Tellers for the Ayes:

Llwyd, Elfyn

Mr. Simon Thomas and

Moore, Michael

Pete Wishart.

256

NOES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Dean, Mrs Janet

Ainger, Nick

Denham, Rt Hon John

Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

Dismore, Andrew

Allen, Graham

Dobbin, Jim

Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

Donohoe, Brian H

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

Doran, Frank

Atherton, Ms Candy

Dowd, Jim

Atkins, Charlotte

Drew, David

Austin, John

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Bailey, Adrian

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Baird, Vera

Ennis, Jeff

Banks, Tony

Farrelly, Paul

Barron, Kevin

Field, Rt Hon Frank (Birkenhead)

Beard, Nigel

Fisher, Mark

Beggs, Roy

Fitzsimons, Mrs Loma

Benn, Hilary

Flint, Caroline

Bennett, Andrew

Follett, Barbara

Benton, Joe

Foster, Rt Hon Derek

Berry, Roger

Foster, Michael (Worcester)

Betts, Clive

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

Blackman, Liz

Foulkes, George

Blears, Ms Hazel

Francis, Dr Hywel

Blizzard, Bob

Galloway, George

Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

Gardiner. Barry

Borrow, David

George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

Bradley, Rt Hon Keith (Withington)

Gerrard, Neil

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Gibson, Dr Ian

Bradshaw, Ben

Gilroy, Linda

Brown, Rt Hon Nicholas (Newcastle E & Wallsend)

Godsiff, Roger

Goggins, Paul

Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Bryant, Chris

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Burden, Richard

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Burgon, Colin

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Bumham, Andy

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Bumside, David

Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

Cairns, David

Hanson, David

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Healey, John

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Casale, Roger

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Caton, Martin

Hendrick, Mark

Cawsey, Ian

Hepburn, Stephen

Challen, Colin

Hermon, Lady

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Heyes, David

Chaytor, David

Hill, Keith

Clapham, Michael

Hinchliffe, David

Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

Hoey, Kate

Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Hood, Jimmy

Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Hope, Phil

Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

Hopkins, Kelvin

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

Clelland, David

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Coaker, Vemon

Howells, Dr Kim

Coffey, Ms Ann

Hoyle, Lindsay

Cohen, Harry

Hughes, Beverley (Stretford)

Connarty, Michael

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Humble, Mrs Joan

Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)

Hurst, Alan

Cousins, Jim

Hutton, Rt Hon John

Cranston, Ross

Iddon, Dr Brian

Crausby, David

Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

Irranca-Davies, Huw

Cummings, John

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Jamieson, David

Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

Jenkins, Brian

Dalyell, Tam

Johnson, Alan (Hull W& Hessle)

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Davidson, Ian

Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

Joyce, Eric

Dawson, Hilton

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

257

Keeble, Ms Sally

Picking, Anne

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Pike, Peter

Kelly, Ruth

Plaskitt, James

Khabra, Piara S

Pollard, Kerry

Kidney, David

Pond, Chris

Kilfoyle, Peter

Pound, Stephen

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

Prosser, Gwyn

Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

Purchase, Ken

Kumar, Dr Ashok

Quin, Rt Hon Joyce

Ladyman, Dr Stephen

Quinn, Lawrie

Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

Rapson, Syd

Laxton, Bob

Raynsford, Rt Hon Nick

Lazarowicz, Mark

Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

Lepper, David

Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

Leslie, Christopher

Levitt, Tom

Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

Rooney, Terry

Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

Ross, Ernie

Linton, Martin

Roy, Frank

Love, Andrew

Ruane, Chris

Lucas, Ian

Ruddock, Joan

Luke, Iain

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

McAvoy, Thomas

Ryan, Joan

McCabe, Stephen

Salter, Martin

McCafferty, Chris

Sawford, Phil

McCartney, Rt Hon Ian

Sedgemore, Brian

McDonagh, Siobhain

Sheerman, Barry

MacDonald, Calum

Sheridan, Jim

McDonnell, John

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

MacDougall, John

Skinner, Dennis

McFall, John

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

McIsaac, Shona

Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

McKechin, Ann

Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe)

McKenna, Rosemary

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

McNulty, Tony

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Mactaggart, Fiona

Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

McWalter, Tony

Soley, Clive

McWilliam, John

Southworth, Helen

Mahmood, Khalid

Spellar, Rt Hon John

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Squire, Rachel

Mallaber, Judy

Starkey, Dr Phyllis

Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

Steinberg, Gerry

Mann, John

Stevenson, George

Marris, Rob

Stinchcombe, Paul

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Stoate, Dr Howard

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

Martlew, Eric

Stringer, Graham

Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

Sutcliffe, Gerry

Milbum, Rt Hon Alan

Tami, Mark

Miller, Andrew

Taylor, Rt Hon Ann (Dewsbury)

Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

Taylor, Ms Dan (Stockton S)

Moffatt, Laura

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Mole, Chris

Timms, Stephen

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Tipping, Paddy

Moran, Margaret

Todd, Mark

Morgan, Julie

Touhig, Don

Morley. Elliot

Trickett, Jon

Mudie, George

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

Mullin, Chris

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Munn, Ms Meg

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

Tynan, Bill

Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

Walley, Ms Joan

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Ward, Ms Claire

Norris, Dan

Wareing, Robert N

O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

Watson, Tom

O'Neill, Martin

Watts, David

Organ, Diana

White, Brian

Osborne, Sandra (Ayr)

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Owen, Albert

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

Palmer, Dr Nick

Pearson, Ian

Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

Perham, Linda

Winnick, David

258

Woodward, Shaun

Wyatt, Derek

Woolas, Phil

Wray, James

Tellers for the Noes:

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Mr. John Heppell and

Wright, David (Telford)

Jim Fitzpatrick.

Question accordingly negatived
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
The House divided: Ayes 299, Noes 44.

Division No. 183]

[10.11 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Ainger, Nick

Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)

Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

Cousins, Jim

Allen, Graham

Cranston, Ross

Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

Crausby, David

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

Atherton, Ms Candy

Cummings, John

Atkins, Charlotte

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Austin, John

Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

Bailey, Adrian

Dalyell, Tam

Baird, Vera

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Banks, Tony

Davidson, Ian

Barron, Kevin

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Beard, Nigel

Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

Davis, Rt Hon Terry

Beggs, Roy

(B'ham Hodge H)

Benn, Hilary

Dawson, Hilton

Bennett, Andrew

Dean, Mrs Janet

Benton, Joe

Denham, Rt Hon John

Berry, Roger

Dismore, Andrew

Betts, Clive

Dobbin, Jim

Blackman, Liz

Donohoe, Brian H

Blears, Ms Hazel

Doran, Frank

Blizzard, Bob

Dowd, Jim

Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

Drew, David

Borrow, David

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Bradley, Rt Hon Keith (Withington)

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Ennis, Jeff

Bradshaw, Ben

Farrelly, Paul

Brown, Rt Hon Nicholas (Newcastle E& Wallsend)

Field, Rt Hon Frank (Birkenhead)

Fisher, Mark

Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

Bryant, Chris

Flint, Caroline

Burden, Richard

Foster, Rt Hon Derek

Burgon, Colin

Foster, Michael (Worcester)

Burnham, Andy

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

Bumside, David

Foulkes, George

Caims, David

Francis, Dr Hywel

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Galloway, George

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Gardiner, Barry

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

Casale, Roger

Gerrard, Neil

Caton, Martin

Gibson, Dr Ian

Cawsey, Ian

Gilroy, Linda

Challen, Colin

Godsiff, Roger

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Goggins, Paul

Chaytor, David

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Clapham, Michael

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

Hanson, David

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

Clelland, David

Healey, John

Coaker, Vernon

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Coffey, Ms Ann

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Cohen, Harry

Hendrick, Mark

Connarty, Michael

Hepburn, Stephen

259

Hermon, Lady

Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

Heyes, David

Mann, John

Hill, Keith

Marris, Rob

Hinchliffe, David

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Hoey, Kate

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Hood, Jimmy

Martlew, Eric

Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

Hope, Phil

Milbum, Rt Hon Alan

Hopkins, Kelvin

Miller, Andrew

Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Moffatt, Laura

Howells, Dr Kim

Mole, Chris

Hoyle, Lindsay

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Hughes, Beverley (Stretford)

Moran, Margaret

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Morgan, Julie

Humble, Mrs Joan

Morley, Elliot

Hurst, Alan

Mullin, Chris

Hutton, Rt Hon John

Munn, Ms Meg

Iddon, Dr Brian

Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

Irranca-Davies, Huw

Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Jamieson, David

Norris, Dan

Jenkins, Brian

O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

Johnson, Alan (Hull W& Hessle)

O'Neill, Martin

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Organ, Diana

Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

Osbome, Sandra (Ayr)

Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

Owen, Albert

Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

Palmer, Dr Nick

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

Pearson, Ian

Joyce, Eric

Perham, Linda

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Picking, Anne

Keeble, Ms Sally

Pike, Peter

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Plaskitt, James

Kelly, Ruth

Pollard, Kerry

Khabra, Piara S

Pond, Chris

Kidney, David

Pound, Stephen

Kilfoyle, Peter

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Prosser, Gwyn

King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

Purchase, Ken

Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

Quin, Rt Hon Joyce

Kumar, Dr Ashok

Quinn, Lawrie

Ladyman, Dr Stephen

Rapson, Syd

Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

Raynsford, Rt Hon Nick

Laxton, Bob

Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

Lazarowicz, Mark

Robertson, John

Lepper, David

(Glasgow Anniesland)

Leslie, Christopher

Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

Levitt, Tom

Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Rooney, Terry

Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

Ross, Emie

Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

Roy, Frank

Linton, Martin

Ruane, Chris

Love, Andrew

Ruddock, Joan

Lucas, Ian

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

Luke, lain

Ryan, Joan

McAvoy, Thomas

Sawford, Phil

McCabe, Stephen

Sheerman, Barry

McCafferty, Chris

Sheridan, Jim

McCartney, Rt Hon Ian

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

McDonagh, Siobhain

Skinner, Dennis

MacDonald, Calum

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

McDonnell, John

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

MacDougall, John

Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

McFall, John

Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe)

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

McIsaac, Shona

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

McKechin, Ann

Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

McKenna, Rosemary

Soley, Clive

McNulty, Tony

Southworth, Helen

Mactaggart, Fiona

Spellar, Rt Hon John

McWalter, Tony

Squire, Rachel

McWilliam, John

Starkey, Dr Phyllis

Mahmood, Khalid

Steinberg, Gerry

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Stevenson, George

Mallaber, Judy

Stinchcombe, Paul

260

Stoate, Dr Howard

Ward, Ms Claire

Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

Wareing, Robert N

Stringer, Graham

Watson, Tom

Sutcliffe, Gerry

Watts, David

Tami, Mark

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Taylor, Rt Hon Ann (Dewsbury)

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

Timms, Stephen

Winnick, David

Tipping, Paddy

Woodward, Shaun

Todd, Mark

Woolas, Phil

Touhig, Don

Wray, James

Trickett, Jon

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

Wright, David (Telford)

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Wyatt, Derek

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Tynan, Bill

Mr. John Heppell and

Walley, Ms Joan

Jim Fitzpatrick.

NOES

Allan, Richard

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Barrett, John

Moore, Michael

Beith, Rt Hon A J

Öpik, Lembit

Brake, Tom

Pugh, Dr John

Brooke, Mrs Annette L

Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

Burstow, Paul

Rendel, David

Calton, Mrs Patsy

Robertson, Angus (Moray)

Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Salmond, Alex

Carmichael, Alistair

Sanders, Adrian

Cotter, Brian

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

Ewing, Annabelle

Stunell Andrew

Foster, Don (Bath)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

George, Andrew (St Ives)

Tonge, Dr Jenny

Gidley, Sandra

Tyler, Paul

Hancock, Mike

Webb, Steve

Heath, David

Weir, Michael

Holmes, Paul

Williams, Hywel (Caemarfon)

Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

Williams, Roger (Brecon)

Keetch, Paul

Younger-Ross, Richard

Kirkwood, Archy

Lamb, Norman

Tellers for the Noes:

Laws, David

Pete Wishart and

Llwyd, Elfyn

Mr. Simon Thomas.

Question accordingly agreed to.
MR. SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has confidence in the process of granting planning consent for new nuclear power stations in Scotland and Wales; notes the benefits of addressing issues relating to energy policy within a UK framework; welcomes the contribution of the recent PIU Energy Review to the debate on energy policy; and welcomes the intention of HM Government and the devolved administrations to work in partnership in implementing an energy policy to ensure energy supplies are secure, competitively priced and sustainable.
10.22 pm
Mr. Paul Burstow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Have you had a request from the Secretary of State for Health to allow him to come to the House and apologise for letting 1,000 written questions go unanswered by his Department since the start of the Session? Written questions are one of the few ways in which hon. Members can hold the Government to

261
account. How can we have confidence that Ministers who can preside over such a fiasco will deliver relevant and helpful answers on time?
Mr. Speaker: Often, on behalf of the House, I have complained to Ministers from the Chair that they should always come to the House when any difficulty arises to do with their Departments. The Secretary of State for Health, to whom the hon. Gentleman referred, has come to the House and answered a parliamentary question. Therefore, I have absolutely no complaint about him.

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

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
That the draft Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2002, which were laid before this House on 7th February, be approved.— [Mr. McNulty.]
Question agreed to.

Euro
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McNulty.]
10.23 pm
Mr. David Laws: I am glad to be able to raise an issue of great importance to the Government's economic policy, and I am pleased that the Economic Secretary is in her place this evening. I am sure that she is eager to engage in the matters that we are to debate, which have to do with the five preliminary economic tests for joining the euro. Those tests are famous in this Parliament, but little debated.
That there have been so few opportunities to debate a matter so important to the country's economic and political future is unfortunate, not least because Conservative Members seem to have lost some of the enthusiasm for discussing the matter that they showed at the end of the previous Parliament. However, I am delighted that one representative of the Conservative party at least is with us this evening. The presence of the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) is most welcome.
It is a great surprise that the Government should be so reticent about discussing some of the issues to do with the five economic tests for joining the euro, given their importance for the Government and the future of the country's economy. In particular, I draw the House's attention to a series of written questions that have been tabled over the past few months. The Economic Secretary replied to many of them, but many of the answers—no doubt through the fault of the civil servants involved rather than the Minister—have not been as full as one might have hoped. I therefore hope that she will use this debate to clarify the Government's position on a number of issues and shed more light on an extremely important issue.
To make it easier for the Economic Secretary to respond to some of the major issues, I thought that I would put to her five simple questions about the five tests and the work that has been done to evaluate them. I hope that it will be possible for her to respond to those questions in her reply. I look forward to that.
First, when did the Government start the preliminary work that is now under way on the economic tests for the euro? It does not appear to have started at the end of the last Parliament. We were told earlier in this Parliament that the work had suddenly begun. It would be useful to know when it began and, in particular, when it is due to be completed. We know that the evaluation of the five economic tests will not be completed until June of next year, but at the moment— I am sure that the position will change later this evening—we are at a loss as to where we are on the evaluation of the preliminary work on the tests.
My second question relates to an issue about which it has been difficult to flush out information from the Treasury. Who precisely is involved in evaluating the five economic tests? That appears to be relatively straightforward, yet it has proved to be astonishingly difficult to get answers out of the Government about which Minister is responsible for the preliminary work, which units within the Treasury are involved in it and how many officials are engaged on it. I hope that the Economic Secretary can shed some light on those issues.

263
My third question relates to the fact that it is obvious that any evaluation of the five tests must embrace the Bank of England because of its responsibility for monetary policy. We are aware from the Governor of the Bank of England that at least one bank official has been seconded to the Treasury to help with this work. Unfortunately, the Governor's correspondence with me on this point suggests that he is not sure of what the official is doing at the Treasury and what contribution he or she is making to the work. It would be most welcome to me and, no doubt, to the Governor, to know what the official is doing in relation to the five tests and the preliminary evaluation.
Fourthly, perhaps the Economic Secretary can also tell us what parts of the preliminary work have been evaluated to date. Which bits of the work are complete and which still need a significant amount of work?
My final question is about the work that the Government may or may not have done in judging what the sustainable long-term exchange rate for the pound is in relation to the euro. We have to resort largely to the newspapers to find out what the Government are doing on this important issue, and we understand from the Financial Times that they are using a variety of economic models from the private sector and some advisers and economists from the private sector to allow them to evaluate the tests and, in particular, make a judgment about the long-term sustainable exchange rate. That is vital in determining whether we have met the five tests. Perhaps the Economic Secretary will also reflect on that point in her speech.
What are the Government doing not just to test whether we have met the five economic tests, but to achieve them? As we know that the Government want to join the euro and therefore presumably want to meet the five tests, we presume that they are doing something to achieve them. We know that, over recent years, our interest rates have been above those in the eurozone and that there is a convergence issue. We also know that the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chancellor consider the current rate of sterling against the euro too high and would seek a devaluation of the pound against the euro before we contemplate joining it.
It would be immensely interesting to know what the Government intend to do and how they are co-ordinating their fiscal and monetary policies to achieve a lower exchange rate and lower interest rates. When the Governor of the Bank of England came before the Select Committee on the Treasury last week and was questioned on this point, he said that there had been no discussions with the Treasury's representative on the Committee, Gus O'Donnell, about this issue and that he was unable to factor any decision about the euro into the Bank of England's forecasts for inflation and the economy because he had no idea of the Government's intentions in this regard. He suggested that the Committee had as much idea as he did about what the Government were intending to do.
Surely that is of great concern if the Government are seriously trying to converge in relation to the euro and meet the five economic tests. We expected at least some discussion between the Chancellor and the Bank of England about how to achieve the five economic tests and
264
the convergence. Surely there would be some discussion about the way in which monetary and fiscal policy can work together to allow the Government to achieve those tests. It seems astonishing that there appears to have been no discussion between the Governor of the Bank of England and the Treasury or even within the Monetary Policy Committee about this issue. I hope that the Economic Secretary can not only tell us what work has been done on the tests to date and answer my five questions but explain how the Government are seeking to ensure that we meet those tests.
The final major issue relating to the euro, which was aired, to some extent, by the Chancellor last week in relation to the new Treasury White Paper involved structural and political reform within Europe and the way in which that may contribute to us meeting—or not meeting—the five economic tests. It has been no secret for some time that the Government are concerned about some of the structural aspects in Europe, such as how the European Central Bank operates, the lack of political accountability of its inflation target, and its unaccountability to politicians. Indeed, we understand that Mr. Gus O'Donnell has aired those concerns with undergraduates at various universities, although not in this place, unfortunately.
We know that the Government consider their own inflation target and the way in which the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England is established to be a far superior model to the European Central Bank. However, we have no idea about what the Government intend to do to reform the ECB or whether that is a condition of joining the euro. We would be grateful for the Economic Secretary's insight.
Of particular importance to the Government's agenda for structural reform in Europe is the growth and stability pact. It was specifically aired in the White Paper "Realising Europe's Potential", which was released by the Government last week. For a long time, the Government have expressed concerns about the operation of the growth and stability pact and the fact that it is not consistent with their fiscal policies, which allow them to borrow money to invest in capital items in this country—sensibly, in our view. It is well known that the pact does not offer the Government that flexibility in economic policy and that that might therefore be a problem—a sixth test, as the Chancellor put it the other day—in getting this country into the euro. For a long time, the Government have seemed to think that they could get away with what they described in the pre-Budget report last year as a prudent interpretation of the growth and stability pact. That is an odd use of "prudent" as it is clear that the Chancellor's view of the word is that it means less rather than more prudent.
Until now, the Treasury's position appeared to be that there was sufficient flexibility in "prudent" to allow the Government to sign up to the existing growth and stability pact while retaining the flexibility to borrow money for capital purposes. We know that this is a vital issue for the Government because in the last pre-Budget report they said that they were planning to
"borrow modestly to fund increased investment in the country's capital stock."
The Government's fiscal policy relies upon borrowing to fund the investment that Liberal Democrat and Labour Members believe is important for the country's future, yet we know that that is not consistent with the growth and stability pact.

265
The paper issued by the Government last week was a movement away from their reliance on merely a prudent interpretation of the pact towards its reform. The Chancellor spelt out that change of policy last week at Treasury questions although he failed to recognise that it was a change. He said that the growth and stability pact needed improvement in three areas: the economic cycle, public investment and debt sustainability.
If the Government's position is now that the pact is in need of improvement and reform rather than merely a different interpretation, is their policy that there should be a sixth test before we contemplate joining the euro? Will the Government suggest to the country that we should sign up to the euro in the absence of reform of the pact? That extremely important point was highlighted by the Government's announcement last week, and I hope that the Economic Secretary can shed some light on it.
There are other considerations in Europe, such as drawing up a constitutional settlement for the European Union that would define and limit some of its powers. As Liberals, my party and I have no problem with that. We believe that Europe should be able to focus on issues such as trade, environment, foreign policy and even perhaps defence, but it should not meddle unnecessarily in matters such as tax, social and spending policies or borrowing.
Will the Economic Secretary tell us more about the Government's policy on the constitutional convention? Will there be input from the Treasury on matters such as tax policy and spending and social policies? Will there be a Treasury obligation to obtain agreement on flexibility in those matters before we consider signing up to the euro? Will any of them form part of additional tests that the Government might impose, or are they embedded in the famous five economic tests that few people outside the Treasury seem able to remember?
Bob Russell: Name them.
Mr. Laws: I shall not rise to the bait offered by my hon. Friend. The tests are in my notes, but I do not want to detain the Minister.
I shall conclude my remarks soon so that the Economic Secretary has the longest possible time in which to respond and give us as much information as possible. I welcome the Government's suggestion last week that the growth and stability pact is in need of reform. The greatest hurdle against Britain's joining the euro is people's anxiety about some of the constitutional and political issues rather than the economic issues. That is almost directly opposed to the Government's view: they say that there are economic tests to be met, but no constitutional objections.
If we can deal with issues such as the growth and stability pact, the lack of accountability of the ECB and the dangers of unnecessary tax harmonisation rather than tax competition, we shall be more successful in persuading people that they need seriously to consider the prospect of joining the euro. I hope that the Economic Secretary will respond by saying more about the important preliminary technical preparations, by explaining how the Government are going to meet the five economic tests and by telling us how they will pursue their reform agenda in Europe to persuade the British people of the economic advantages of the euro.
10.38 pm
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Ruth Kelly): I should like to take the opportunity provided by this important and useful debate to address some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) and, of course, to restate the Government's policy on United Kingdom membership of the single currency.
The hon. Gentleman has raised a considerable number of issues. I shall attempt to deal with as many as I can during the short time available. The question that he seemed to put most often related to the number of tests and I hope to make that clear during my response.
Europe is fundamental to the UK economy. About 3 million jobs are directly affected by our economic ties with Europe. More than 50 per cent. of our total trade is with the European Union. The EU is our largest trade and investment partner.
In his statement on economic and monetary union in October 1997, the Chancellor said:
"The potential benefits for Britain of a successful single currency are obvious in terms of trade, transparency of costs and currency stability."
The Chancellor also said that
"a successful single currency within a single European market would be of benefit to Europe and Britain".—[Official Report, 27 October 1997; Vol. 299, c. 583.]
That is why, in principle, the Government are in favour of UK membership of EMU; in practice, the economic conditions must be right. That is the Government's policy, as it was set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in October 1997, and repeated by him in the House last week.
The determining factor underpinning any Government decision on membership of the single currency is the national economic interest and whether the economic case for joining is clear and unambiguous. We have consistently said that if that is the case, there is no constitutional bar to joining.
As the Chancellor said in his October 1997 statement, the five economic tests will define whether a clear and unambiguous case can be made. In the same statement, the Chancellor set out the five tests. These are, first: are business cycles and economic structures compatible so that we and others could live comfortably with euro interest rates on a permanent basis? Secondly, if problems emerge, is there sufficient flexibility to deal with them? Thirdly, would joining EMU create better conditions for firms making long-term decisions to invest in Britain? Fourthly, what impact would entry into EMU have on the competitive position of the UK's financial services industry, particularly the City's wholesale markets? Fifthly, in summary, will joining EMU promote higher growth, stability and a lasting increase in jobs?
The Chancellor said in his Mansion House speech in June 2001 that
"to join in the wrong way or on the wrong basis without rigorously ensuring the tests are met, would not be in the national interest. Such a course would risk repeating past failures, would prejudice our stability and would be damaging for investment, business and jobs generally."
The International Monetary Fund stated in its 2001 article IV report on the UK economy that the five tests were
"consistent with the economic considerations which would be important for the decision to join a monetary union."

267
The Chancellor repeated only last week that the Treasury will complete an assessment of the five tests within two years of the start of this Parliament. The Government remain committed to that.
Once the Treasury has completed the five tests assessment, a recommendation will be made to Cabinet. The Government will then make a decision on UK membership of EMU. If the Government recommend UK entry, it will be put to a vote in Parliament and then to a referendum of the British people.
The hon. Gentleman called this debate because he is interested in the preliminary and technical work. The Government have been nothing but open about the nature of this preliminary and technical work. I am happy to respond to the hon. Gentleman by once again setting out the nature and content of the that work.
Mr. Laws: The Minister and her abilities are renowned in this place. May we take as read much of the Government's standard position on the euro, so that we have time to address some of the substantive issues raised this evening, in particular the Chancellor's comments last week about the economic growth and stability pact? Can the Economic Secretary say whether the Government would be willing to recommend that we join the euro without reform of the growth and stability pact?
Ruth Kelly: I will come on to the growth and stability pact, but I believe that the hon. Gentleman welcomed the full answer that the Chancellor gave to his question at Treasury questions last week. As he knows, the Chancellor is committed to a prudent interpretation of the growth and stability pact which recognises the full role that public investment should play, as well as sustainability of the debt. He has argued strongly for that at ECOFIN and will continue to do so.
On 4 November 2001, in his speech to the Confederation of British Industry, the Chancellor said:
"While the assessment has not yet started, the necessary preliminary analysis—technical work that is necessary to allow us to undertake the assessment within two years as promised—is underway."
The Chancellor once again made it clear in his reply to the hon. Gentleman at Treasury oral questions last Thursday that
"after the first detailed assessment of the five economic tests in 1997, we said that our policy was to prepare and decide and to make an assessment early in the Parliament. The assessment of the five economic tests has not yet started, but last year we set out the necessary next stage of preliminary and technical work."—[Official Report, 28 February 2002; Vol. 380. c. 823.]
As I repeated in the Westminster Hall debate in January, the scope of the necessary preliminary and technical work was set out in the original October 1997 assessment. Although there have been new developments since then, the underlying issues to be analysed remain the same and the five tests themselves are unchanged.
The Treasury released a paper in November last year entitled "Preliminary and technical work to prepare for the assessment of the five tests for UK membership of the single currency". Hon. Members can find a copy of that in the Library of the House. It sets out some of the key parts of the preliminary and technical work, although it is
268
by no means an exhaustive list as the preliminary work continues to evolve to take account of the latest technical research and analysis.
Let me give some details of the work taken from the paper, as the Chancellor did at Treasury questions last week.
Mr. Laws: How much of the preliminary and technical work has been done so far and when will it be completed?
Ruth Kelly: The Chancellor said that the preliminary and technical work is necessary to inform the assessment of the economic tests. We have committed ourselves to completing the assessment within the first two years of this Parliament, as the hon. Gentleman is aware. I have just stated that the nature of the preliminary and technical work is evolving to take account of the latest research and analysis. It would not be meaningful or right for us to give a running commentary on what stage that work is at, and I am not about to do so.
However, it is worth setting out what the work attempts to achieve. It updates the analysis on the cyclical behaviour of the UK economy relative to the euro area and the relative responses to economic shocks; on the mechanisms by which product, labour and capital markets adjust, and how well and how quickly they work; on the impact of the single currency on the cost and availability of capital; on the effect of the single currency on financial services; and on the impact of the single currency on trade, competition, productivity and employment. As I noted in the Westminster Hall debate on the five tests in January, the Government have no intention of entering into a running commentary on the preliminary and technical work. However, we are committed to finishing the assessment within the first two years of this Parliament.
The hon. Gentleman raised several questions about the nature of the preliminary and technical work. For instance, he asked who is involved in it. The Treasury is in regular contact with outside economists, the Bank of England and other Departments on a range of issues, including aspects of the work. However, it is clear that the assessment will be a Government assessment and that the work will be undertaken by the Treasury. There is no intention to contract out any part of the assessment.
The hon. Gentleman also tried to ascertain how many Treasury officials are working on the preliminary and technical work. I am sure that he received my recent letter to him in which I stated:
"It would not be meaningful to quantify the numbers of Treasury management units involved in this work, since this would be only a number with no real indication of the resources allocated to the work".
As each management unit is involved to a differing extent and in a variety of ways, to indicate the number of Treasury teams involved in the work by simply listing names would be misleading. The work is constantly changing and is updated to take account of the latest research and analysis. So the number of officials and the nature of the management units involved changes as the work evolves. Even if I could carry out a meaningful calculation to disclose the names of the teams and individuals involved, it would be only a snapshot which would be even less representative as the work progresses.
Mr. Laws: I am very grateful to the Economic Secretary for giving way again. She reminds me of one of those graceful ships in the second world war whose job was to put up a big smokescreen so the convoy could escape—but she does it in a very glamorous and effective way. Before she finishes, will she tell us whether we will be informed that the preliminary technical assessment has been completed before we find out the result of the five economic tests? In other words, will we be told that the preliminary work has finished and then that the work on the tests has started, or will the results suddenly land on us from on high, perhaps on the front page of The Times, as happened in the previous Parliament?
Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government have committed themselves to completing the assessment of the five economic tests within the first two years of this Parliament. We remain committed to that and nothing has changed, so in the remaining few minutes, it would be useful if I tried to answer some of his other questions.
The hon. Gentleman was interested in the White Paper on European economic reform and asked whether economic reform was in some respects a sixth test for entry into the euro. It is not. We have always underlined the importance of economic reform in its own right; it is crucial to Europe's future success. The Government are determined to play a positive and constructive role in Europe, helping to deliver that reform. All member states now recognise the importance of such reform.
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The hon. Gentleman also referred to the European Central Bank and our views about the nature of its workings. We share the ECB's primary objective of ensuring price stability as a platform for high and stable growth and employment. We agree that the ECB must ensure that decisions are as transparent as possible and we welcome the efforts that it has made so far. We think that openness and transparency are key to ensuring that the ECB gains the trust of the European public and financial markets, and that that will ultimately help to provide the credibility that is needed to deliver a more effective monetary policy. We would not, however, somehow make reform of the ECB an additional test to our five economic tests or a precondition of the euro decision. We have set out our policy clearly: the five economic tests should be assessed and must be judged clearly and unambiguously before any recommendation is made to Parliament and the people.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the growth and stability pact. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said in oral questions last week, we support prudent interpretation of the operation of the pact, but yet again, we would in no sense move away from the five economic tests that have been set out. It is clear what those tests are and we remain determined to assess them.
The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at seven minutes to Eleven o'clock.

Preamble
SIR ALAN HASELHURST[SIR ALAN HASELHURST in the Chair]

National Institute for Clinical Excellence
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.— [Mr. Heppe.]
9.30 am
Angela Watkinson: I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss an important subject that touches the lives of many different people: patients, their families, health professionals and managers and those in the pharmaceutical industry. The setting up of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence as a central body for the investigation, appraisal and recommendation of drugs, treatments and technologies was well intentioned and welcome. It offers an opportunity to obtain value for money in research through economies of scale and to make the best use of scarce national health service resources. Health authorities and primary care trusts can rely on the efficacy, safety and quality of NICE-appraised drugs and ensure that they are available to the patients who need them and who will benefit from them.
However, it is unclear who decides on the priorities for investigation and how much influence cost-effectiveness has on the institute's decisions. There is a general lack of openness and transparency about the process, methodology and criteria that are used to determine whether a treatment is effective. Realistically, the cost of the treatment should be set against the benefits of an individual restored to good health and able to work and lead a normal life. For example, it is estimated that rheumatoid arthritis costs the country £1.2 billion a year in benefits and lost income. Similarly, multiple sclerosis sufferers could be helped to lead a healthy life if beta interferon were available to them. Appraisal teams rarely include specialist clinicians in the particular field under investigation, yet such investigation would surely benefit from their detailed knowledge and experience. Perhaps the Minister would be kind enough to comment on those points in her summing up.
In theory, NICE should lead to faster take-up of clinically effective and cost-effective new treatments. There have already been many benefits. Since the institute was established less than three years ago, it has published clear and authoritative guidance on the use of more than 30 treatments, including new cancer drugs and treatments for coronary heart disease, asthma in children, diabetes and dementia. The duty of health authorities to implement NICE guidance within three months and make new treatments available should, in theory, eliminate the postcode lottery and make access more equitable. Regrettably, in practice, the variation in patient care that is so counter to the fundamental principles of the NHS persists, for two main reasons.
The first reason is funding. Funding for new treatments is not ring-fenced but is simply included in health authorities' global budgets. Health authorities
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must plan ahead, and if a NICE-appraised drug is unexpectedly introduced halfway through a budgetary year, they have serious difficulties in making funds available for the treatment. The absence of ring-fencing can lead to robbing Peter to pay Paul, with no net gain for patients. It is also difficult for large organisations that serve many commissioners, such as my own Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS trust, to ensure that all populations have equal access.
The second reason is delays. The process of appraisal is far too slow, and some health authorities are using NICE delays as a reason for not prescribing desperately needed treatments. That has become known as NICE blight. For example, following an appraisal process that started in August 2000, NICE has still not published guidance on the use of campto and other treatments for colorectal cancer. Negative NICE guidance would leave patients in Britain with no freedom of use of drug therapies. They would be in a similar position to those in Korea, Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
The United Kingdom lags behind many other countries in the uptake of innovative medicines, a situation exacerbated by a paucity of NHS drug funding. The NHS drugs budget allocation in 2000 for all anti-cancer drugs, for all cancers, was only 6.7 per cent. Only one in five eligible patients currently receives campto. The appraisal on its use in the first-line treatment of advanced colorectal cancer has taken far too long, which has serious implications for those already ill.
The condition is reaching epidemic proportions. The results of a second appeal against NICE refusal of campto—a drug of proven efficacy—bring into question the influence of cost on NICE decisions. There is similar concern over the availability of the breast cancer treatment herceptin, often the last resort for patients for whom other treatments have failed. Too many patients die while crucial decisions are awaited.
Implementation issues are causing difficulty with some areas of NICE guidance. Guidance on drugs for Alzheimer's published in January 2001 recommended that only specialists such as old-age psychiatrists and neurologists initiate and establish the maintenance dose for treatment. In many localities, there is a shortage of available specialists. A larger role for general practitioners who have specialist knowledge of not only the patient but the caring spouse would facilitate the wider availability of those treatments.
I recently received an answer from the Minister to a question about NICE guidance on fertility treatment. That is of concern to a group in my constituency, Couples Having Infertility Problems Solved—or CHIPS—which is eagerly awaiting the outcome of the NICE investigation. The Minister said:
"NICE has not yet published a timetable for development of these guidelines."
Although not a life-endangering condition, infertility causes extreme distress to couples. The delay has particular relevance because the biological clocks of the women concerned are ticking away; for some, it will be too late. Without the necessary treatment, those women could remain childless, with devastating results on their future emotional well-being.
The Department of Health placed 240 target areas for improvement on my local health authority last year, which was very challenging. Those used up the lion's

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share of the authority's budget, leaving only £6 million for the many non-target areas, including fertility treatment. There were £20 million-worth of bids for that £6 million, so the amount available for fertility treatment was, necessarily, extremely small. I urge the Minister to ask NICE to give greater priority to that important area of health care.
Over the years, a plethora of health-related bodies has grown up, including NICE, the Commission for Health Improvement, the National Clinical Assessment Authority and the National Patient Safety Agency. On 10 January this year, the chief medical officer announced a new committee, the National Infection Control and Health Protection Agency. We await the establishment of a new council for quality health care. All those organisations have to work closely with the social services inspectorate, the National Care Standards Commission and the Audit Commission. We seem to be overburdened with bureaucratic bodies. There is an urgent need for greater co-ordination and the avoidance of duplication of effort in the provision of quality public health services in the NHS.
A formal review of NICE has been expected for some time and there has been much debate about how and by whom it should be carried out. It is essential that that review is not concerned only with issues important to the pharmaceutical industry, which contributes so much to medical research in the United Kingdom and to the Government. It must also take into account the views and experiences of a wide range of health professionals, patients and patient groups on how treatments are used and how they work in day-to-day circumstances. More emphasis should be placed on the cost-effectiveness of medicines in terms of outcomes for patients and the implications for other elements of Government spending.
The impact of medicines on patients' quality of life is frequently overlooked, and it is more difficult to measure than cost. Reassurance is needed that NICE is not a cost-containment body. Who makes decisions on the affordability as opposed to the cost effectiveness of treatment is paramount. The success of NICE depends on how its guidance is implemented. Evidence of continued, or eradicated, postcode prescribing following NICE guidance needs to be collated with evidence of health authority and GP compliance with NICE recommendations. Unacceptable variations in care could then be challenged and all patients, regardless of their geographical location, would have equal access to treatment that best meets their needs.
9.40 am
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) on a fine presentation of the case against NICE, and on securing a debate on a topic that has concerned many hon. Members, and many of our constituents, over a number of years. I saw the Minister make a face, and I hope that that will not be reflected in her response because I come to this debate with some constructive suggestions from the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
I should like to talk about the operation of NICE in conjunction with the investigation into beta interferon. Back in 1998, following investigations on behalf of some
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of my constituents who suffer from multiple sclerosis, I received some correspondence from a company called Schering, which had been trialling beta interferon. It stated that the
"effect of Betaferon on the condition"—
of secondary progressive multiple sclerosis—
"was so strikingly good that the Committee of International Trialists stopped this trial and offered Betaferon to those who were still on placebo."
In June 1998, the eighth meeting of the European Neurological Society in France concluded from an abstract of the trial that the study provided convincing evidence that treatment with the drug delays sustained neurological deterioration in patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, which was reflected in the delay in their becoming wheelchair-bound.
To set the NICE investigation into beta interferon in context, I let the Minister know that I was receiving such papers in my office in 1998 and was passing them on to my constituents with multiple sclerosis. We started an investigation into the drug, and the Department of Health and the National Assembly for Wales asked NICE to appraise beta interferon on 6 August 1999. That appraisal did not happen in 2000, and it did not happen in 2001; it was not until 4 February 2002 that a final result came from NICE. That is an unacceptable length of time for anybody to wait for an investigation into a drug that has received the sort of reports that I have mentioned. Unfortunately, as the Minister knows, NICE was not able to recommend the drug.
At the same time that the Department of Health came out against the drug on the ground of cost-effectiveness, it leapt in to come up with a scheme to make the drug available to our constituents. I do not want to be curmudgeonly about that: we are extremely pleased that the scheme has been introduced, and many people are delighted to be included in it. However, it seems nonsensical that although NICE, which was set up by the Department of Health, opposed the use of the drug, the Department is spending its time finding ways around such decisions.
I agree with the Multiple Sclerosis Society, which has been absolutely fantastic throughout the debacle, supporting its members and providing information to Members of Parliament and other interested parties. The MSS wrote to me saying that it welcomes the Department's proposal but regrets
"that NICE itself has not been able to show the imagination necessary to resolve the issue. NICE has effectively said that because it cannot be sure about the long-term cost-effectiveness of the drugs people with MS should not receive them. The Department, by contrast, has said that the drugs should be prescribed in a manner which will allow this long-term cost-effectiveness to be properly assessed. The Department's approach turns on its head NICE's presumption of guilt until innocence is proven."
I want to reflect the concerns of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, which was involved in the appraisal of the disease-modifying drugs for MS for more than two years—twice the standard length of technology appraisals.
There is no doubt that the appraisal of the drugs was a challenge for the institute. The appraisal of drugs for MS, which is a long-term and complex condition, has certainly tested the robustness of the institute's approach to drug appraisals, but it has thrown into

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sharp relief several issues that need to be addressed if the institute is to meet the agenda set for it as a first-class service.
Mr. Oliver Heald: Does my hon. Friend agree that NICE faces the problem of deciding cost-effectiveness according to available resources? The Treasury decides how much money is available, and what is clinically excellent or cost-effective is decided in that context. NICE is not really considering matters with a blank piece of paper; it is forced to look at things from the Treasury viewpoint.
Mrs. Gillan: My hon. Friend is right, and he makes a good point. There is a straitjacket enforced on NICE that is not good for its investigations and operations. I have had constituents who were put on the drug and continued to work and contribute to society. The NICE appraisal does not consider the whole economic picture of how people continue their lives and are productive in society.
There is a gap between the institute's rhetoric about openness, transparency and the patient's perspective, and the actual nature of its structures and practices. That gap undermines the credibility of guidance from the institute among patients and patient representative organisations. The institute's approach is dominated by health economics and is characterised by a heavy reliance on results from randomised control trials. Such trials are necessarily short-term and cannot provide concrete evidence for the drugs, which will be used in the long term. The institute has not yet developed a suitable methodology for assessing the cost-effectiveness of longterm interventions.
I should like to put to the Minister a series of recommendations from the Multiple Sclerosis Society. I hope that when she responds she will do me, and the society, the courtesy of addressing those points. The society believes that a cultural shift is needed so that the critical nature of the institute's decisions and the resulting need to command the respect of the public are reflected in its structures, processes, and the way in which it conducts its day-to-day business. The society thinks that appointments to the institute's partners council board and appraisals committee should be advertised and subject to open recruitment processes. It thinks that the deliberations of the appraisals committee should be opened up by allowing patient representative organisations to observe discussions and by posting detailed notes of the committee's meetings on the institute's website. Those are not difficult recommendations for the Minister to consider. The appeal panel should be replaced with a lawfully constituted, independent body. I do not expect a knee-jerk reaction from the Minister, but I hope that she will give that recommendation long-term consideration and tell me, perhaps in a letter, how it is received.
There should be a public review of the institute's approach to the use of health economics which should examine, for example, the threshold of cost-effectiveness that has been set by the institute, the value of relying on the evidence of randomised, controlled trials, the costs and savings taken into account in appraisals, and the difficulties of assessing cost-effectiveness in the long term. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) will accept from
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a humble Back Bencher that I hope that that should be supported across the board in our party. The institute should more actively support input from patient representative organisations and make the perspective of users who are affected by its decisions central to its decision-making process.
In conclusion, many of my constituents have gone to hell and back over the appraisal. They have had their hopes raised; they have had their hopes dashed. Some have amazingly poignant stories of people who have been unable to afford the drug and whose friends have gathered to raise the money for it and seen results. The Minister will have seen in the newspapers at the weekend the wonderful story of the lady who was able to become a fitness instructor following a successful course of the drug. I hope that the Minister will take the recommendations from the Multiple Sclerosis Society seriously. There has been a lot of pain in the operation of NICE and I hope that she will now learn the lessons from the mistakes and give us the assurance about the institute that my constituents and the MS Society deserve.
9.51 am
Mr. Mark Hoban: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) on securing this debate and opening it in such good style. NICE causes my constituents great concern in the prescribing of certain drugs and, in her opening comments, my hon. Friend referred to its lack of transparency. I want to illustrate that with two examples that I found on the NICE website.
One of the interesting features of the technology appraisal on NICE's website is that it states when the first, second and other appraisals committee meetings were held and the decisions reached, but it does not state when the appraisal process started. It states that assessment of the rheumatoid arthritis drugs etanercept and infliximab started before 6 February 2001, but not the firm date on which it started. It also states that the expected date of issue will be March 2002. One year seems a long time in which to appraise drugs that have already been assessed for effectiveness and safety and been approved and licensed. That is not the worst example of delays in the appraisal of drugs by NICE.
Asthma inhalers for older children are being assessed, and again no start date is published on the website, although those using the devices will be pleased to know that in March 2003, they will know which asthma inhalers are both cost and clinically effective. There has been a huge delay in reaching proper conclusions on drugs that have already been licensed as effective and safe. NICE's original remit was to speed up the availability of drugs and to assess clinical effectiveness, but the two examples that I cited fly in the face of that.
The area that causes me most concern is the change to NICE's remit in August 1999 to assess the cost-effectiveness of drugs within the Treasury's available resources. That sends a message to people awaiting evaluation of those drugs that once NICE has agreed that they are clinically and cost-effective, they will be available to those who need them. However, that is clearly not so, as an answer from the Department of Health suggested a few months ago. It stated that the Government will, in due course, announce plans to

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implement their manifesto commitment to ensure that local health authorities, primary care groups and primary care trusts are directed to prescribe those drugs. That hits at the crux of the problem that I have experienced in my constituency.
I would like to mention a case, but do not expect the Minister to reply to my comments on it, as I am using it purely as an illustration. One of my constituents, Michael Cooper, is hoping to be prescribed etanercept, a drug that relieves rheumatoid arthritis. That drug is being assessed by N ICE. Fareham and Gosport primary care groups sent me a letter to say that, even if NICE decides that the drug is effective, there is also a local process, led by clinicians, for evaluating the safety and effectiveness of new drugs. There is also a third layer of assessment, which takes advice issued by NICE into account. That is another delay in making the drug available to those in my constituency.
A further letter about Mr. Cooper's case was sent to me, and it raises the issue of what happens when NICE approves a drug, and how to fund the prescribing of it within the drug budget available to the local primary care group. I also have a letter from a consultant who works for Portsmouth City primary care trust, which says that we will have to consider carefully not just the benefits to patients from the drug, but what the rest of the population will have to do without in order to fund it—the drug is very expensive. Mr. Cooper hopes that it will deal with his condition effectively, but primary care groups say that they do not have the budget to enable the drug to be prescribed. That is remarkable, given that the Treasury laid down the basis on which the cost-effectiveness of the drug was to be assessed.
I worry about Mr. Cooper's condition. He has had many operations to replace joints and has taken a series of drugs, all of which have been rejected by his body. I spoke to him last night. He has been on morphine, and as his body did not accept the drug that he has tried most recently, he will have to go back on morphine. Etanercept has been licensed for use and is effective and safe, so why cannot his GP or consultant prescribe it privately while the NICE process is under way? That would be a sensible step. The drug must be safe and effective, as it has passed its licensing hurdles.
Mr. Cooper has generated a huge amount of correspondence on the subject, and makes some pertinent points. One letter to him contains the comment:
"You asked for guidance on the issuing of private prescriptions. A hospital consultant can not issue a private prescription and continue to see the patient under the NHS—it must be totally private."
A consultant in secondary care cannot prescribe the drug unless Mr. Cooper goes private. That is an odd state of affairs for someone who cannot have a drug funded from the local drug budget. Why cannot Mr. Cooper use his resources to meet the cost of etanercept? The letter goes on to say:
"Similarly, a GP would breach his or her terms and conditions of service if they issued a private prescription for a drug that they could theoretically prescribe on the NHS."
The word "theoretically" intrigues me. A GP cannot prescribe an approved drug if it is theoretically available on the NHS, even though the local primary care trust
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cannot prescribe it because it has not gone through the full local clinical effectiveness tests or the NICE tests. That puts us in difficult circumstances whereby drugs that are available theoretically, but not in reality, cannot even be prescribed privately for the relief of a very painful condition.
We are in an odd situation. We have drugs that are licensed as safe and effective. They are being appraised by NICE and by a local PCG. It is not guaranteed that they will be made available to patients because of the limitations on the drugs budget. At the same time, NHS rules prevent the consultant or the general practitioner from providing those drugs.
That is the crux of the problem. The system adds layer upon layer of control on the prescription of drugs. NICE is acting as a gatekeeper for cost-effectiveness within available resources, but it is still the PCG's responsibility to determine whether it is able, from its restricted drugs budget, to prescribe what can be very expensive drugs. Members of the PCG in my area—it is soon to become a primary care trust—will have to decide which drugs should be removed from the list and what changes in prescribing habits should be made in order to fund the availability of expensive drugs that have gone through the NICE process, which is intended to speed up the access and availability of drugs and to remove the postcode lottery.
10 am
Mr. David Tredinnick: I am grateful to be called to speak in this debate. It is astonishing that there is no Labour Member present beside the Minister. The Government's establishment of NICE has been attended by so much hope and expectation, and I cannot believe that they have received so little backing from their Back Benchers. My hon. Friends are nodding at that remark from our Back Bench, which is full, because the Conservative party recognises the seriousness of the subject under discussion. We wish to highlight some of the problems that we have encountered with NICE. I will not beat the Minister over the head about it—my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) has used the word curmudgeonly—but several serious issues must be raised.
NICE was introduced to appraise new therapies so that it can provide the NHS with information to help it to achieve optimum clinical and cost-effectiveness from medicines and other treatments. Therefore, the concept of NICE is positive; it is important that research is carried out into different treatment options to determine whether they should be provided by the NHS.
However, we have heard about the problems of beta interferon and renal cancers, and I want to highlight one of the glaring omissions of NICE's work at present: it has missed the plot with regard to integrated health care. There is a growing movement in favour of embracing what used to be thought of as complementary therapies, and of offering a wide range of them. Sadly, the majority of the technologies that NICE has examined are what might be termed conventional medicine. Little or no time and resources are spent on examining other treatment options, such as complementary medicine.
That is strange given the current public demand for complementary medicine. About 5 million people use complementary therapies. Therefore, it is a serious

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shortcoming that NICE has not initiated any high-quality research into them. I hope that the Minister will address that point: I mentioned it to her before the debate, so I have given her a bit—a tiny bit—of notice.
Dr. Evan Harris: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the shortage of high-quality research into some of the treatments that he is talking about, and he has stated that NICE is responsible for funding that, but I am unsure whether that is the case. I acknowledge that there is a call for such research. What role does he think the producers, manufacturers and prescribers of such treatments should play in providing the research base that is so urgently needed in that area of medicine?
Mr. Tredinnick: The hon. Gentleman has made a helpful contribution, as it is important to establish who will provide that research. We face a conundrum, because unless there is adequate research into a medicine, doctors such as the hon. Gentleman are not keen to prescribe it. I hope that I do not do him a disservice by saying that. Until we have a wide database of research, the medical profession will be somewhat sceptical. The Government must take the lead. I agree with him that there is an onus on the industry—those who produce pills and potions—to help, but the Department of Health has an overriding duty to provide information, which should be made available through NICE.
The issue must be examined in context. There are approximately 50,000 complementary practitioners in the United Kingdom. The Department of Health will not solve the health problems in the UK, with the exponential growth of demand on services that is in some part due to an ageing population, unless it brings in some of those 50,000 therapists.
The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) may correct me, but I believe that there are approximately 30,000 health care professionals in the UK—depending on how they are added up—and 50,000 complementary practitioners, most of whom work in the private sector, although some acupuncturists work in the health service. Until the Minister and her colleagues instigate wider use of complementary therapies in the health service, the supply of practitioners will be insufficient to deal with the demand for services. That is a fundamental point.
Complementary therapies are often a fraction of the cost of expensive drugs. I do not suggest that such drugs are unnecessary, but we should not ignore less expensive remedies—a point that I will develop with regard to beta interferon.
Mr. Heald: Does my hon. Friend agree that in the treatment of mental health, a combination of treatments, such as the use of modern drugs with sport, reflexology massage or other such alternatives, provides the best way forward? Is he aware of MIND's "My Choice" campaign, which highlights the importance of the availability of a range of therapies to those with mental illness?
Mr. Tredinnick: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. He was at the recent King's Fund launch of that
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campaign and I pay tribute to him for the immense amount of work that he has done, as well as the personal time taken and dedication shown, to help those afflicted with mental health problems. He is right; it has been found most effective to embrace a range of treatments including acupuncture, homeopathy, higher vibrational energies such as Bach flower remedies, bush or North American flower essences and channelled energy.
When the House was not sitting the week before last, I visited a high-security prison in Hollesley bay, Ipswich, where I saw how a range of therapies are used on prisoners who have received life sentences—I met one whose sentence was 20 years. Reiki, the Japanese system of using symbols to stimulate people to channel energy, is effective. Whether one believes that energy to be from God or the universe or whatever, some people can channel energy through their hands. I met 10 prisoners, and every single one said of their own volition that they had benefited from such treatment and that, when they were locked up in their cells at night, it was the one thing that they could practise themselves.
The use of Reiki is an example of what my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) mentioned. It is effective for the treatment of mental health, especially in prisons. Most prisons in the midlands use a range of therapies to help reduce tension. Acupuncture is a key treatment. Indeed, I spoke to the deputy chair of the Hinckley magistrates bench on Friday about its effectiveness in prisons.
I remind the Minister that in mainstream complementary care there are approximately 2,000 acupuncturists, 7,000 aromatherapists, 16,000 healers, 800 herbal medicine practitioners, 2,000 homeopaths, 3,000 hypnotherapists, 8,000 massage specialists, 1,000 naturotherapists and nutritionists, 13,000 reflexologists, and 2,000 yoga practitioners. Will the Minister ask the management of NICE to investigate thoroughly such disciplines, which have existed for a long time? Traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture have been around for 3,000 years.
In a Westminster Hall debate the other day, I pointed out that there are 60,000 hospitals in the People's Republic of China using Chinese medicine. We are told that we need more evidence to support such medicine, but it has existed for 3,000 years. Who are we kidding? The evidence is there, but the problem is that we have not looked for it. Much evidence that is published is often ignored. Masses of evidence exist about therapeutic touch and healing. Matthew Manning and others have written books and conducted surveys that are not considered. The Minister must consider such material.
Dr. Harris: I always listen to the hon. Gentleman with interest; sometimes he provokes me, although he does not mean to. Does he think that books on therapeutic touch and healing, which he described as research, meet the standards of research that pharmaceutical drugs must satisfy? Those drugs are tested by randomised, double-blind, placebo-based and long-term trials, in which many people are involved. Does he recognise that several of those qualities are required for research to be understandable, reproducible and valid?
Mr. Tredinnick: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is trying to help my re-election in a few years'

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time, but he has been helpful on this occasion. We are engaged in an important debate because a key issue is that one cannot use a traditional double-blind and placebo concept with many of these therapies. We must develop other concepts that take general well-being into account. We discussed that before the debate in connection with recent trials on homeopathy. A placebo trial may be more than that due to the energy of the person who is giving the placebo treatment. If that person is merely around another, that may increase the other's well-being. Additionally, complementary therapists can generally spend longer with their patients. The five-minute visit to the GP does not occur in the complementary world, in which a person would expect a first consultation to last for an hour.
The way in which the trials are set up is important and a matter on which the Government should expend time and energy. NICE may be able to interface with the database that was complied by the Research Council for Complementary Medicine. There are 75,000 research references for complementary and alternative medicine. I do not have the papers in front of me, but I am sure that I have written to the Minister, the Secretary of State or another Minister in the Department about the need for funding of that database. I have spoken in Parliament on behalf of the integrated health care movement for 15 years. The sums of money that would be required are small: £10,000 here and £100,000 there.
The Minister must address the regulation of complementary therapies—NICE may wish to take that on board. Osteopathy and chiropractic are in mainstream medicine. There was a big worry about the cost of regulation to the practitioners. That worry is approaching for traditional Chinese medicine and western herbal medicine—phytotherapy. Professor Pittillo is on the new committee that the Department of Health set up to sort this thing out. The Minister should talk to him because his life will be much easier if the Government find £1 million to help people pay for the regulation.
If any of my colleagues think that I am taking up too much time, I hope that they will interrupt me, but I understand that I have a little leeway this morning. That is unusual because one is usually under considerable pressure in this Chamber.
The Minister's life would be easier if she considered the wheels of regulation, which doctors such as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon are keen on because they like regulated complementary practices. If the Minister wants to reach that point, she must help people through the hoops by providing a few pounds to lubricate the wheels. I am not talking about multimillion pound trials, but £10.000 here and £100,000 there. We must bear that in mind in the context of the massive budgets of the Department of Health.
Mrs. Gillan: I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend. His argument comes down to the input to appraisals of voluntary organisations that represent a substantial transfer of funds from the charitable to the statutory sector, and that should be recognised by the Department. The institute should possibly extend to voluntary organisations that are involved in technology appraisals the practical support that it intends to offer to
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organisations participating, for example, in its guidelines-development process. Thereby, funds would not go from the charitable sector to the statutory sector on such a profligate basis.
Mr. Tredinnick: My hon. Friend has done tremendous work on multiple sclerosis with the Multiple Sclerosis Society. She speaks with eloquence and has great knowledge of the subject. She is right to look at other aspects. We are in a new health paradigm. People are going to doctors, such as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon, saying, "Doctor, I want to try homeopathy." It is no good doctors saying that, although they do not know anything about that treatment, it will probably not do any harm. Patients now demand that doctors know about different therapies. My hon. Friend's point about the transfer of responsibility for such practices from voluntary organisations to the Government again illustrates the need for the Government to take the whole range of services very seriously. We are talking about service providers coming into the health service.
The Government need to focus on the fact that a vast number of doctors do not have much idea of how to refer patients to other practitioners such as those that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire mentioned when he spoke about mental health. They must take on board the fact that many treatments are multi-treatments. Most of the people working in complementary, integrated medicine, which I understand best, are multi-discipline practitioners. Homeopaths are often experts in Bach flower remedies, which work at a mental level. They tend to help people with depression or those who have difficulties in managing their lives. For example, oak or olive may be taken to give strength to someone who is run down. The high levels of the bush and American flower essences are all valuable tools. However, far too few, if any, medical colleges offer courses for doctors so that they can understand how to interface with this world.
Many years ago, I did a masters degree in business administration, which some think makes people a master of absolutely nothing and an understander of little. I can see hon. Members smiling at that description. Hopefully, I gained some understanding from such studies. Having spent a few weeks studying a range of subjects, I did not necessarily become a great expert. However, that does not matter. What people need to know is where to look when they need help. I shall never be an expert on economics. I do not speak in the House about economics, but I know when to contact an economist.
Doctors need to be able to say, "We cannot fix this skin problem. We have tried steroids, but the patient has not responded." That certainly happens at the George Eliot hospital, a massive national health service hospital in Warwickshire. It has brought in a homeopath, who specialises in skin conditions. He is not getting the easy patients, but those whom no one else can treat. There are worries about steroid creams, but homeopathy and traditional Chinese medicine, in particular, deal effectively with skin conditions. I could give the Minister chapter and verse about such matters.
We need to consider a new health paradigm in this country. That is the strategic thrust of my argument. We must take patient experience into consideration much

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more. That is something NICE could do: it could collate patient experience and anecdotal evidence. We are told that anecdotal evidence is not enough, but if one collates enough anecdotal evidence, it is pretty powerful. If 25 people came into the Minister's advice surgery in the run-up to the next general election and told her that they were unhappy about the ring road around Salford, I bet that she would not say that that was just anecdotal evidence, and that a double-blind, consumer-driven trial was needed. When people come to see me about the Earl Shilton bypass in Hinckley, I do not say that their comments are not representative because they are not statistically sound. Instead, I say that I am going to listen like blazes, and ask them to sit down and tell me about the problem because my job is to represent them.
We must not get fogged by the terminology. We have intuition, which derives from the right side of the brain. The left side of the brain deals with thinking clearly. We have lost much of our right-side intuition, which can be observed in animals sensing fear. A very effective way of preventing deer from eating roses, if anyone ever has that problem, is to put lion dung in the beds. Deer, who have not seen lions in England for 1,000 years, know if they smell a lion that they have to get away. That is intuitive and instinctive. We have lost that and we need to return to it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham, who has carried out so much work on multiple sclerosis, referred to beta interferon, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson). NICE's decision on beta interferon is very controversial. What is just as controversial is the failure to investigate the effectiveness of acupuncture in relieving the condition. That is not some crazy moon therapy of which no one has heard. The therapy has been around for 3,000 years and is practised in 60,000 hospitals in a country that comprises a fifth of the world's population. We are not considering it, and we must.
We have referred to costs, which are crucial to the national health service. We have already been told that new Labour has blown it on its existing budget, and is returning to tax and spend. That is now Labour's policy. It cannot fix the health service. It has tried to, but will have to spend more of people's money. The Minister would not have to spend quite so much if she considered other treatments. Acupuncture treatment is incredibly cheap. All one needs is a set of 14 to 20 needles per patient. They are terribly cheap; one uses them once and then throws them away. The expense lies in training the practitioners, although even that is cheaper. NICE should consider that.
The cost-effectiveness of medicines and the outcomes for patients, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster referred, represents another straw in the wind. The Government must consider the cost. I am minded to table questions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking whether he has investigated the cost comparisons of the different medicines. Perhaps the Public Accounts Committee should consider that. I may ask my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), who chairs that Committee, to consider it. The costs are completely different, and out of line. We ignore that and we should consider it: it is terribly important.
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Last week, we launched the parliamentary group on integrated and complementary health care, which replaces the one on complementary and alternative medicine that was set up in the 1970s by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) with the former hon. Member for Erewash, Peter Rost, in order to create awareness. People are now very aware. A vast amount of the population is using such therapies and the Government are lagging. They need to wake up because we are undergoing a seismic change in health care in Britain as primary care trusts take over from the old health authorities. Many of the novel therapies offered under the old system have been done away with as the new system tries to bed in. More information provided through NICE and a greater number of inquiries would go a long way towards alleviating such problems.
It is rare that one gets a chance to say more than one hoped to in a debate. I hope that I have not monopolised the available time too much. I am grateful for the indulgence that my hon. Friends and hon. Members have shown in listening to me for so long.
10.24 am
Dr. Evan Harris: It is a privilege to be here to discuss such an important issue. I see that the Minister is on her own on the Labour Benches, but she makes up for her isolation with her enthusiasm, and we look forward to her contribution.
It should be pointed out that the Select Committee on Health is, or has recently been, abroad. That is why many people who might otherwise be present, including Government Members, are not. My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) would almost certainly have been here and might have been speaking were it not for the Select Committee's travels. It is particularly appropriate that we have in the Chair a distinguished former Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). He can see that we are discussing things that that Committee has discussed over many years.
It is appropriate to put on record that I am an Industry and Parliament Trust fellow with what is now GlaxoSmithKline—it has gone back and forth through several name changes. I also went on a national health service study trip, funded by the company then called Rhône-Poulenc Rorer, to the American Society of Clinical Oncologists some years ago, to examine rationing of health care treatments.
We have had a fascinating debate. The number of treatments spoken about demonstrates the pressure on NHS budgets. We have heard calls for more spending on and funding for treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, infertility and cancer, to name but a few. Those calls are all appropriate, but involve saying that greater priority should be given to those conditions. Politicians must realise that, when there is a limited budget, a call for priority to be given to certain treatments or alternative treatments is by definition also a call for less priority to be given to something else. We must be careful about falling into that trap.
Mr. Heald: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is necessary to look far more widely at the cost savings made by the implementation of guidance? For example,

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in the mental health field, if modern drugs were made available, the effects would be felt not only in the Department of Health but in a range of Departments. Mental health is a condition that affects not only health but the issues covered by other Departments.
Dr. Harris: Of course I accept the hon. Gentleman's point and shall deal with those issues when I discuss how to measure cost-effectiveness. However, it would be difficult, and a dangerous policy, to rely on increased spending on effective treatment and on the identifiable release of funds in order not to put pressure on the budget when more spending in one area is called for. The corollary of that would be that we could only spend more on certain drugs when they could be shown to release funds, although there might be arguments to spend more on treatments and drug therapies when that did not release funding elsewhere. Meeting unmet need is something that we do not do well. I suspect that much Government policy is designed to ensure that we do not identify unmet need in case that requires funding for which savings cannot be made from existing treatments because there are none.
Mr. Heald: Has the hon. Gentleman read the interim Wanless report? That makes the point that there could be
"a 5 per cent. reduction in the societal cost of mental illness, for example through lost days at work or the loss of employment",
and even a reduction in the cost of crime, if modern treatments for mental health were available.
Dr. Harris: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point that investing in modern treatments and early intervention can cause long-term savings. I do not dispute that. However, if he is saying that we should give extra resources only to areas, such as the one that he mentioned, where that might cause the release of funding not just in the health service but elsewhere, he is on tricky ground. It is often hard to prove that that release of funding will happen, and one should not have to go as far as that hurdle. I hope that he will recognise my point that increased priority for treatment for certain conditions within existing budgets will create pressure because health authorities cannot grab Home Office or Department for Work and Pensions budgets and the savings therein.
The other temptation that we must avoid is engaging in NICE bashing. A number of public submissions to the Health Committee inquiry into NICE said that it is a reasonably well run organisation, and those submissions came from people who might have had an axe to grind. I am certainly not going to indulge in NICE bashing; politicians' behaviour, and particularly Ministers' policies in that area, makes them far more eligible for bashing.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) on her speech introducing the debate, and I thank her for bringing the issue before us. If she does not mind my saying so, she should be congratulated on identifying many key issues that we have to—and want to—discuss, such as who appraises what goes forward, the lack of transparency on cost-effectiveness, how we can measure cost-
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effectiveness more widely than at present, and the lack of ring-fenced funding to implement NICE guidance. She also mentioned so-called NICE blight, which was discussed by other hon. Members.
The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who is no longer in her place, has done sterling work with the Multiple Sclerosis Society, to which I also pay tribute. It is a fantastic campaigning organisation which has kept the issue of the appraisal of beta interferon in the public domain to a greater extent, in terms at least of numbers, than might otherwise have been so, given competing priorities for media attention. That has put pressure on the Government, who responded with a quasi-trial, a quasi-subsidy and a quasi get-out arrangement—a sort of sale or return scheme.
I should be grateful if the Minister answered the following question, and I should like an undertaking from her that she will do so either in her response or in correspondence. She announced a proposal to make beta interferon available, where it had been shown to be effective, on a reimbursement scheme. What negotiations had she had with the drugs companies that would supply the drugs, and had they reached a conclusion when she made that announcement just before the Friday on which the NICE verdict on beta interferon was announced? I question whether she was able to gain maximum value for money in subsequent negotiations if she had committed the Government to that policy.
I am glad to see the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham back in her place. I was just appraising her contribution and asking whether the Minister can be sure that she got maximum value for money from the drugs suppliers given that she announced the scheme before it had been agreed with the pharmaceutical industry. Was the Minister not over a barrel having made that announcement—which I suspect was made in order to pre-empt what she might have considered to be bad news on the NICE finding?
The hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) gave a perfect example of NICE blight in the field of access to anti-rheumatoid arthritis drugs. That such drugs were under appraisal gave greater cover for those who look after tight budgets in resisting their wider prescription. Furthermore, because those treatments are available to the better off who can buy them privately if they have their whole treatment privately—a distinction that the hon. Gentleman was careful to make—and given that NICE has ruled that some drugs should not be available on the NHS or there is a policy not to prescribe such drugs until the information is available, there are issues of equity to consider.
The Government entitled—I think satirically—the White Paper in which they introduced the concept of NICE, "Faster Access to Modern Treatment". Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing—I say that it is a bad thing—most people in the field recognise that, effectively, the Government have delivered slower access to modern and effective treatments, which they must recognise as a tool of rationing.
As usual, we had a welcome contribution from the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick), who ought to be treated with greater seriousness by hon.

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Members when he asks questions in the House of Commons. Ministers should, and probably do, recognise that he speaks for many people in making the case for alternative therapies. I know that he does not mind, but I regret the fact that people are amused that he makes the same point in an effective if different way time and time again. The key point about his contribution is the question of evidence. Even though I am sceptical about some of the alternative therapies that he promotes, I am not of the view that there is not a powerful effect from such treatments. However, I question whether such effects are greater than the placebo effect that he mentioned.
As I have said before, the placebo effect is important in medicine and worth buying. Indeed, much of what the NHS provides through what may be called the white-coat effect is a placebo. However, there are ethical difficulties in saying that something has a pseudoscientific mode of working when all that one is generating is, in fact, a strong placebo effect. If one explains that the treatment is a placebo, one undermines its effectiveness but at least one is being honest. There is a difficulty with treatments that have an effect but for which the mode of working is, clearly, scientifically nonsensical. A balance must be found between achieving the effect that one wants and being honest with the patient, particularly if one is taking their money at rates that presumably support the industry. At some point, the hon. Gentleman must recognise and address the need for that balance. One could say much more on the subject; undoubtedly, we will return to it in future debates.
I should like to use my remaining limited time to discuss three issues: effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and affordability. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence was set up to consider the effectiveness of treatments. I do not question whether that is appropriate. It was also set up to consider cost effectiveness, which is a question of rationing. I am aware that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) is concerned about the time. I will finish soon, although I have taken several interventions, including his.
I do not think that there is any doubt that NICE should consider cost-effectiveness, as long as it looks at it in the round and not narrowly in terms of health budgets only. We must get a handle on some of the longterm measures of cost-effectiveness that the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham mentioned, and drug companies have a duty to ensure that their trials consider long-term effects on health economics.
However, I disagree with the Government's imposition of an affordability test on NICE. I first raised the matter in 1999, when the Government snuck through an amendment during the recess to the statutory instrument that set up NICE. They argued that NICE had to take affordability into account. However, it is not for NICE but for politicians who raise taxes for and from the health service to say what is affordable. Unless the Government recognise that they are, effectively, approving a way of rationing, they cannot escape the charge of blame shifting, especially if they urge and force health authorities to fund treatments approved by NICE without providing sufficient funds. They are robbing Peter to pay Paul.
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In getting rid of what the hon. Member for Upminster called a postcode lottery, we may end up, in the words of Dr. Mike Dixon,
"replacing it with something worse".
We may end up with a tyranny of the appraised, in which medicines and other treatments that have been appraised by NICE get all the funding at the expense of other effective and important treatments. Those are the key issues that we must address when discussing NICE. I look forward not only to the Minister's response but to what I expect will be the even more balanced approach of the Select Committee.
10.38 am
Mr. Oliver Heald: I agree with the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) that describing the work of NICE using the words "faster access to modern treatment" is ironic at best.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) on securing this important debate. She launched it by referring to her constituents' concerns about the delays in introducing infertility treatment and colorectal cancer drugs. We have been waiting more than a year for determination of the appeals.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who has a particular interest in multiple sclerosis and beta interferon, said that some of her constituents had been "to hell and back" over the issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) spoke about his constituent, Mr. Cooper, who has rheumatoid arthritis. He described the operations to replace joints that his constituent has had while waiting for drugs that should be available but are not because of NICE procedures. His constituent is frustrated that he cannot even pay privately to receive the treatment that would ease his condition.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) described in his important contribution the benefits of integrated health care. Although it does not relate solely to NICE's work, it is important to note that in the treatment of mental health, as with other conditions, one treatment may not be the answer and a range of treatments may be necessary. A choice should be available. I make no apology for again mentioning the MIND campaign, "My Choice", which is making the very point that, in dealing with mental health, modern drugs coupled with sport and other treatments such as massage, reflexology and so on often make the difference for patients.
The starting point for our debate must be to examine why as the most innovative country in modern medicine in Europe—we invent the most medicines—we are the slowest to allow patients to receive the benefits of those medicines. It is appalling that a country as innovative as Great Britain should be in that position.
We all agree that it is good to have a body that can describe excellence and that cost effectiveness should be part of that equation. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham said, when the Government decided that cost-effectiveness must be judged within available resources, as they did in August 1999, the pass

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was sold and from then on it was a question of what the Treasury was prepared to hand out instead of what excellence demanded.
I agree with the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon that NICE's work should be praised. The Royal College of Psychiatrists described it as a well managed organisation with capable officials—I agree with that—and talented staff. It referred to it as an
"organisation that exudes a sense of unity, cohesion and commonality of purpose"
and stated that it is good that it commissions work from other bodies and encourages excellence. None of us disputes that, but the fact that it is a rationing body is the nub of our criticism.
The Government have stated recently, in the light of the Bristol royal infirmary report, that guidance will be issued without Secretary of State approval. That is supposed to suggest a new independence for NICE, but the fact remains that it decides what is clinically excellent on the basis of how much money the Chancellor will allow to be spent. It is a corruption of clinical excellence to require decisions to be made on the basis of Treasury-led concerns.

My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster referred to beta interferon, which NICE was forced to conclude was not a treatment that should be made available. During the trials in Europe, it became so obvious that it should be made available that the trial was stopped and the drug was given to those who had been receiving the placebo. In the face of such evidence, NICE was forced to state that that important therapy should not be available here because the Chancellor had not allowed enough money to make it available. Only when the Government were desperate owing to the publicity—that is what matters to this Government—did they manage to cobble together a compromise that, if the drug companies would treat its use as a trial and risk could be shared, they would allow beta interferon to be made available for a limited period to see whether it worked. The Government were hoist with their own petard. They had insisted that NICE be a rationing body, and when it did the rationing, they were so shocked by the effect that they had to scrabble around to find a solution through the back door to enable people to receive the drug to which they were entitled. It is all very well and good talking about guidance issued without the Secretary of State's approval, but that depends on what the Treasury can afford.
It has been said that there will be a statutory obligation to make funds available. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster pointed out, a mid-year determination can create a difficulty for the health bodies. Much criticism has been made of whether the NICE guidance, even if coupled with a statutory obligation to make funds available, will be followed, because there are competing bodies in the area. The NHS centre for reviews and dissemination and the "Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin" are in the public sector and are capable of giving different advice on drug therapies—and they do just that. For example, they gave different advice on relenza. Ultimately, the buck stops with the clinician. The law is clear that it is up to
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the clinician to decide which drug to prescribe and, if he considers that the advice of NICE is wrong or that some other advice or opinion should be accepted, that is what he does. It is not simply a matter of NICE handing out its guidance and the money being available.
Many health authorities or trusts have no procedure whereby they can monitor the implementation of the guidance. Recently, CancerBACUP undertook a study that showed that only 47.5 per cent. of health authorities—as they then were—and primary care trusts have monitoring policy. Does the Minister accept that there is a need for a serious review of NICE? When I asked a parliamentary question about it in December, the answer was that the review that was promised in March 2001 would be considered in the light of the Bristol royal infirmary and Select Committee reports that were being undertaken. Will there be a full and proper review? If so, when?
Will the Minister confirm that the review will cover some of the important issues that have been outlined today? Will it deal with how cost effectiveness is quantified and measured? There is no doubt that, as the interim Wanless report made clear, a much wider assessment is required than that which is carried out by NICE at present. On mental health, the Wanless report estimates the cost of modern, world-class mental health services at £3.2 billion. It makes it clear that it is not unreasonable to set against that the
"5 per cent. reduction in the societal costs of mental illness"
that would be achieved as a result. Wanless highlights lost days of work, loss of employment, costs of crime and other issues. The report talks of an across-Government assessment.
Will the Minister confirm that NICE simply considers the drugs budget and the quality of life for the individual patient on the basis of QALYs—quality adjusted life years? If we can achieve from a treatment at a cost of less than £30,000 a quality adjusted life year, it passes the test. If it costs more than £30,000 a year, that is tough luck. Will she establish that that is how the system works at present and that it is as crude as that?
Will the review cover NICE blight and whether it should be merged with other bodies? Will it deal with the timing of appraisals? Who will decide when technologies will be up for appraisal? No one seems to know who makes such decisions. Will she comment on why her Department has published a report called "Faster Access to Modern Treatment" and has established NICE with the result, as I said at the start of my remarks, that patients in the most innovative country in Europe have the slowest access to modern medicines?
10.49 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears): I shall do my best to respond to all the issues that hon. Members have raised in the time available to me. If I do not manage to respond to some of the important and interesting detailed issues raised, I undertake to do so in correspondence.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) on securing the debate. All those who spoke raised important and complex—not to say difficult—issues to be resolved. I am pleased that the debate is taking place in the context of the inquiry into

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the operation of NICE by the Select Committee on Health, because I believe that the debate and the inquiry address some of the same issues.
The hon. Lady said at the outset that the setting up of NICE was well intentioned and welcome. I was a little sceptical of the remark made by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) that the hon. Member for Upminster had outlined the case against NICE; clearly, she had not. She voiced some reservations and concerns, but welcomed the establishment of NICE, and her comments were echoed by many other hon. Members who mentioned the way that NICE is run, the high quality of the people involved, and the way in which they are grappling with difficult issues.
The hon. Lady asked who decides the priorities and whether there are any specialists on the appraisal panels, before going on to discuss funding issues. The NICE process provides for expert views to be taken into account in many ways. The royal colleges and specialist associations make submissions to the NICE appraisal committee; those submissions provide the process with expert views. The appraisal committee also invites experts in technology to attend its meetings and give evidence. It is crucial that the best evidence is available to the appraisal committee during its consideration of such matters.
In the early days of NICE, concern was expressed about who decides the priorities and about the transparency of the selection process. That is one of the reasons for the launch tomorrow of a consultation paper on the process—how technologies are selected for appraisal, how they are considered, and who considers them. I urge the hon. Members who asked questions about the operation of the process to respond in detail to that consultation.
Mr. Heald: I am pleased to hear that, but will the Minister confirm that as well as the consultation exercise, there will be a full review of NICE and its operation?
Ms Blears: My understanding is that that review, which was originally referred to in January last year, was proposed in the context of the pharmaceutical industry competitiveness taskforce. The industry had voiced concern about the way in which procedures were selected and about the process for appraising them. The consultation to be launched tomorrow will pick up many of those issues.
The Bristol royal infirmary report raised different issues. It dealt not with competitiveness or the way in which technologies were selected, but with the independence of NICE and the way in which it interacted with the rest of the health service. Those issues, too, have been raised by hon. Members today, and they are picked up in the response to the Kennedy report. The review will be about the selection process, how the topics are considered and the sorts of evidence submitted.
The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham raised a series of Multiple Sclerosis Society recommendations on cultural shift, the membership of NICE and, in particular. the involvement of patients' representatives and the perspective of users on the
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process. Those are extremely important issues, and I am sure that some of them are appropriate to the consultation process, but I undertake to raise them myself. It is important, not only for the Multiple Sclerosis Society but for the whole range of patient bodies, that the perspectives of users and patients are as much a part of the process as anybody else's perspective. If there is to be broad consensus about NICE's decisions, the whole community must have confidence in the process.
The hon. Member for Upminster expressed her worries about funding, and several hon. Members mentioned the possibility of mid-year determinations that could cause difficulty for primary care trusts and strategic health authorities when planning ahead within their allocations. Increases in the general allocations for health authorities and primary care trusts are occurring at a rate faster than any we have known before. Since 1997, health spending has increased by a third in real terms, and by 50 per cent. in cash terms. It is right that primary care trusts and health authorities that represent local communities are the bodies that plan ahead and decide how to meet the funding requirements for new treatments and technologies that emerge from the NICE process. It is fair to say that mid-year determinations and items coming out of the blue will be very rare. The processes are generally long term, involving research, licensing and the development of ideas. Most people involved in health will receive pretty good notice of what is to come on stream, and they should plan how to fund that with their partners.
It is the fair to say that mid-year determinations and items coming out of the blue will be very rare. The processes are generally long term, involving research, licensing and the development of ideas. Most people involved in health will receive pretty good notice of what is to come on stream, and they should plan how to fund that with their partners.
Several hon. Members mentioned so-called NICE blight. I assure them and the public that funding authorities are expected to use their existing prescribing arrangements and examine evidence of clinical effectiveness when considering the funding of any treatment being appraised by NICE, or of a treatment for which no appraisal has been commissioned. NICE should not be used as an excuse not to provide treatments. Health expenditure is rising significantly and procedures should be determined using the clinical views of GPs and those who are involved with their patients.
The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham raised the issue of beta interferon. I am glad that she has welcomed the scheme that was set up to allow thousands of people to access beta interferon. The scheme is about creativity, imagination and taking an innovative and novel approach. That is in the best interests of patients in this country.
Turning to the comments made by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), I understand that negotiations with companies did not commence until after NICE had made its determination. That clearly answers the points that he raised.
The hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) expressed concern about the three-month statutory period for the implementation of the decision set out in our manifesto to ensure that the system has teeth and that if NICE makes a decision, health authorities and primary health care trusts are obliged to implement it. I am delighted that that is now the subject of a direction

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and that there is a statutory responsibility for procedures to be funded within the overall increase in expenditure of primary care trusts' budgets.
Generally, I tell hon. Members that deciding what can be afforded and assessing the cost-effectiveness and clinical effectiveness of procedures are complicated matters for mature discussion among all parties. We live in the real world in which there are some financial constraints on health expenditure, but I am happy to say that under the current Government those constraints are much smaller than they were.
I come now to the points made by the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick). In principle, NICE may consider complementary therapies, provided they satisfy the criteria. The technology advisory group considers proposals, and anybody may submit ideas to that group: if the hon. Gentleman or those he represents wish to submit projects for appraisal, they can do so. We want the consultation process that will be launched tomorrow to make the selection process more transparent and open, to allow more people in different fields to submit ideas to NICE. The hon. Gentleman said that just being around some people increases our sense of well-being. Unfortunately, the opposite is sometimes true—but not of him.
The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) asked about rationing and the budget. He must acknowledge that under the Labour Government health expenditure is increasing faster than ever before. Unless his party is prepared to match our health expenditure, it is pretty contradictory and an example of wanting it both ways to say that everything should be implemented with no limit on expenditure.
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman welcomes NICE. It is not about reducing expenditure, because approximately an extra £300 million will be spent this year as a result of implementing NICE guidelines: for example, 9,000 women will get drugs for breast and ovarian cancer, 10,000 people will get drugs for cancer, 77,000 patients will get drugs for coronary heart disease, and 72,000 will get drugs for diabetes—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Nicholas Winterton): Order. I regret that the Minister's time is up. We thank her very much for her reply to that important debate.

Political Participation (Young People)
11 am
Vernon Coaker: Today's debate is on one of the most important subjects for Parliament. The health of our democracy should be, and is, a real source of pride to us all. Hard-won freedoms such as freedom of speech and association, free movement, religious freedom and the right to vote are important principles, and they have all helped to create our democracy. However, there is a real sense of unease—a sense that all is not well and that something must be done. There is a feeling that alienation from the formal political process is growing, and nowhere is that alienation more acute than among our young people.
We must confront the context in which the debate takes place. The turnout in the 2001 election was appalling. Involvement in politics is not just about voting, but the record level of apathy, especially among young people, is a challenge to us all. Only 59 per cent. of people voted in the 2001 election compared with the 71 per cent. who voted in 1997, but that was 10 per cent. lower than at any election since universal suffrage was introduced in 1928. One cannot help comparing that figure with the number of people who voted in the "Pop Idol" competition. That may seem a trivial point, but it shows what can happen when people are motivated and interested. When it is easy to vote, people become more involved. I do not want to be a part of a democracy in which a minority vote in a Government; that is unhealthy for democracy.
What do some of those young people say? In a book published by Demos in 1999 called "The Real Deal", some disaffected young people gave their views. I shall quote some of them. A 21-year-old white British man said:
"I've got no plans to vote on any elections or anything. I don't feel that it makes much difference. I haven't noticed any difference in my life in the change of government. The only change of government that's been while I've been alive, I've not noticed any difference. I don't think that there would be any difference."
A black British woman said:
"No. Not really. I'm just not a political person. I don't really care one way or the other. Although some people get really upset when you say that, they think, 'Oh you should care, it's your world, your country too' but you know, I never think what I think is going to make any difference at the end of the day, I'd rather use my energies thinking about something else that matters for me."
We need to listen to what young people are saying. I reject emphatically the argument that young people are not interested in politics, that they are selfish and are therefore unconcerned about what is going on.
The word "apathetic" implies laziness. I believe that we, as politicians, need to ask why it is happening; we should ask whether we are to blame rather than trying to externalise the problem. We need to consider how we should respond to young people's disaffection. I believe that they are concerned and interested, but they want to feel that their voice, their vote, their view, can make a real difference to the decisions that are made. They want to feel that their involvement can change things.
We should consider the passion with which young people involve themselves in single issues. When we visit schools or youth clubs, young people tackle us about issues such as the environment, rights at work, poverty

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at home and abroad, animal welfare and drugs. They challenge us on the issues of fairness, equality and ethnicity—the whole range of social issues that confront us. Those young people have a real point to make about those issues, and we should listen to them.
The MORI poll cited in the "The Real Deal" states that 84 per cent. of young people consulted by MORI said that they did not trust politicians, and 70 per cent. said they had never been consulted about their needs by politicians. I tend to feel defensive when I read such statistics; my immediate reaction is, "Well, I do this and that, and I try to do my best"—but we should confront the issue and recognise that a real challenge lies before us. To overcome that apathy, disaffection and mistrust, we need much more direct contact between politicians and young people and more direct consultation on the issues. We need to break down the barriers. The media have a fundamental role in that, not only by holding us to account and but by concentrating on the real issues.
Mr. Andy Reed: My hon. Friend may be surprised to hear that when I consulted young people under 24 before the last election, I had a far better response rate from them than from the rest of the population. More than 33 per cent. of those who were asked questions responded, which shows that young people are interested in the issues. However, the most significant point that emerged was that they did not have enough information to make key decisions on the issues that we were trying to consult them about.
Vernon Coaker: My hon. Friend makes a valid point, and confirms my belief that when one has direct contact with young people, they have opinions to express. Young people simply want the opportunity to express their opinions.
My hon. Friend referred to the need for information, and I shall deal with the question of citizenship education later. It is important to ensure that people have information, but the key point of my argument is that young people's view of the political process and of politicians changes for the better whenever we consult and involve them directly. and make them feel that their voice is not only listened to but acted on, and that they are informing the decisions that are made.
The media have a role to play. A debate is currently taking place about the dumbing down of the media, which is an important issue. We would not want that to happen, but we should bear it in mind that the media play an important role in representing politics and providing a connection between politicians and the general public—not least with young people. The media's attempts to find new ways of programming, rather than defeating the desire of politicians to inform people, may have the opposite effect if they are successful in helping to engage young people. Although no one wants there to be any dumbing down, we need to consider how programming might help, especially with respect to young people. The BBC, independent television, radio and the newspapers are considering that issue.
To reinforce the importance of direct consultation, I shall quote the views of a young person who attended a consultation event in Cardiff. Some hold the view that we are not real people—to the extent that when we go
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out shopping in the supermarket, people say, "What are you doing here?" and we have to explain, "Actually, I'm shopping." Some people seem to think that we do not do normal things such as shopping. The young person in Cardiff said,
"Yeah. We've got this thing about politicians being all prim and proper, no family problems and when we was at one of the meetings we were saying, like we had to go round in circles saying something about ourselves and like who our idol was. And we had to say about our mothers and one politician turned round and said it would have to be my sister because she's a single parent mother and all her kids done really well in school and it made me realise it isn't two parent families and stuff like that. Which was good to realise."
That is an important point about a part of the process that somehow, when we talk about our democracy, we have to generate. We have to ensure that people realise that politicians are also human beings who live in society and the community, and use the hospitals and schools, as others do. Direct contact and consultation can help break down those barriers. However, young people will say that consultation must lead to action and change, and not merely be a talking shop.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) mentioned, the introduction of citizenship education in our schools is crucial. It should not teach facts alone, although facts are important and people have to understand how Parliament works, how Members of Parliament are elected, what a council does and how councillors are elected. Young people must also be given a feeling of how the system can be used to try to change things. In their schools, they must be involved in decision making, so that they have real experience of democracy in action as well as factual knowledge about how it is supposed to work. Alongside citizenship education, the capacity of schools to change in response to what their young people say is important, as is the development of school councils and other such bodies.
The Government are to be congratulated on some of their actions to give young people a more effective voice locally and nationally, and the Minister will no doubt build on that point. For example, the UK Youth Parliament is an exciting initiative aimed at bringing young people into the heart of Government. I hope that we can build on it, and I shall speak more about it later. Youth councils are being established locally, and regional assemblies are linking up with the UK Youth Parliament. Sue Mansell, a citizenship co-ordinator, is working extremely hard to establish youth councils throughout my county of Nottinghamshire.
The children and young people's unit has been established and is encouraging Departments to consult and involve young people. Recently, the Department for Education and Skills held a consultation event with young people from all over the country. They spoke to the Government about what they thought should be in the Education Bill, what they thought was wrong with it, how they felt that it should be improved, and what differences they would make if they took the decisions. Those young people were invited to another meeting a week ago, and were met not only by Members of the House, including me, but by Members of the other House. We talked to them about some of the changes to be made in response to their comments. More such involvement is important. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has organised many open days

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for young people, to encourage them to see it as an important part of Government and to encourage a wider diversity of applicants for jobs there. Across Government, changes are being made.
I recently visited the Monty Hind centre in Nottingham, which is the Nottinghamshire base for the National Association of Clubs for Young People. We need to ensure that all the changes that the Government make, whether in terms of resources or of policy consultation, reach down to the grass roots and the children at the sharp end.
You will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as will many of my hon. Friends and other hon. Members, that many MPs are trying new and exciting ideas to involve more young people in their constituencies. They are meeting young people and setting up websites and e-mail addresses, among other things, to try to engender links. However, we also have to recognise that the disengagement from the formal political process is real, and that there is a growing demand by young people for quicker decision making, faster change and more direct access to the process.
It was interesting to note that a poll conducted by Charter 88 in conjunction with the YMCA in August 2001 stated that a significant number of 16 and 17-year-olds—47 per cent.—said that voting could have a lot of influence, but that the figure for 20 to 22-year-olds dropped to 35 per cent. I do not think that 47 per cent. or 35 per cent. are necessarily significant figures for those who say that voting can make a difference. They do show, however, that we have an awful lot to do, and that an awful lot of change needs to take place.
There are a couple of issues that we need to consider. We must continue to think about the modernisation of Parliament. In the 21st century, we are still bound by tradition and forced to use antiquated language and procedures, which many young people see as irrelevant. I do not want change for change's sake, but Parliament must modernise itself if it is to be more relevant to the young people whom we represent.
Another important point is that Parliament should not be unnecessarily confrontational. The introduction of debates in Westminster Hall has resulted in an important change: some of the unnecessary party politicking has been taken out of our debates, which have sometimes been of a much higher quality as a result. Young people, in particular, are turned off by party political points being made just for the sake of it, rather than to advance a good argument. People understand that there are sometimes difficult issues, but Members of Parliament should seek solutions, not score party political points for no apparent reason.
We should also examine electronic means to enable young people to express their views directly to Parliament more easily. I am no great wizard with such things, but we should consider introducing interactive websites and chatrooms. We should explore the whole range of opportunities.
We must consult young people more widely on policy initiatives. We have heard practical ideas about how to make voting easier, and that will be important. I have said before that we need a debate about the age at which people are entitled to vote. We should change the
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suffrage, and the voting age should be reduced to 16. The age at which people may be elected should be reduced to 18, and the Electoral Reform Society and children's organisations such as Save the Children have supported a campaign to achieve that. Hon. Members will have heard it argued that although 16-year-olds can do a variety of things, such as joining the armed forces, marrying, and paying tax and national insurance, they cannot vote. We should deal with that anomaly.
We should also consider giving the UK Youth Parliament a budget. We can argue about the amount, but why not tell the young people involved, "We will consult you, and you will have a budget to spend." Why not give them £10 million and say that they can spend it as they deem appropriate? Why not give the Parliament's youth committees a budget to spend? Why not make councils establish youth committees and give them budgets that they must spend? There would be real decision making, real responsibility and real money to spend. Of course, those involved will waste money, but we ourselves cannot honestly put our hands on our hearts and say that we have never spent a few pounds that, in retrospect, we know could have been spent more wisely.
We should see young people not as a problem, but as a solution to many of the problems that we face. We have problems with crime on the street, drugs and poor behaviour in schools; indeed, there are a host of problems right across society. Why do we not involve young people by asking them, "What solutions can you suggest?"? If our young people were more involved in developing policies to deal with problems, we would make better policy changes.
There can be no greater challenge confronting individual Members of Parliament, or Parliament itself, than to rejuvenate and regenerate our democracy; it is crucial to re-engage the many young people who have lost confidence in the formal political process. The question is whether we are brave enough to make the decisions that need to be made.
11.20 am
Mr. Jonathan Shaw: I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). I have shared an office with him for nearly five years—although I have not been shopping with him—but this is the first time that I have taken part in a debate alongside him. Many hon. Members will know that he has been consistent in speaking and listening to young people, both in the House and outside. He has taken part in a number of initiatives, to which he has referred, and he and I are well acquainted with Save the Children.
What motivates people most strongly to participate? It is when they feel that they are going to lose something, or are going to have something imposed on them—that is a psychological motivator. Leon Festinger talked about the cognitive dissonance theory: if we feel that a force is threatening our balanced view of the world and what we perceive to be right, we will act. However, if we feel that our participation will have no effect, it is likely that we will not engage. An example of that would be compulsory voting. If any political party said that if it were elected it would impose compulsory voting, turnout would rise; people would not want to have that imposed on them and any political party that suggested it would be either voted out of office or not elected.

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Many hon. Members see that involvement at local level, particularly over controversial planning applications—mobile phone masts are topical for all of us. The community comes alive when people, young, old and middle-aged, want to resist something. They work hard for their communities and put in a lot of time and effort because they feel that they can affect something that matters to them. If we try to galvanise the same level of support, volunteering and community action for an environmental project, people are not so forthcoming or eager.
Consider the 1992 general election, when participation was higher than in the subsequent two elections. People felt that there was a real competition, and that there was something to lose if they did not vote. In 1997 and in 2001, particularly 2001, the press told us that the result was a foregone conclusion. How many doors did we all knock on to be told, "They're going to win anyway," even if we eagerly spoke of our majority and urged people to go out and vote? That is part of the equation.
I agree with what my hon. Friend said about the press dumbing down. We also heard at the last election that it was fashionable not to vote; people said, "Don't bother." That does not necessarily have an impact on which party people support, but it does affect whether they participate. People have argued about whether there was a golden age of participation and turnout, and from the 1920s until 1997. the percentage turnout was in the mid-70s, so the golden age, if there was one, ended in 2001.
The issue is important for my constituency, which is the youngest in Kent in terms both of its creation and of its population. It might surprise hon. Members to know that it also has the youngest Member of Parliament in Kent. Time has not been that kind to me, but even more depressing than my hairline is the fact that my constituency also had the lowest turnout in Kent. Although it is not the most affluent area in the country, it is far from being the kind of deprived inner-city area normally associated with low turnout.
All the political parties try to portray themselves as youthful organisations. Tune in to the party conferences and the leaders come on, the camera pans round, and—funnily enough—the two or three front rows are full of young people. The average age at the Labour party conference seems to be about 19 or even younger—although at the Tory party conference it is about 90. We have tried text messaging. birthday cards and first-time voter cards, but those measures have not had much effect.
Although young people's voting participation has gone down, as has that of the rest of the population, it is a question of more than just apathy and disillusionment. We need to recognise the potential seriousness of the situation, as my hon. Friend said. However, the news is not all bad—there have been advances in involving young people in politics, which will not necessarily increase participation, but will lead to the better formulation of policy.
Before my election to the House I was a social worker working with young people leaving care. For me, one of the proudest achievements of the Labour Government is the assistance that we have given young people through the quality protects programme. That
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programme involved a huge and worthwhile consultation process right across the country, which culminated in the Children (Leaving Care) Bill. There was a great campaign among young people and interested non-governmental organisations to raise the statutory age for leaving care to 21. That was implemented, and the Government went further, ensuring that if young people were in education or training, they could stay on until the age of 24.
That was an example of cause and effect. Young people were involved in consultation, had their say and affected the outcome. Directness is the key. If there is a clear relationship between cause and effect, young people will engage—as will the rest of the population.
The youth parliaments are an excellent example of the involvement of young people in politics. My hon. Friend referred to his, and I am bound to refer to my own in the Medway towns. The Ofsted report on the local education authority in my constituency reported that
"The youth parliament is an impressive organisation for involving young people directly in good citizenship. It is rapidly gaining respect for its contributions to the social debate. It includes representatives of all the schools and other organisations for young people".
Patrick Gearey, the public relations member of the cabinet drawn from the youth parliament, sent me that passage from the report. He seems to be getting his act together very well. The council has provided the parliament with £20,000, and it takes care of its own administrative costs with that money.
As my hon. Friend said, if we want young people to be involved, we should make it real by giving them money to make decisions about. They should have to tackle the sort of tough decision that we wring our hands about, such as those we have to make when trying to find solutions to the problems presented by young people.
The citizens curriculum is long overdue. School life has been dominated by academic performance, and although that is important, it has not assisted young people to cultivate ideas about the community and the wider society. We need thinkers as well as people who can pass examinations.
I took part in an exercise with sixth formers, talking about the events of 11 September. Half of the group took the part of George Bush and the other half played the role of our Prime Minister. They elected spokespeople and I presented them with budgetary issues. A £1 million extension was being built at the school and I suggested that they should give that money to our armed forces instead. "We don't want that," they said. By giving people finance, rather than merely making them discuss abstract issues, we make the situation more real.
Focusing on academic performance alone has led to the sanitisation of education. I have great hopes for the teaching of citizenship. I left school in the 1980s. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling has referred to pop idols, and in the 1980s, pop bands were singing about unemployment: "I am the one in 10." I will not rehearse all the lyrics, but pop bands were talking about social issues and there was a rawness, which, like my hairline, has receded, so we must find new solutions.
I endorse the point about giving 16-year-olds the opportunity to vote. My hon. Friend referred to several things that people can do at 16 and 17. We are giving out

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mixed messages and we must be bold. My hon. Friend talked about entering the armed forces and getting married, but at 16 a young person can also enter and live in a brothel—I did not know that until I did some research. We allow people of that age to take considerable risks, and surely if we would allow them to live in a brothel, casting a vote for a Member of Parliament will not be beyond them.
It would be wrong to introduce such a measure without having a national debate. Young people's participation almost needs electric shock treatment. I suggest that we should have a referendum, which would bring alive young people's issues as never before. Unless we reverse the apathy we shall have minority elections, as my hon. Friend said. None of us wants that. For the sake of the institutions that make up our democracy, which we cherish, we must find bold solutions. I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising the issue today.
11.32 am
Ms Meg Munn: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) on initiating the debate. I know that he has a long-standing interest in issues that affect young people. Much of what I want to say will illustrate the points that he has made.
During the recent parliamentary recess, I visited two schools in my constituency, Easthill and Newfield. I met groups of about 12 young people between the ages of 14 and 16 of varying abilities and, no doubt, varying interest in political issues. The issues that they raised were of great interest to me. They ranged from the role of a Member of Parliament—one young person asked, "What time do you finish work at night?"—to general questions about fundamental issues. I was asked, "What are taxes for?" and "Why can I get my glasses free until the age of 18 but have to pay for them after that?"
Some of those young people were beginning to link up the elements of what it means to be an adult, such as paying taxes and receiving services, with issues such as why young people get certain things free while others do not. They were also interested to know what the Government were doing about the theft of mobile phones. There was a lovely moment in the discussion when the teacher in the group confessed that he did not quite understand what the young people were talking about, because he was not familiar with the things that were important to them, such as SIM cards. That was an opportunity to ask young people for their ideas about how to reduce the problems that they face every day after school and when they are out with friends.
The young people also raised many current issues that we debate here and on the Floor of the House, such as the MMR injection. They wanted to understand why the Prime Minister took the stance that he did about his family. There was an interesting debate about the change of classification of cannabis, with people saying, "I won't get into trouble if I've got cannabis. I can't sell it or acquire it from anyone, but if I'm carrying it, I'm only going to get told off." The participants were trying to work their way around those ideas and to raise some of the issues that affect young people today.
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It will not be a surprise that student grants were discussed. So was the royal family and my views about it—and why, given those views, I was not prepared to do something about them. Foxhunting was of course discussed. The issues raised were those that were on our own agenda last week and will be there for months to come.
I was impressed by the fact that each group had been well prepared for the event. They had been well prepared by their teachers, but they had also prepared themselves. One group had spent the previous afternoon using the internet to research statistics, using them effectively and investigating the background of issues. They talked from a position of strength, having marshalled their facts. Some of them could give Jeremy Paxman a run for his money. If I am ever invited on "Newsnight" I shall definitely ask those young people to put me through my paces beforehand, because I am sure that his questions would be no tougher than theirs.
As part of my campaigning as a politician, I enjoy running street stalls, even in cold weather. People often say, "I'm not interested in politics," which is not the sort of thing that politicians want to hear. However, by that people often mean that they are not interested in us or what we do, and do not feel connected to it. They are not interested in what is written about in the newspapers, and strangely, they—unlike us—do not want to spend large parts of their lives attending meetings and sitting around talking about issues or leafleting. It may seem odd to us, but that is not the life that most people choose.
People are, however, interested in the stuff of their own lives. Just like young people in schools, they are interested in issues that affect them, such as their children's schooling. We have all experienced the phenomenon mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Mr. Shaw): when something is about to be taken away from people, they turn out to meetings. There is no doubt that a proposal to close or merge a school will result in a room full of parents—and sometimes a room full of children and young people. People are interested in everyday issues, such as who is collecting the rubbish, but they also care about other issues, such as the wider environment, cruelty to animals, war and poverty.
It is up to us to engage with people about the issues that we care about—but we, and the institutions of politics, are often seen as not relevant or not accessible. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling that politicians are not seen as real people. It makes a real difference if a Member of Parliament has the opportunity to meet people and tell them, for example, "I used to come and play hockey at this school when I was your age," and to explain that their backgrounds are perhaps not dissimilar—perhaps there may be a connection with parents, or some other connection.
People feel disempowered and unable to influence policies or decisions. Changing those feelings is not easy. If we had the answer, we would be busy providing it already, but today we have heard good examples of what can be done. Real opportunities exist now to start work with young people. Citizenship education is being introduced. However, I also agree with my hon. Friend that it is crucial that young people should be involved from an early age in influencing their own lives and that they should be consulted about what affects them.

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Where better for that to happen than in school? We have heard examples of school councils, and other mechanisms are available too.
Meersbrook Bank primary school in my constituency has a school council. I recently worked with several schools, inviting them to collect old European coins that were no longer of any value, and give them to Save the Children. We raised several hundred pounds from that. When I went to the school to pick up the coins, I found out that the issue had been put to the school council. I was relieved to learn that the council had voted that it was a good thing to do; the children had decided that they wanted to take part. Children as young as five, six and seven were making decisions. Four members of the school council gave the coins to me and I asked what they talked about in the school council. They told me that it was problems that were experienced in the school—whether with teachers, with the tuck shop, or with running in the corridor. Young people were involved at an early age in helping to resolve issues, and I thought that that was an excellent example.
We have to make the issues relevant. We should make an effort to meet young people from an early age and should encourage our colleagues in local councils to go out and do the same. Young people might not have the vote, but they are still citizens and members of the community in our constituencies. We should encourage schools to involve pupils in appropriate decisions within their schools so that they learn about discussion and compromise, about the art of the possible—as we should perhaps call politics—and about democratic processes.
There are real opportunities in councils and there are good examples around the country of councils that involve young people in best value reviews and in looking at the development of local plans. That practice should be spread. The UK Youth Parliament is a good place for young people to pass information among themselves. They might say, "We are doing this in our area, why not get in touch with your council and ask to be involved as well?"
We should involve them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling has said, in consultation on legislation and Government guidance that affects them. Politics is about people's daily lives; they need to know how to have their say—it can and does make a difference. One way for us to help with that is to engage with children and young people outside the voting system as well as encouraging them to take part in that system when they reach 18.
11.42 am
Mr. Hilton Dawson: It is a pleasure to take part in what has not yet become a debate—the excellent contributions from my three esteemed colleagues have been along largely the same lines. However, this is a vital issue and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) on securing the debate. He will remember—neither of us will ever forget it—our trip to Angola in September. In the desperate circumstances of one of the most difficult places on earth for children to grow up in, some of the most powerful messages that reached us came directly from young people—astoundingly, from members of the Angolan youth parliament. That country, which has
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had one election in the past quarter of a century, manages to sustain a youth parliament, and I received an e-mail from one of those young people the other day.
I had an excellent evening on Saturday. I was put through my paces at a regional meeting at Charnock Richard of all the newly elected members of the Youth Parliament from the north-west, from Cheshire to Cumbria. Their contributions were polite, extremely articulate, well formed, challenging and to the point, and came from a perspective that no one in this Room has. They talked knowledgeably and passionately about the problems of education, access to public transport and young people living in rural areas. We discussed a range of issues and one speech was about care.
I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Mr. Shaw), as he and I have shared many moments in this Parliament of good discussion with young people on the all-party group on children and young people in care. Any Member can join the group and come along, generally on the third Wednesday of the month at 6 pm, to be challenged by young people whom many in the House and the country would, to be frank, patronise.
Those young people have missed out on educational opportunities and had dreadful life experiences. Regrettably, their peers often end up homeless, in prison or in other bad circumstances. Those who come along to meet young people in care, who often make journeys of hundreds of miles to reach this place, find that they know the subjects that they are talking about better than we do. We know that from debates with all young people. They are strong, powerful, articulate, intelligent, have important points to make and want action from Members of Parliament.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling was right when he described how we should try to attend to issues about which our young people are passionately concerned. We should afford them the opportunities to use discrete and realistic budgets, and have the confidence to allow them to make the mistakes that everyone makes in handling money and other such matters.
The Youth Parliament is extremely important, but we should avoid any sense of tokenism. It is in the hands of every Member of Parliament to build good links with their local Youth Member of Parliament. If my local YMP wants to be part of my constituency team and share office resources in order to carry out his work, there is no reason why he cannot do so. He could shadow me as I engage with local issues and, as a quid pro quo, he could help me enormously in engaging with the local youth forum and local young people on the issues that matter to them. The contribution of YMPs and young people in general can enrich the work of MPs and the way in which the House operates in terms of the interests not only of children and young people, but of our whole society.
I do not completely buy into the argument that we should have voting at 16, as it could be tokenistic. We must enrich and deepen our political culture so that the engagement and participation of children and young people is much more fully developed. Why should we talk only about 16-year-olds? I vividly recall a visit to a local primary school on which a boy aged nine—chronologically, at least—looked over the top of his

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spectacles and solemnly asked precisely what were my party's recycling policies. Let us not be ageist; many children have important points to make.
Before we change voting ages, we must appoint a children's rights commissioner. He would be known to children and be appointed and involved at the highest levels of government. He would embody and promote a culture in which children's voices were heard in every Corridor in this place, in every corridor in Whitehall and in local government. It is important that a commissioner is appointed along the same lines as in Wales, and I sincerely hope that there will be commissioners in Northern Ireland and Scotland, too.
I commend the Government's work on children in care and helping children and young people to participate: the children and young people's unit is doing exciting work; the Department of Health has played a vital role by bringing in young people to work on issues such as the quality protects programme and the new standards for children in care; and the Government have set up the children-led organisation, A National Voice. That is another major development, but we must extend such initiatives and build on the efforts to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling referred.
I refer hon. Members to the work of the all-party group on children, which I chair jointly with my noble Friend Baroness Massey. We are working with the Youth Parliament on ways to enable a discrete group of trained and supported YMPs to take a full part in all our meetings. Again, I recommend that hon. Members come along, because those young people have important points to make, know a great deal and are extremely challenging. The whole process is very enjoyable.
The participation of children and young people in the work of government is the next big idea, and this country must take it on board. Only when we fully listen to and engage with young people and act on their needs and wishes, and only when they see developments taking place, policies being promoted and resources going into the aspects of life that they regard as important, will we start to build the strongly participative culture that our democracy needs.
11.54 am
Ms Claire Ward: First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) on securing a debate on this important issue, which politicians must tackle. One of the greatest difficulties for politicians is that many young people see us as on the outside and not connected to the issues that concern them in their everyday lives. I refer to a recent Centrepoint survey in which young people were asked why they see no reason to vote. Some said that it is because they are not registered to vote. Others did not know how to register and were not registered at their current address—the mobility of young people causes problems with voting. Young people also felt that their vote was irrelevant and would make no difference to what happened. That is one of our biggest problems. We need to tackle it in terms of the whole community, but especially in terms of young people.
How do we make the connection between young people casting their vote and what is delivered and makes a difference to their lives? We could all name
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initiatives that we know to have made a major difference in our communities, but our problem is that we do not get that message across enough. That is not a question of party politics and whether Labour or another party is in power; it is about ensuring that people feel a real connection and know who is responsible for what. That is why citizenship studies are crucial.
We have lost a generation of young people who have little interest in the political process. I do not say that they have little interest in politics—the real issues that affect their everyday lives—but they are not interested in party barracking, whether a Minister is in trouble or whether someone has resigned. They want to know what we are doing that will affect their everyday lives. We need to examine how Parliament and the Government can devise a process of education that empowers young people.
Young people do not want to express their opinions, whether in debate or through voting in elections, because they do not understand what difference it will make. They do not understand who is responsible for what. How many times have Members of Parliament been confused with local councillors? How many of us deal with issues that are the responsibility of local councillors? The difference between those responsibilities is misunderstood not just by young people, but by the population in general. We need to get more information about the system across, so that people feel empowered to make their voices heard.
We also send out confusing messages about young people. We say that we want them to participate in the political process, but we also see them as the problem. When we talk about crime, we often refer to young people, but in the vast majority of cases they are the victims. They are more likely to be attacked, whether in a mobile phone theft or an assault, than people from any other section of the community, but we see them as the problem because some hang around estates in the evenings and are considered a threat. We need to engage to find out what we can do to help them to gain some control over their lives.
The opportunities available to a young person of 20 have expanded and are much more advanced than those available to someone of similar age 20 or 30 years ago. A 20-year-old is now likely to be better educated and to have more disposable income and more employment opportunities, but although they have all those material things, they often lose community and family support and the sense of knowing where they fit in. We need to tackle that issue.
The all-party youth affairs group wants to involve more young people in the parliamentary and political process on the issues that concern them in the manner used by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) in the all-party group on children. We want them to be able to make a difference. Recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope) and I were involved in taking a group of young people from a YMCA around the House of Commons on an interactive tour. Instead of us dictating to them what we thought they should know, they were asked what they wanted to hear about the House of Commons, the workings of Parliament and the work of a Member of Parliament.
Mr. Reed: Rather than engaging a small number of people in the current process, do we not need to change

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our politics? We want to encourage young people to get involved, but the current process turns off young people and other constituents. Do we not need to modernise the way in which we do things?
Ms Ward: My hon. Friend is right. I hope that more hon. Members come up with ideas about how to engage young people's interest and listen to what they have to say.
Time is moving on, so I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling for obtaining this important debate. We need to begin talking to young people, not just in our constituencies, but as a Parliament and a Government. I fully support my hon. Friend's idea that the voting age should be reduced to 16. I realise that it is not universally popular, but it sends out the message that we are interested in young people voting. We know that Members of Parliament spend time with pensioners because pensioners vote, so perhaps politicians would be more interested in listening to young people if they voted in greater numbers.
12.2 pm
Matthew Green: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) on obtaining the debate, not least because it gives me the opportunity to make my first speech as Liberal Democrat youth spokesman.
At 23, 1 was elected and became the youngest ever member of South Shropshire district council, having become involved in politics only 12 months before. I contacted someone with whom I had been at university. She shared a house in a different part of the country with another girl, with whom we had also been at university. After our conversation, she said to her friend, "Matthew's just been elected a councillor." Her friend, a graduate and an intelligent young woman, said, "But I thought Matthew was honest." That is an aspect of the problem: the perception that we change as soon as we enter politics and are no longer ordinary members of society. We need to go some way to break down those barriers.
I have noticed, as I am sure other hon. Members have, that people who turn up to surgeries tend to be older. Indeed, when I take up an issue for a younger person, even someone in their 20s, it is often because a parent has visited me. Such a parent might say, "My daughter lives in a council house that is not up to standard. Will you try to sort it out?" That is part of the issue that we have to deal with. Young people do not even see us as a potential solution to individual problems.
Why has this state of affairs come about? We are too keen to blame young people, but the blame really lies with us. Rod McKenzie, editor of BBC Radio 1 news, says:
"Radio 1 believes that its target audience of 15–24 year olds are not disinterested or depoliticised. But they are fed up with the sterile and formulaic Westminster political coverage—men in suits"—
I am guilty of that—
"shouting at each other in parliamentary jargon across the dispatch box. Every time we ask for their opinions online on paying higher taxes to fund the NHS, tuition fees or foxhunting, we get a massive, passionate and thoughtful response. So this isn't about de-politicised youth—it's about Westminster not being relevant."
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For a long time, young people have thought that we do not discuss their issues. For instance, the biggest step forward in debating the problem of drugs was taken by the previous shadow Home Secretary who, in what may have been a moment of madness, suggested even tougher penalties for cannabis use. The result was that half the shadow Cabinet suddenly spoke up to reveal that they perhaps had somewhat different experience of cannabis. That freed up the political debate on cannabis, which young people have been discussing for years, believing that we are completely out of touch. The House was afraid to discuss the issue as it is discussed on the street, but ironically, the previous shadow Home Secretary took a significant step forward.
We must accept that although some solutions are in the Government's control—I am keen to hear the Minister's response on those—some are not. I am afraid that we are all guilty. There is a tendency to patronise young people and the attitude is that we know what is best for them. We should be asking them for their views, and in the case of 16-year-olds, their votes.
We have heard about making voting easier by allowing it at supermarkets or on the internet. Those suggestions may be welcome and sensible, but they will not solve the problem, because they are window dressing. The difficulties go much deeper. We have also heard about better education. I welcome that and the teaching of citizenship at schools. I particularly welcome the Youth Parliament. I have been invited to join the board of trustees, and I am delighted to do so. The Youth Parliament is a key to increased youth involvement in politics.
Organisations such as the YMCA have undertaken a number of interesting initiatives that try to get young people to debate the issues, and at the last general election it was able to increase young people's participation in voting. I must praise other initiatives such as the Westminster day, which is a cross-party event organised by Liberal Democrat Youth and Students that took place a few weeks ago. I was delighted that the Prime Minister, who was joined by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders, became the first Prime Minister to speak at the event. That shows that they are perhaps taking the issue more seriously and highlights the fact that the Prime Minister's response to my question on votes at 16 was surprisingly out of touch.
The key is making young people respect society more so that they want to be involved in it, and we can generate respect for our society and our system by respecting young people more. I am afraid that we tend to patronise them. We must reduce the voting age to 16. I shall not bore hon. Members on the point—I hope that they were in the Chamber when I introduced my ten-minute Bill before Christmas—but I must draw out a couple of points.
The Charter 88-YMCA poll result was referred to by the hon. Member for Gedling, who cited two figures, but did not give the age bands. The 47 per cent. figure is for 16 and 17-year-olds and the 35 per cent. figure for 18 to 22-year-olds. Interestingly, people aged 16 and 17 think that voting is more important than do those aged 18 to 22.
Liz Blackman: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, allied with what he has just said, introducing

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citizenship teaching is crucial? If we introduce structure and coherence to young people's curriculum diet and then tell them that they must wait until they are 18 to put it into practice, the impetus will be lost.
Matthew Green: I agree entirely. The hon. Lady must have read my notes, as that was my next point. Perhaps as a sign that we are not the only ones who patronise young people, after I put my question to the Prime Minister, "Westminster Live" decided to do a vox pop in my constituency—a bit of a sting to show that my constituents are not interested in votes for 16-year-olds. The most interesting vox pop came from an 80-year-old woman, who said that 16-year-olds should have the vote, but that she could think of a few 80-year-olds who should not.
There is an idea in society that young people do not have views or that their views are not properly formed and that they are insufficiently educated. With citizenship teaching, they will be educated about how to vote and about other aspects of politics, but then there will be a two-year gap, which makes nonsense of the whole idea. If the Government are serious about it, they should also be serious about giving 16-year-olds the vote. I hope that the Electoral Commission makes a positive announcement about that in the next week or two.
We do not give 16 and 17-year-olds full benefit entitlements, but we should either treat people as full members of society or not. One element of getting young people more involved in the political system is treating them as full adults at 16. However, the single-room rent restriction reduces their housing benefit entitlement. That restriction should be ended for people over 16, and I entirely agree with remarks made earlier about the mumbo-jumbo that we speak in Parliament. That must change.
One solution is not in the hands of the Government, but in ours: personal contact with Members of Parliament to show that we are human and interested. Recently, I went out with young people from Ludlow youth forum and held a surgery in a pub on a Friday evening. I did not dress down, but went in my suit. I did not turn my cap around or drink 14 pints, but young people raised all sorts of issues with me, such as skateboard parks and other matters. Using such methods, the issues are just as much in our hands as in the Government's.
12.13 pm
Mr. Charles Hendry: I congratulate the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) on securing this important and timely debate, and the extent of the media coverage in recent weeks shows that he picked the subject of the moment. I agree with his assessment of the problem and that of other hon. Members. I also agree about the seriousness of the problem and with most of the hon. Gentleman's conclusions, although I disagree on lowering the voting age. I agree with the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) that it smacks of tokenism and takes our eye off the real challenge, which is how to get more young people who are already able to vote to participate in the electoral process.
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Excellent research by MORI, in conjunction with the Adam Smith Institute, and by the BBC into why people do not vote makes stark reading. Only 60 per cent. of those aged between 18 and 24 are registered to vote—when one takes into account low turnout, the figures are even worse—and of those, fewer than 30 per cent. of first-timers voted in the last election. The researchers investigated what percentage of 18 to 24-year-olds participate in local elections: 12 per cent. said that they always participate, 13 per cent. that they usually participate and 8 per cent. that they sometimes participate. That is a third of that electorate, which means that two thirds of first-time local election voters rarely or never vote.
Some 51 per cent. of 15 to 24-year-olds said that they were not interested in politics at all. That gives some indication of the problems that we must address, but none of those people would be helped by reducing the voting age. That distracts us from our task of getting people to turn out when they are entitled to do so. The book "Political Systems of the World" says that the voting age is lower than 18 in only seven countries, including Iran, Cuba and North Korea. The message in those countries is that people are allowed to vote at 16, but only for the one party that is allowed to stand. Changing the voting age does not, therefore, necessarily advance the democratic process.
Only 6 per cent. of young people said that they did not vote because voting was inconvenient. So, what are the reasons behind the disillusionment and apathy? The first is a lack of understanding of the key issues. Four fifths of young first-time voters said that they knew hardly anything or nothing about Parliament, the work that we do or the work of European Union. That figure rose to nine out of 10 when they were asked about the role of local government. That lack of understanding is, therefore, a key issue.
The second issue is trust. According to a BBC survey of younger voters, only 16 per cent. trust politicians to put the needs of the country before those of their party. That is down from 39 per cent. 30 years ago, so there has been a dramatic decline. When asked, "What does politics mean to you?", 39 per cent. gave negative answers, using words such as crooks, criminals, corruption, boring and liars. When people say that they will not tolerate lying by those in ministerial positions, the lesson that we in politics must draw is that something must be done if young people are not to become even more disillusioned.
The third point relates to changing attitudes. Only half 26 to 35-year-olds felt that they were neglecting their civic duty by not voting. That shows how attitudes have changed, and we must urgently tackle the issue. As the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Mr. Shaw) noted, people said that they would not vote in the last general election because they could see no difference between the parties. That issue came up on doorsteps, where people would say, "You'll win anyway" or "I can't really see the difference between your parties." We must make the differences between us clearer.
There is also a feeling of disempowerment, because younger people do not feel that their votes will count. There is a general indifference to the political process.

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We must make sure that 2001 is an exception, not part of a downward trend, and we must consider how to change things.
Young people can be given a positive attitude towards voting. An analogy was made with "Pop Idol", although it is not totally relevant. Nine million people voted in that programme, which is more than voted for my party and the Liberal Democrats combined in the general election. Some 10,000 people applied to be considered for the programme, which is three times the number of election candidates. That shows that young people love to vote when they are enthusiastic.
Another lesson that we can learn from "Pop Idol" relates to the fact that it was a positive programme. The contestants did not argue with each other and the negative contributions were made by a panel of judges, whom one was free to despise. The contestants kept it positive and spoke about their strengths and the strengths of the others.
I agree that our job as politicians is to enthuse young people, and we cannot expect them to find politics interesting if we do not change some of the ways in which we address issues. We must show them that we are dealing with their concerns. It is easy to take a patronising view and say, "Young people are only interested in drugs, music and clothes." As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) made clear, they are interested in issues across the board. If one talks to them in depth, one finds that they have strong views over the range of issues that we discuss in the House.
When I became my party's youth affairs spokesman, I was slightly dismayed by the number of television and radio interviewers who told me that, because I was representing young people, I would have to know who was No. 1 in the charts, who would get a Brit award and who played the lead in a particular film. Fortunately, I knew the answers, but I was disappointed that those commentators trivialised young people's views on important issues by saying that we must talk to them about pop music or films.
When we talk to young people, we find that they have concerns about education, transport and housing. They are worried about crime, and, as the hon. Member for Watford (Ms Ward) said, they are often the victims rather than the perpetrators. They are concerned about the environment and even about taxation. Some students who were here recently said that they could not believe how much tax they pay on the wages that they earn to pay their way through university. We should take more account of young people's views on the range of issues that we deal with in the House.
Barclays bank recently surveyed younger self-employed entrepreneurs aged under 24. The main frustration cited by 40 per cent. of them was "not being taken seriously"; we must take that into account. Young people starting out in work are not the only ones who find that they are not taken seriously. The young want account to be taken of their views, but often we follow rather than lead. Younger people's views on the environment are often well ahead of those of Governments, politicians and international organisations. We should listen to them more—our policies on the environment, above all, determine the sort of world in which they will live.
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We must also show that Parliament can do more to deliver genuine outcomes. First-time voters are an immediate generation—they are used to getting things done quickly, they go on the net to buy things, they have instant access to information. We must show that we can deliver outcomes as well as talk. Too often, they hear people say that, for example, it will take 20 years to sort out the health service. If they have only been alive for 20 years, they cannot relate to that time scale. We in Parliament must be concerned less about the spin and the politics and more about the substance.
Young people belong to a confident generation. They are entrepreneurial, they believe in themselves and they are outgoing. They do not like red tape and they are fed up with the idea of a nanny state telling them how they can and cannot live. As politicians, we must react to that. We must show that we are in tune with their ideas—first, to win their trust and, secondly, to get them to play a greater role in the political process. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gedling on securing the debate and on the way in which he opened it.
12.22 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Christopher Leslie): I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) on securing the debate and on so ably setting the issue in context.
The participation of young people in politics is fundamental to the central tenets of democracy. Participation in the democratic process not only legitimises governance and the rules by which we live, but enriches civil society. It connects citizens to the wider community and gives the individual a sense of his role in determining outcomes as well as in the mechanics of decision making.
We had a useful debate on similar issues in Westminster Hall in November, but it is useful to focus on the role of young people. We are discussing not simply voting and membership of political parties, but increasing regular, active participation. Our core principles are to engage and involve the public, particularly young people, through better and more thorough consultation processes and by modernising and reforming the ways in which we interact and communicate with the public.
I do not have time to comment in depth on many of the points that have been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Mr. Shaw) spoke passionately about particular matters. I had not realised that he shares an office with my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling, who talked about shopping. Judging by the shirt and tie combos that they are wearing, they went together.
The hon. Member for Wealden (Mr. Hendry) touched on statistics and gave turnout figures from the general election. Of course, they are disappointingly low. There are no definitive data on age differentials, not least because of the secret ballot, but MORI estimates that the turnout of 18 to 24-year-olds was about 39 per cent. Too many young people say that it is likely that they will never vote. A high proportion of younger people have no party identification and 40 per cent. of 18 to 24-year-olds stated in a recent survey that they knew hardly anything about the way in which Westminster works.

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The Department of Local Government, Transport and the Regions, which has sponsored research, is examining participation at local government level, young people's views and attitudes on local councils and their images and perceptions of local authorities generally. The Department's study is considering what initiatives are likely to have the most effect on encouraging participation, and I understand that the work will be published shortly.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Ms Ward) on her work in the all-party youth affairs group. As she said, we should not get too depressed about the issue. Like her, I believe that young people are as naturally inclined to take an interest in the state of the community around them as those in any other age group. The challenge is to relate the decision-making processes more readily to those young people and to help younger people to appreciate the fact that, even as individuals, they can make a real impact on the direction that society takes.
On voting processes and mechanisms, the Government are undertaking a series of activities to consider the questions of e-voting and electronic democracy, as we want to harness the power of new technologies to strengthen the democratic processes. Young people are those most likely to be online, but least likely to vote, so my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has established a new Cabinet Committee under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to examine the issue in much more detail. The Committee will be helped by the office of the e-envoy in considering not only voting processes, but how generally we may increase public participation through new technologies.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Watford and others said, the Electoral Commission, as an independent body established by this Administration, is doing its own research into reasons for low turnout. It is working with the Hansard Society to consider the effectiveness of election literature and researching the accuracy of electoral registers.
Colin Burgon: It is appropriate that my hon. Friend the Minister is responding to the debate, because many of us consider him to be the Pitt the younger of the 21st century. Is there not a danger that we have left the world of work out of our discussion of this complex subject? Mr. O'Brien, who is sitting on my hon. Friend's left in more ways than one, was socialised through the National Union of Mineworkers, which gifted a generation of young people an attitude to politics and socialisation. We need to widen the debate to be able to
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understand why whole sections of young people are becoming atomised, individualised and depoliticised. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Mr. Leslie: What an intervention! I am not sure whether to take my hon. Friend's comments as a compliment or an insult, but if I can live up to Mr. O'Brien's esteemed reputation, I shall have done very well for myself.
The Electoral Commission is doing good work, but the children and young people's unit should be mentioned, too. It was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) and the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green), who is also involved in the issue and whom I congratulate on his new Front-Bench post.
The unit focuses on encouraging young people to engage in the democratic process, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Police, Courts and Drugs, who is responsible for young people, is involved in a democracy project entitled "Y vote, Y not?", which promotes a young person's agenda for democracy and which young people helped to formulate in a series of workshops throughout the country.
My hon. Friends the Members for Gedling and for Lancaster and Wyre and others referred to the United Kingdom Youth Parliament. It is an independent, nonparty organisation, but the Government are keen to support its activities. My right hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for young people has responded to the organisation's agenda and the Government have given core funding for its activities, for the next financial year at least. We also welcome the work being done on the local parliament.
James Purnell: Will the Minister consider, as part of the reform of the House of Lords, a quota for young people, so that they are represented just as the White Paper suggests that women and people from ethnic minorities should be represented?
Mr. Leslie: Our constitutional arrangement needs to include young people much more. I shall certainly pass those comments on to my colleagues.
Citizenship education is crucial, and I am glad that this fantastic piece of work will be in the curriculum from the new school year. Many other activities are taking place, but the issue involves not only Government services, but Parliament. We must focus on the role of MPs in reaching schools and ensure that we listen and evolve our political structures. Change must come from the grass roots as well as from the top down. That is a constant challenge, but one on which there is a rare all-party consensus. We need a step change in our efforts to increase the participation of young people.

Age-related Macular Degeneration
12.30 pm
Mr. Paul Burstow: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a matter that affects my constituents and people throughout the country: eye care in general and age-related macular degeneration in particular.
In the U K, about 500,000 people are legally registered as blind or partially sighted, but the true number, if it could be discovered, is probably much higher—perhaps as high as 1 million, or even more. Nine out of 10 such people are aged over 65. The Royal National Institute for the Blind estimated a few years ago that about two thirds of visually impaired people do not register their condition with social services and are not formally logged in the system. We do not have information about the real scale of the problems of sight loss and low vision in this country. In my local authority, the London borough of Sutton, slightly fewer than 1,000 people are on the register, and about 100 are added each year, but in 1997 the RNIB estimated that there were probably about 3,170 visually impaired people in my local authority area.
Each year in this country 16,000 people aged over 50 are registered blind as a result of AMD, or macular degeneration. As many as 500,000 people suffer from AMD. Estimates suggest that the number of cases has doubled since the 1950s and, because of the growing elderly population, is likely to treble during the next 25 years. Macular degeneration is this country's leading cause of sight loss among those aged over 50, but most people do not know that, or have not even heard of the condition. That must change, because knowledge is the first step towards preventing needless blindness and helping those with sight loss to adapt and cope more effectively.
Macular degeneration causes the progressive irreversible loss of central vision in an older person. It leaves peripheral vision intact, but causes profound visual disability. Everyday things that we take for granted such as reading, watching television and driving are no longer possible. Sufferers can no longer see the face of a loved one or anyone else. Most people with AMD-85 to 95 per cent. —suffer from what is known as the dry form of the condition, which progresses slowly but eventually results in the outcome that I have described. There is no treatment for the dry form of AMD, although research is being undertaken.
In the less prevalent wet form of the condition, a change in the blood vessels at the back of the eye causes scarring, which leads to the loss of central vision. It is far more aggressive than the dry form: sufferers can lose 75 per cent. of their vision in just 6 months. Early diagnosis is therefore important so that steps can be taken to give assistance. There are treatments that give some respite to people with the wet form.
Mr. David Heath: I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that the most important elements in dealing with people with AMD are early diagnosis at primary care level, access to ophthalmological
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specialists, and the adequate provision of rehabilitation and of low-vision aids, which is currently very patchy across the country?
Mr. Burstow: My hon. Friend makes some important points, which I shall develop in my speech, and 1 look forward to the Minister's response to them. I am aware of my hon. Friend's considerable interest in the matter, both professionally and as the chair of the all-party eye health and visual impairment group, which was established recently and has attracted a good deal of support from all parties in the House.
I mentioned that 75 per cent. of a person's sight is lost in six months with the wet form of AMD. As my hon. Friend says, early diagnosis, timely treatment, and good aftercare and rehabilitation can make a significant difference. In some cases, they can save sight; in others, they can help people to cope better with loss of sight. Regular screening is therefore vital. Promotion of awareness of eye care needs and eye health is also important. The campaign launched by the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, the RNIB and others to raise awareness will make people more conscious of the importance of getting one's eyes checked. Not only are checks important in terms of enabling people to see by using glasses and changing their prescription, but they provide other health care benefits—for example, screening for glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy is vital, because those conditions do not manifest symptoms until it is too late: when they have had an effect, the harm has been done.
Last week I was pleased to have the opportunity to chair a seminar in the House on behalf of the Patients Association, in which it presented the findings of a comprehensive survey of ophthalmology services throughout the country. The report covered 76 health authorities, and health boards in Scotland, and achieved a 64 per cent. response rate. The survey discovered much that is important. It found that only half the health authorities believe that their current provision of eye health services is adequate, and that almost one in four health authorities do not offer any treatment for macular degeneration.
The survey found that only 1 per cent. of health authorities can offer a routine appointment with an ophthalmologist within a month—that is critical time lost, which can result in permanent loss of sight. It revealed that the average waiting time in health authorities throughout the United Kingdom is between three and six months. That is long enough for people to lose their sight, but not quick enough to ensure that steps are taken to save people's sight, or to help them to cope better with the consequences of losing their sight.
Only one in four English health authorities have done anything to get a grip on their current provision. As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) says, provision is patchy throughout the country, but only one in four English health authorities either have carried out or are planning to carry out some sort of audit of their existing eye health service provision as part of the implementation of the national service framework for older people. A more worrying figure is that 37 per cent. of health authorities do not know whether they are going to carry out audits and are not planning them. The failure of some health authorities to know even whether they plan to conduct an assessment of current provision is extraordinary.

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There are a couple of treatments available to deal with the wet form of AMD, although I do not want to portray them as a panacea or magic-bullet solution. Hot laser treatment is a cure that can be worse than the condition. Cold laser treatment works through a process known as photodynamic therapy or PDT. The latter, more recently introduced therapy—it was licensed in August 2000—is based on the use of a light-sensitive drug which targets abnormal blood vessels in the back of the eye and enables a cold laser to remove them and stop their growth. The treatment can have a substantial beneficial effect on the progression of the wet form of AMD, although not in every case: not every person is a suitable candidate. However, it can only halt the process, not reverse it.
I hope that the Minister will address a concern shared by many that was clearly stated in the Patients Association survey, which is that a blight has—perhaps inadvertently—been cast on that treatment by the ongoing National Institute for Clinical Excellence evaluation. A blight is suggested by the results of the Patients Association survey, which found that 73 per cent. of English health authorities had received funding applications for photodynamic therapy, but 67 per cent. of them had turned those applications down. Clinicians had recommended those applications—they were not turned down on the grounds that a clinical assessment indicated that they were not worth having. They were turned down because clinicians were waiting for NICE guidance. Ministers have made it clear that that is not an acceptable excuse.
I hope that the Minister will reconfirm that the Government's position is that NICE should not be used as a reason to exclude the possibility of, at the very least, access on a named basis to such treatments. Since the treatment was licensed in August 2000, 9,000 patients have been denied the opportunity to try it. In 2001 alone, 7,000 eligible patients were not given it, and only 500 patients got it on the NHS—despite the fact that more than 100 hospitals across the country have the necessary equipment. I hope that the Minister can comment on that.
The debate is not only about access to treatment, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome mentioned, about dealing with the consequences of losing sight and the provision of low-vision services. The Macular Disease Society published a survey of its members' concerns, views and hopes for the future. One story that emerges is of its members' experiences of inadequate information being provided to them at the point of diagnosis—in some cases, the diagnosis was not explained at all. Because there were no care pathways that patients could be sent down, they were sent home to cope in complete ignorance of their condition.
Only one in four health authorities plan any form of improvement to visual rehabilitation services. Much could be done to raise the general standard of low-vision services to the best standard in this country: measures include providing greater access to sophisticated reading aids, taking more care and providing more information at the point of diagnosis by eye care specialists, increasing awareness of where to refer people in terms of support and counselling and providing more training and support in the use of low-vision aids.
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Low-vision experts can advise on basic, practical matters, such as appropriate lighting in a person's home, which can make a significant difference to their ability to use the sight that they still have. They can also advise on rehabilitation training and access to rehabilitation officers, who can recommend the best ways in which to use and adapt domestic appliances.
I end by asking the Minister a few questions and drawing his attention to the recommendations in the Patients Association report, which provides a good basis for taking that service area forward. First, will he consider asking health authorities or the new strategic health authorities and those responsible for implementing the national service framework for older people to undertake audits of their existing services, so that we have a baseline against which we can evaluate progress? Secondly, will he look at current best practice in terms of the information provided to service users? That is particularly important at the point of diagnosis, because it raises awareness of eye disease and the importance of screening.
Thirdly, on the issue of equal access, the survey shows that services are a lottery. Those with the good fortune to live in one part of the country can get a speedy diagnosis and access to treatment and a range of support services; those in another area do not get those things and go blind never knowing that something better could have been available. Fourthly, we need clear referral patterns and pathways between opticians, who should be trained, and ophthalmologists. When the conditions I have mentioned are detected, speedy referrals can be made, which enable prompt action to be taken that in many cases may save a person's sight.
Finally, although the national service framework for older people rightly refers to the need to target the problem of falls among older people, many health authorities do not make the link between visual acuity and falls, despite the fact that it costs the national health service £1.7 billion a year just to cope with the hip fractures and other injuries that are the consequence of falls. The cost would probably be considerably greater if other costs were added, such as those for social services.
Losing sight can imprison a person just as effectively as putting bars on their windows. Taking steps to ensure early diagnosis, prompt treatment and good aftercare and support could be the decisive intervention that prevents a person from finding him or herself on the slippery slope to dependence. I hope that the Minister will assure us of a positive response to the Patients Association's recommendations and to the issues that I have raised.
12.45 pm
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): I welcome the opportunity that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) has provided to discuss these important issues. I congratulate him on the generally sensible and effective way in which he presented his arguments, but unfortunately I do not agree with every point that he made. The Liberal Democrats talk about a new style of politics. I hope that one day we will see evidence of it in their presentation of their arguments and their opposition to the Government. It is easy to present a position as uniformly bad, and generally speaking that

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was the hon. Gentleman's starting point today, but I take issue with that. It is not a fair or reasonable description of the national health service today or the progress that we have made during the past four years. I shall return to that as I respond to his four points.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of the need for improvements to local services. He said that there is a need to raise awareness of age-related macular degeneration and visual disease generally, and I agree with him on that. He expressed concerns about equal access, about which I have strong views. I think that his position and mine are probably not too dissimilar. Finally, he called for clear national standards. To be fair, the current Government have probably moved more substantially in that direction than any previous Government. I am not trying to evade the hon. Gentleman's points—I will deal with them shortly—but first I want to provide some context in addition to that which he has already provided.
AMD affects one in 100 people aged over 75, with some 100,000 people overall affected. It is the main cause of blindness in people aged over 50. I agree with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who said that our priorities should be centred, first, on promoting the earliest possible diagnosis of illness—and its prevention, if possible—and, secondly, on ensuring the most effective treatment and cure. Treatment must be accessible and convenient to patients and must incorporate the latest available technology.
I take issue with the assessment that the situation is universally bleak. The Government clearly demonstrated the priority that they attach to the issue when they reintroduced free sight tests for everyone aged 60 or over from April 1999. That costs the NHS £50 million a year, but it is money well spent. The measure reversed restrictions introduced by a Conservative Government 10 years previously. Older people are most vulnerable to eye disease and stand to benefit most from regular eye examinations. I am glad to say that in 1999–2000 there were more than 2 million more NHS sight tests.
However, we must also ensure that the NHS stays sensitive to new advances in the treatment of eye disease and can quickly identify the people who might benefit from them. AMD is the most common cause of sight loss in people aged over 50. It is severely disabling, although it seldom leads to complete sight loss. Only the central vision is affected, so most people with macular degeneration should retain enough side vision to maintain a degree of mobility and independence.
There are two main types of AMD: dry and wet. The dry form of AMD is more common: we estimate that it affects almost 90 per cent. of those with the condition. The onset of the condition tends to be slow. As macular degeneration is an age-related process, it often involves both eyes, although they may not be affected equally at the same time. People are often not aware of loss of vision if only one eye is affected, noticing the condition only when it affects the better eye. Cases in which one eye is affected and the patient is not aware of the sight loss are often picked up at an eye examination by an optometrist as part of an NHS sight test. I hope that removal of the charging restrictions will aid better diagnosis, prevention and cure. Other people find that their visual cells simply stop working, with an effect
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similar to colours fading in an old photograph. That is known as dry degeneration, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam rightly said.
In cases of dry AMD, vision tends to deteriorate gradually and the loss is not always severe. The worst effects can be alleviated with low-vision aids such as magnifiers, telescopes and, increasingly, closed circuit television cameras that project an enlarged image on a display in front of the patient's eyes. Better lighting and large-print books can also be helpful.
Although research is under way, it remains a sobering fact that the great majority of AMD cases—patients with dry AMD—are not treatable. Those patients are equally deserving of support and I pay tribute to the work of many voluntary organisations such as the RNIB, the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the Partially Sighted Society, who do so much to improve our understanding of the needs of people with visual disabilities.
The Government are continuing to provide extra financial support to the voluntary sector. We have recently made a grant of £130,000 over three years from October 2000 to a consortium of voluntary organisations, including the RNIB, Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, Action for Blind People and Sense, to develop low-vision services and improve co-ordination between health and social services and the voluntary sector. The hon. Gentleman identified that as an area on which the Government should focus their attention, and we are trying to do so.
Valerie Davey: Will my right hon. Friend include the Macular Disease Society in future considerations? It is doing a very good job.
Mr. Hutton: We shall certainly consider that. We want to work openly with the voluntary sector, and no one disputes the society's expertise. I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome that nothing can do more to improve the quality of life for people with visual handicaps than prompt, effective collaboration between the various agencies—health authorities, social services and others. That is the road that we want to travel.
Wet AMD, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said, is the most aggressive form of AMD but is less common, affecting around 10 per cent. of patients. It tends to have a more severe and rapid effect on the central area of vision. Blood vessels from one layer at the back of the eye start to grow into the central part of the retina—the macular area—and may leak or bleed, causing rapid and significant reduction in central vision. It tends to affect one eye at a time, but there is a risk of degeneration in the other eye in ensuing months.
Laser treatment was considered suitable for some patients with wet AMD, but only a very small proportion of all AMD sufferers might be considered suitable candidates for such treatment of the retina. It is normally successful only if the condition is picked up early, and even then not all patients are likely to be suitable. Furthermore, there is a risk associated with laser treatment that lesions may continue to progress after laser treatment and vision may even become worse. In most cases, therefore, the only existing treatment is to reduce the effects of any other eye condition, such as

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cataracts—I am pleased that we are doing significantly more cataract operations than ever before—so that artificial and natural light can be used more effectively. Patients may also be helped with the use of improved lighting, optical and other devices, and training.
The hon. Gentleman focused on the potential benefits of photodynamic therapy, which offers some exciting prospects. PDT offers a genuine prospect of increasing the accuracy and effectiveness of laser treatment for wet AMD. This treatment uses a photosensitive dye which, when activated in the back of the eye by a light source, closes abnormal retina blood vessels. The underlying abnormal blood vessels are then easily identified and selectively destroyed without damaging the overlying sensory retina.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence is evaluating this treatment. Its appraisal committee will meet on 7 March to produce draft guidance. The committee will have a second meeting on 15 May and guidance on whether the treatment should be generally available on the NHS is expected in July 2002, subject, of course, to any appeals. The hon. Gentleman asked what happens in the meantime, which is a reasonable and fair question. He asked the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears), that question on 10 January. As an assiduous collector of information through parliamentary questions to the Department of Health, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that my hon. Friend set out the procedures that we expect NHS bodies to follow while they await NICE guidance. We expect them to take into account the available evidence and to assess patients in the light of it. Awaiting NICE guidance is not an excuse for NHS bodies to fail to get on with the job that they are supposed to be doing.
At this stage, we do not know what the NICE guidance will be. If the treatment were endorsed by NICE, the next step would be to ensure that the people who might benefit from it are identified and referred as promptly as possible. The measures that we took in April 1999 to extend eligibility for free NHS sight tests to people over 60 will have helped to prepare the way. Optometrists can identify the signs of AMD and, with additional advice and training, they could identify the cases of wet AMD that might be susceptible to the new treatment. A system of local protocols with hospital ophthalmology departments could be developed to ensure that patients are referred promptly for treatment. As the hon. Gentleman has said, there are already examples of such protocols for some other eye conditions, and we welcome those sorts of initiatives.
Concerns have been expressed about the capacity of ophthalmology departments to deal with referrals. The hon. Gentleman referred to a recent survey by the Patients Association that suggests that there are wide regional variations in ophthalmic services. That survey is accurate. Action must be taken to address those problems, and we are doing that. We have allocated an extra £20 million over two years to fund the capital costs of 60 schemes to improve treatment facilities. The NHS is providing more cataract operations than ever before: 236,000 operations were carried out in 2000–01, compared with 170,000 in 1998–99. That additional investment—which is part of a broader and deeper
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investment in the future of the NHS—will improve the standard of eye care for older people and greatly enhance the quality of their lives. There has also been an increase of about 4 per cent. in the number of ophthalmology consultants in each of the past four years. That trend is set to continue, so that the number of such consultants will rise from 651 to 895 by 2010.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned raising awareness. That is important, and I agree with his comments. I welcome the recently launched FOREsight initiative, which is backed by the AMD alliance of the RNIB, the Macular Disease Society and Age Concern. I hope that the campaign will be successful in raising awareness of AMD among the over-50s, and in encouraging people to visit their optometrists—especially if they suspect that they have the symptoms of AMD. The information booklet for the campaign includes an Amsler grid for self-testing to highlight visual distortions that might be symptomatic of AMD, and information on what to do if AMD is suspected. That might be helpful to some people, but regular eye tests should ensure that any signs or symptoms are picked up in the early stages of the disease, when treatment might be more effective in preventing sight loss.
In 1999, we collaborated with the RNIB on the "Half an hour could save your sight" campaign. Posters and leaflets describing the full range of health benefits from the eye examination were distributed to general practice surgeries, hospitals, public libraries and other public places. The Department helped with the costs of the campaign—I think that we provided about £40,000. I understand that the RNIB is planning a further campaign, drawing on the lessons of the earlier one. We await the outcome of that with interest. I cannot give a commitment to support a new campaign at present, but we will consider whether we can contribute to the initiative when we know more about the proposals.
Mr. Burstow: I am grateful for the Minister's response. Are the Government minded to extend the national service framework for older people? Will he examine ways in which the best practice that was discovered by the Patients Association can become the norm? As he has acknowledged, there are still too many places where services are not up to scratch, and where people do not get access to services as quickly as they need to.
Mr. Hutton: We have no current plans to modify the national service framework for older people, although we keep an open mind about such matters. That is the straight answer to the hon. Gentleman's question. However, all the national service frameworks are kept under close review. They are never the last word on any subject. They are beginning the process of achieving national consistency, for which he and many other people have long called. It is likely that the national service framework on diabetes—and especially its focus on diabetic retinopathy—will be perceived as helpful in dealing with some of the problems of inconsistency across the country. Furthermore, the Government are investing about £600,000 in research that is directly relevant to macular degeneration, as the hon. Gentleman knows because he asked a parliamentary question about it—a question which, I am glad to say, we answered.

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The hon. Gentleman raised important issues, and I have tried to respond fully to the points that he made to reassure him that the Government are strongly committed to improving eye health. We have demonstrated the priority that we attach to it by introducing free NHS sight tests—the over-60s are the most vulnerable to eye disease and stand to benefit most from regular eye examinations. We have begun to tackle the variations in ophthalmology services, for example, through the "Action on cataracts" campaign, and we will respond appropriately to advances in the treatment of AMD.

Mortgages (Regulation)
1 pm
Mr. Barry Gardiner: The capacity of Members of Parliament for self-delusion is considerable and widely remarked on by press and public. We are infinitely capable of taking credit for a rise in consumer spending as much as a drop in inflation, or for the building of a new road as much as a reduction in carbon monoxide emissions, and we will do it without blushing. We are oblivious to the fact that some of the things that we claim to have championed would have happened anyway, and we are positively dismissive of anyone who dares to suggest that the events of which we claim to be the sole and proximate cause are in any way mutually contradictory.
When it comes to delusions of grandeur and self-importance, my own talents are no less than those of my parliamentary colleagues, but even I hesitate to claim that it was my visit to the Speaker's Office on 14 February to secure today's debate on mortgage regulation that set in motion the extraordinary events in the mortgage industry over the past three weeks. The debate was originally entitled "Standard Variable Rates in Mortgages", but that was amended to the more prosaic "Mortgages Regulation" under pressure from the Table Office. I would dearly like to think that it was a leak of Sixsmith proportions about the original title that prompted the Nationwide building society to announce nine days later that it would abolish its higher standard variable rate and compensate its customers. In a similar vein, I trust that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury will be pleased to confirm this afternoon that it was the bleak prospect of responding to this debate that prompted her to rush to press the long-awaited Treasury consultation document "Regulating Mortgages".
After chalking up two such clear evidences of the power of the Adjournment Debate to initiate preemptive action, who could doubt that yesterday's announcement by the Halifax about compensation to some of its standard variable rate customers is also a direct consequence of its fear of oratory in the House of Commons? In truth, I doubt it, but in my defence, I am yet young in the House. Given a few more years by the electorate and under the tutelage of my senior colleagues, I will probably arrive at that happy state wherein all good things can uniquely be attributed to my initiative.
"We could do the right or the wrong thing. We chose to follow the principles of fairness and fair play."
So said Philip Williamson, the head of Nationwide building society, commenting on his company's decision to abolish its higher standard variable rate and actively seek out and compensate customers who had suffered by having their mortgages pegged to it since 1 March 2001. With such a talent for self-delusion, Mr. Williamson is eminently suitable for the House of Commons. The only reason why Nationwide is now doing the right thing is that on 1 March 2001 it did the wrong thing. The Minister will be pleased to hear that I will not catalogue the details of cases on which the Financial Ombudsman Service has made a ruling on dual variable mortgage rates since the beginning of this year. I will, however, clearly outline the common elements of those cases and why I believe that the mortgage lenders acted wrongly.

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In each case, the borrowers had taken out their mortgage at a time when the lender had only one standard variable rate. The lender in each case promised borrowers a special deal of a discounted or capped-rate mortgage that would use the SVR—standard variable rate—as its reference point. The lender in each case introduced an additional variable rate and claimed that the reference point for the deal was the higher of the two variable rates. Each lender tried to dress up its new rate in a different name. Halifax had "Halifax variable rate 2" and Nationwide had the "base mortgage rate".
The ombudsmen rightly ruled that in each case the new, lower rate was fulfilling the function of the standard variable rate that the parties had agreed would be the yardstick for their contract. Any reasonable borrower wishing to take out a discounted or capped mortgage would have been entitled to take comfort from the fact that the standard variable rate would respond to the Bank of England base rate in such a way as to attract new borrowers or to retain existing ones. However, the Halifax variable rate 2 was 0.75 per cent. lower than Halifax variable rate 1, and Nationwide's base mortgage rate was 0.5 per cent. lower than the so-called standard variable rate. The higher rates were, in effect, used only by customers who the companies could claim were locked into them. New borrowers took the lower rates. The lenders had held out the prospect of real financial benefits against a known standard—the standard variable rate—but that standard proved to be illusory when they introduced the lower rates. In effect, a mammoth fraud was perpetrated on the customers, which is only now being set right, and that reluctantly and partially.
Let no one be under the blissful misapprehension that Nationwide realised its mistake and happily rectified it. It lost the original complaint to the ombudsman last year and appealed against it. Only when it lost that appeal did Nationwide decide to make a virtue of necessity. It contrived to use the decision to turn back the clock and indemnify all the customers that it had so badly wronged as a strategy to rubbish its competitors. Of course, today we can be thankful that it did, because if Nationwide emerges rather badly from the affair, Halifax—or HBOS—has truly earned its dreadful reputation as the villain of the piece, and not just among taxi drivers and market stall owners. Instead of conceding gracefully after losing its appeal, Halifax publicly insisted that each and every person who considered that they had been similarly wronged and disadvantaged would have to lodge a separate case to the financial services ombudsman.
The Minister knows well that Halifax had at least 500,000 people linked to its old standard variable rate. She must ask herself whether everything stands well with the process of mortgages regulation in this country, when mortgage lenders can cock such a snook at their customers, insisting that justice be dispensed only after submitting to the bureaucratic nightmare of 500,000 separate cases to the ombudsman. It is disgraceful that Mr. Ian Beggs, the senior media officer for Halifax, sought to dismiss the ombudsman's report by claiming that it was only
"a decision in an individual case. It is not just about the product but also about letters and conversation"
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with customers. That is spin worthy of Jo Moore or Martin Sixsmith, and I hope that it will be dealt with in a similar, if swifter, manner.
Yesterday, Halifax was forced into a partial climbdown. Instead of following Nationwide's lead and indemnifying all its affected customers, Halifax has said that it will compensate only the 10,000 customers who had formally complained between 1 March 2001 and 31 January 2002, when variable rate 2 was imposed and withdrawn respectively. Another 20,000 customers who complained after 31 January will not be compensated but given a £100 ex gratia payment. Those who suffered in silence are to be given nothing. At first, quite shamefully, Halifax put out a statement yesterday saying:
"The ombudsman has confirmed that any customers who contacted Halifax for the first time since February I are not eligible for a refund."
The emphasis, I would stress, is that of the Halifax and not my own. The statement was instantly rebutted by the ombudsman, who stated:
"That is not our position, it is Halifax's interpretation of the ruling. We have asked them to withdraw it immediately."
I am confident that Halifax will ultimately be forced to give way and to compensate all its affected customers. That may cost as much as £200 million, which the company is trying to retain for its shareholders, not its policyholders. At this point, it is right that I pay tribute to journalists such as Richard Dyson and the campaign by the financial section of the Daily Mail which, with the Consumers Association, have brought customers as far as they have got today in obtaining redress.
Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: May I draw my hon. Friend's attention to a parallel case and invite him to ask the Economic Secretary to consider the implications? Higher rates of interest were charged by Paragon Finance on a mortgage book that it took over from National Home Loans in the 1980s. Two sets of National Home Loans borrowers challenged Paragon's higher rates of interest under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. Both arguments were struck down by the Court of Appeal in October, despite considerable sympathy from Lord Justice Dyson, who said:
"Borrowers have suffered serious hardship as a result of the increases in interest rates charged by Paragon Finance."
Mr. Gardiner: I am delighted that my hon. Friend has made that intervention. So much scamming goes on in the mortgage and consumer credit markets that he does his constituents a service in highlighting the problem today. I am sure that the Economic Secretary will be able to investigate the case that he raises.
It is one thing for consumers to fight against mortgage lenders in this country and to have to go through the ombudsman's procedures to secure justice. It is another thing to see the way in which the Building Societies Association has responded to that. Adrian Coles, the director-general of the Building Societies Association, has accused the ombudsman of introducing
"regulation by the back door."
He adds:
"Some of my members are beginning to call the ombudsman an unaccountable, price-fixing regulator."

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If the fact that the ombudsman is calling for justice for millions of people in this country is regulation by the back door, we are left to wonder what regulation by the front door might be. The answer is currently contained in the mortgage code, which is a voluntary code entered into by mortgage lenders. Two of the key promises it contains are:
"We, the subscribers to this Code, promise that we will: act fairly and reasonably in all our dealings with you;"
and
"correct errors and handle complaints speedily".
Anyone who has followed the saga of dual standard variable rates over the past year cannot believe that the mortgage lenders involved have been complying with the mortgage code.
The Economic Secretary is probably as avid a reader as I am of Building Society News, the newsletter of the Building Societies Association. She will therefore have read February's edition. It makes salutary reading, because it contains a major attack on the ombudsman's powers, stating that
"firms are bound by FOS decisions (as you would expect) but have no way of taking the matter further if they feel an injustice has been done, and therein lies the problem. As the FOS leaflet for complainants, Your complaint and the Ombudsman, says: 'If an ombudsman makes a formal decision on your case, this will be final. Firms have to accept our decisions. But you don't. You are free to go to court instead.'
Firms can ask for, but not demand, a hearing in front of the ombudsman if they are unhappy with a provisional decision, but how fair is a hearing where the FOS ombudsman makes a determination on the decision of the FOS adjudicator? It is not an independent process. The final decision (so far as the firm is concerned) is for the ombudsman to make, and there is no provision for a hearing after that. The only course of action open to firms is to seek judicial review, but this process is not an appeal in the proper sense of the word. Rather, in a judicial review, the courts look at the process through which a decision was made, instead of the decision itself.
In the end, to preserve competition for the benefit of the consumer, firms may have no alternative but to turn to the human rights legislation."
That is an extremely sinister development in the regulation of mortgages in this country. The Building Societies Association is, in effect, laying down a marker, saying, "If we don't like the decision of the financial services ombudsman, we may take it to the Human Rights Act 1998." That entails all the costs of a legal process—currently avoided under the ombudsman system—which each individual complainant would have to fight. That is an absolute disgrace, and I look forward to the Minister commenting on the BSA's position.
I am disappointed that the consultation document produced by the Treasury on 28 February indicated that the regulation of mortgages through the Financial Services Authority is to be put back from 1 September 2002 to the second quarter of 2004. That is something for which we have been waiting for a long time, and it is sad to see it receding into the distance. I remind the Economic Secretary of the position adopted by her predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell), who said of the mortgage code:
"It is too soon to decide whether the Code, on its own, is capable of protecting mortgage borrowers to the standard that the Government are determined to see achieved."—[Official Report, 7 April 1998; Vol. 310, c. 152W.]
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The events of the past year mean that it is no longer "too soon." It is absolutely vital that comprehensive regulation is introduced as soon as possible.
1.20 pm
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Ruth Kelly): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. O'Brien. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner), who takes great interest in these matters, on securing the debate. It provides me with an opportunity to respond to his specific points and to outline the Government's underlying approach to mortgage regulation.
The idea behind the Government's approach is to secure a fair deal for the consumer, while acting in a proportionate manner. We do that by creating an environment in which the consumer is able to make informed, intelligent decisions about financial services, and by ensuring that there are appropriate redress mechanisms in place if a problem arises, whether it is a generic issue affecting a large group of people or a specific issue affecting one or more individuals. Regulation plays an important role, but it is not the only tool in our toolbox. It is certainly not the first thing that we think of when we consider how to make markets work more effectively. There are many other things that we can do: improve the information available to consumers, improve consumer education, promote sharper competition among product providers, encourage the development of voluntary industry codes, set benchmarks for products and so on.
The creation of a single regulator, the Financial Services Authority, is the centrepiece of our policy. As a single regulator, it is in a much better position to respond to a financial services sector in which firms and intermediaries operate in several different markets, in which products are bundled and in which innovations in products, design and marketing occur at an ever-increasing pace. A single regulator also creates a regulatory system that is easier for consumers to understand. Firms and consumers no longer have to deal with an alphabet soup of different regulators, each with different rules and approaches.
The creation of a single ombudsman service is another crucial development. The Financial Ombudsman Service is a one-stop shop for redress when a firm authorised by the FSA is unable to resolve a consumer complaint, and it can step in as an independent, informal and user-friendly alternative to court action for the consumer. The FOS is an important part of the overall consumer protection provided by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. It is free to consumers, and its decisions are binding on authorised firms, including mortgage lenders.
In that context, toward the end of last year I examined the general regime for mortgage and general insurance regulation. Specific events had occurred since the original decision to regulate mortgage lenders was taken in January 2000. For example, about a year ago DeAnne Julius was asked to chair an independent review of the banking and mortgage codes to examine the benefits they delivered to consumers. Her report raised the issue of mortgage advice regulation and argued that self-regulation was not a sufficiently strong regime for mortgage service standards. I shall take my hon. Friend's comments today as giving added impetus to that recommendation.

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I also received strong representations from consumer groups and industry that mortgage advice and advisers should come under the FSA umbrella. In the light of those representations, and taking into account regulatory and market developments, I concluded that there would be significant benefits to consumers from regulating the quality of advice and the qualifications of advisers. Although there is already much good practice, I expect that there will be a higher standard of advice available across the board. Consumers will have to deal with only one agency for compensation and redress, whatever their financial services problems.
To respond to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas), episodes such as the Paragon Finance home loans example are one of the reasons why we have found it necessary to take further steps to regulate the mortgage market more generally. The decision not only benefits consumers but streamlines regulations for brokers who already deal with the FSA in other lines of business. Mortgage regulation is expected to come into force during the second quarter of 2004 alongside that of general insurance.
I shall explore some of the recent events outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North. He is particularly concerned that in the light of an FOS decision on a specific case, banks and building societies should be required—I take it that this was his suggestion—to put right all similar cases instead of doing so only in response to individual complaints. I shall stand corrected if his meaning was different.
I understand why my hon. Friend finds that idea initially attractive, but it would blur an important distinction that is central to the way in which we regulate. To tamper with that distinction would be detrimental to consumers, bad for the industry and would risk creating two separate regulators operating with different remits. We try to maintain a clear distinction between complaints handling and regulation. The FOS is available to consider individual complaints, whereas my hon. Friend's argument relates to regulation.
The prudential regulation of banks and building societies—ensuring that they maintain sufficient resources and appropriate systems and controls—is the
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responsibility of the FSA. Standards relating to conduct of businesses for mortgages are currently set out in the mortgage code. It is the role of the Mortgage Code Compliance Board to ensure that personal customers receive a fair deal from the banks and building societies that subscribe to the code. As I said earlier, the decision has been made to transfer mortgage advice and intermediaries to the FSA in 2004.
In practice, the distinction between regulation and complaints handling works well and in the interests of consumers. It enables regulators and ombudsmen to concentrate on their core tasks and avoids their diluting the authority and expertise of one another.
Mr. Gardiner: I appreciate the distinction and I am cognisant of the dangers that would arise if every complaint to the FOS were decided generically and applied to every other case. However, my hon. Friend should take on board the fact that as soon as the lower variable rates were introduced by companies, a whole category of contracts into which those companies had entered were effectively rendered fraudulent. At the moment, the only redress has been through the FOS, but consumers are entitled to regulation that stops such wholesale abuse by companies. I urge her to meet the mortgage lenders involved and encourage them to sort out the problem now. I believe that some arse-kicking now by my hon. Friend will speed up the process.
Ruth Kelly: I thank my hon. Friend. Our diagnosis of the problem is somewhat different. As I understand it, the ombudsman has criticised the information provided to consumers at the point of sale and the ability of lenders to differentiate the rates at which they provide loans to their customers. The core criticism is of the information provided rather than of the system. The FSA is considering how to define and operate its new system of treating consumers fairly and I am sure that it will examine that, but it is for the FSA, not the Treasury, to decide. However, I am certain that it will hear the concerns that my hon. Friend has outlined and consider them seriously.
I thank my hon. Friend for his interest in these issues. Consumers throughout the country will want to follow the debate. He has raised important matters that he should also take up with the Financial Services Authority.

Greater Manchester Police Funding
1.29 pm
Mr. Graham Brady: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise matters of utmost concern to my constituents and all other residents and businesses in Greater Manchester.
The Minister will be aware that there are serious concerns about police funding. For instance, the chief constable has long highlighted the anomalous impact on Greater Manchester police of the funding of police pensions. The cost of funding the pensions of the force is £67 million per annum, but the Home Office funds only £60 million of that each year. In comparison, the pensions bill of West Midlands police, a similar size force, is £50 million, but the Home Office funds £52 million. Greater Manchester police force has a £7 million shortfall that must come out of its operational budget, whereas West Midlands police force is, in effect, given a £2 million windfall towards its operational budget.
It must be remembered that the Greater Manchester force faces demands imposed by a crime rate that is 41 per cent. above the national average. It also has to meet some major exceptional costs. The Home Office has met two thirds of the cost of last year's Oldham riots, but a major additional cost is left for Greater Manchester police. The biggest exceptional item, on which I will focus, is the cost of policing the Commonwealth games, which are due to open in Manchester in less than five months time. That cost is estimated by Greater Manchester police and the police authority to be £7.88 million. I believe that that cost should be borne by the nation, not only by the people of Greater Manchester.
The Commonwealth games are a major national and international event that will bring more than 5,000 athletes from 71 nations to Manchester and the United Kingdom. The games will bring thousands of spectators and dozens of heads of state to Manchester. We in Manchester are proud to host the games, and proud that Her Majesty the Queen will visit twice in her jubilee year to open and close the event, which will be the largest and most spectacular multi-sport event ever hosted in the UK. I am confident that the games will be a huge success and that the Greater Manchester police will do the most professional job possible to ensure the safety and security of all involved.
It is intolerable that the Government should make the people of Greater Manchester suffer as a consequence of hosting the games. Councillor Stephen Murphy, the chairman of the police authority, warned on 18 January:
"The absence of funding support will result in either a significant increase in the precept or a deterioration in policing standards across Greater Manchester with a probable escalation in crime rates … to make further savings to meet the cost of the Games would have a major impact on policing and likely impact on the numbers of police officers".
I raised the matter in the House on 24 January. On that occasion, the Leader of the House made it clear that Greater Manchester and its residents should bear the cost. He replied:
"I remind the hon. Gentleman that Manchester sought to hold the Commonwealth games and, indeed, fought hard for that. I congratulate it on its success. Naturally, there are consequences of Manchester's success in securing the Commonwealth games."—[Official Report, 24 January 2002; Vol. 378, c. 1024.]
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At that point, we were not hopeful that Manchester would receive support for the policing of the games, but matters had improved by 29 January, when the Home Secretary wrote to the police authority to promise to fund £3 million of the £7.88 million requested. None the less, that leaves almost £5 million to be met, perhaps by increases in council tax. My constituents have already suffered a 47 per cent. increase in council tax since Labour took control of the borough of Trafford six years ago. Alternatively, the cost could be funded by cuts in policing.
The Home Secretary has said that officials and Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary will carry out a rigorous appraisal of the remainder of the bid. I am sure that the Minister will re-emphasise today that the door is not closed. I am also sure that the rigorous appraisal of the cost of policing will ultimately endorse the Greater Manchester police estimate of the cost of security for the games. The residents of Greater Manchester and I want an absolute commitment today from the Minister that the full cost of policing the games will be met by the Home Office.
The Minister may not accept the estimate for the cost of policing the games, but whatever the ultimate cost of policing them is, it should be the responsibility of the whole nation, not only of the people of Greater Manchester. What I want today is not a commitment to find £7.88 million for the costs of the Greater Manchester police, but an absolute guarantee that the full cost of policing the Commonwealth games will be met by the taxpayer nationally, not dumped on the taxpayers of Greater Manchester.
I remind the Minister of the warning given by the chief constable in the Manchester Evening News on 21 January. He wrote:
"We are in a desperate situation, and if I introduce cuts and we don't get funding for the Games, it will have a massive impact on policing in Greater Manchester."
Mrs. Lorna Fitzsimons: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brady: The hon. Lady is in the nick of time, because I was about to conclude my remarks.
Mrs. Fitzsimons: Will the hon. Gentleman accept a comment from a fellow representative of Greater Manchester and taxpayer who takes a keen interest in these matters, having taken part in the parliamentary police scheme this year with Greater Manchester police? To some people, the claim made by the chair of Greater Manchester police authority and the chief constable that the huge increase in their budget this year will result in fewer police officers seems incredible. I have only a simple abacus; how can it be so?
Mr. Brady: I have focused today on the cost of policing the Commonwealth games. I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that since 11 September, the cost of providing security and guaranteeing safety for a major international event such as the games has increased. It is perfectly reasonable for the view of the police authority and Greater Manchester police to reflect that.

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I do not want to get involved in squabbles between Labour party members, whether they are Members of Parliament or Greater Manchester local authority members. My request today is that the Minister guarantees not a specific sum for the funding of the policing of the games, but funding in full. That is essential. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mrs. Fitzsimons) and the Minister cannot get away from the fact that if the cost of policing the games is not met by the taxpayer nationally in recognition of the fact that the responsibility is a national one, the burden will fall on the people of Greater Manchester—on the hon. Member for Rochdale, on me, and on all the people whom we represent. Their taxes will rise, or their policing will decline, or a combination of the two will happen.
We face a serious choice. I call on the Minister today to provide certainty and confidence to the organisers of the games, to those who police Greater Manchester, and to the people whom I represent, that the cost will not be imposed on the taxpayers of Greater Manchester, but will be met as a national responsibility, as should always have been intended.
1.39 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): I congratulate the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) on securing a debate on Greater Manchester police funding. It is a useful opportunity to air some of the funding issues currently affecting Greater Manchester and to discuss what the Government and the police are doing to increase resources and reduce crime. I was surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not use the all the time available to him to discuss some of the broader issues involved in policing and police funding in Manchester. He effectively raised only two issues: pensions and the Commonwealth games. I accept that both are substantial issues that need to be talked about, but I intend in my response to range more widely than he did.
Mr. Brady: I will be delighted if the Minister deals with some of the other concerns about funding for Greater Manchester police, but for the purposes of this debate I would be happy with a simple, short assurance from him that the cost of policing the games will be met by the Government. Were he to give that assurance now, I would be happy for the debate not to take up the rest of the time available. We could all go away happy.
Mr. Ainsworth: I intend to go wider than the hon. Gentleman did. I am only surprised that he, as a Greater Manchester Member of Parliament, has not used the time available to him to discuss more his broader concerns about other issues that affect Greater Manchester police authority and policing in Manchester. I will respond to the Commonwealth games issue, but I want to talk about broader issues as well.
It is appropriate to thank all those front-line officers in the Greater Manchester police force who have worked tirelessly in recent months to protect the public
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in difficult circumstances—policing the disturbances in Oldham, then meeting the heightened security requirements in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 11 September. They have been working under real pressure and we should take our hats off to them. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that they have done a magnificent job in providing the maximum protection to the people of Greater Manchester in such difficult circumstances.
The funding increase for Greater Manchester police this year is in line with the average increase for England and Wales. The authority received an extra £9.5 million from the funding settlement. The force will also benefit indirectly from the additional funding provided by the Government to the National Crime Squad and the National Criminal Intelligence Service, which comes out of the police grant before it is divided among local police authorities.
When Conservative Members suggest that police funding is not adequate for the task, it is appropriate to remind people that until the Government established one, this country did not have a national crime squad. We had regional crime squads, but the funding was far less and was of an altogether different order to that which we provide to NCS. NCIS, too, did not exist under the previous Government. This country had the fourth largest economy in the world, a sophisticated modern society, but no national criminal intelligence service. In this debate, we should accept that it is not only money that helps, but the assistance given by NCS and NCIS. Such assistance is of some importance in helping police in Manchester and elsewhere to tackle criminality.
Turning to the main topic of the hon. Gentleman's speech, we are helping Greater Manchester with the cost of policing the Commonwealth games. As he said, in the police grant debate on 30 January we announced that we have decided to make an initial grant of £3 million toward the cost in view of the substantial policing costs faced by Greater Manchester police. We have asked officials of Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary to examine closely the estimates that the Greater Manchester police authority has made of the overall costs that it will face. On the basis of that further assessment, we will consider the extent to which we are prepared to make further grant available to the authority.
The original estimate was £3.9 million, but it has now doubled. The circumstances have changed and there may he considerable justification for changing the figures, but if the hon. Gentleman thinks that the Government can simply accept changes of such magnitude without asking someone to examine whether they are justified, he does not live in same world as me. We will ask HMIC to examine the estimates rigorously, and when we have its report we will announce the extent to which we can help Greater Manchester police authority with the costs that arise from the games. I will not make that announcement in response to this debate.
Mr. Brady: Of course it is reasonable to examine the estimates in detail, but is the Minister saying that he will not fund the whole cost of policing the games even if

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HMIC and officials in his Department find that the estimates are accurate? Will he not give me the assurance that I requested?
Mr. Ainsworth: I have said what I have said. We will examine the estimates that we have received. We have agreed to £3 million, and there is an estimate that is well in excess of that. We must properly evaluate any estimates before we can give any commitments, and we are doing that. We have given the job to HMIC, and we shall consider the issue when we have its report. There are other pressures —
Mr. Brady: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Ainsworth: I cannot keep giving way to the hon. Gentleman. He had plenty of opportunity to make his case before I stood up.
The Greater Manchester police authority faces other pressures, and the hon. Gentleman will be aware that on 30 January I also announced special grant of £1.44 million towards the additional cost of policing the riots. That was paid to the authority on 8 February. Funding for special grant is limited, and we had to consider demands from other forces that have also experienced riots. Each application had to be treated fairly, and that is what we did.
The hon. Gentleman raised some issues, but not others. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Mrs. Fitzsimons) mentioned some of the money that has gone into crime reduction in the Manchester area in recent years. I shall run through some of the statistics so that the hon. Gentleman can see that those funds are not inconsiderable. I do not know whether, like me, he believes that partnership is the key to reducing and keeping crime figures down, but we have invested more than £17.2 million in projects in Greater Manchester under the crime reduction programme. Greater Manchester police made successful grant applications for £1.25 million of that. In addition, the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions has provided more than £3.3 million for neighbourhood and street warden schemes.
The £17.2 million has been distributed as follows: more than £9 million has been spent on 41 closed circuit television schemes; £3.2 million on 10 schemes under the communities against drugs programme; more than £1.7 million on reducing burglary initiatives; £1.3 million on targeted police initiatives; and £471,000 on 33 partnership development fund projects. Some £380,000 has been spent under the violence against women initiative to reduce domestic violence, rape and sexual assault by known perpetrators; £153,000 has been spent on small retail projects; and £100,000 has been spent on projects to tackle prostitution.
In the hon. Gentleman's constituency, £31,000 has been allocated to a reduced burglary initiative on the Racecourse estate in Sale. The Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions has provided £242,000 for two neighbourhood warden and street warden initiatives in Sale, West. That is a significant investment in extra resources. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman so that he can tell me whether he welcomes the money that has gone into his constituency and the rest of Greater Manchester.
Mr. Brady: The Minister will not be surprised to hear that I welcome any money that goes into my constituency. I am delighted that help has gone to Sale, West. However, I have a straightforward question for him and I hope to receive a simple answer. Does he believe that the policing cost of a major national and international event should be met by the nation or by local taxpayers in the city that hosts the event?
Mr. Ainsworth: The funding formulae used to decide who funds what and to what extent in relation to events such as the Commonwealth games are not new—they were not invented in the past couple of years. We will consider in detail the costs that Manchester is likely to incur as a result of the Commonwealth games. When we have a detailed report and can see how robust the figures are, we will make a decision on whether we can contribute more than the £3 million that we have already allocated.
The hon. Gentleman identified the problem of police pensions without telling the House that it has existed for many years and that Governments of different party political complexions from those currently in power did nothing about it. We accept that pensions costs represent an increasing burden on many police authorities. The overall police settlement includes provision for expected further pensions costs, but the incidence of such costs is bound to be uneven. As we both know, individual cases and pressures will arise in different years.
A review of police pensions by Home Office and Treasury officials is nearing completion. The views of police authorities, including that of the hon. Gentleman's area, will be taken on board with those of other key stakeholders. We must also consider the impact on Government finances, as we are doing. We want a modernised pension arrangement that is more flexible and affordable for future entrants to the police service. We must have a system that gives greater certainty about pensions obligations of individual police forces. A report on the alternatives available to change the way in which we fund pensions is expected very shortly. The issue is important, but I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept that the Government are trying to tackle some difficult issues that were not tackled for many a long year when perhaps they ought to have been.
Mrs. Fitzsimons: Will my hon. Friend hear some concerns from another Member of Parliament for Greater Manchester? Important though it is to deal with the one-off funding of the Commonwealth games, as the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) suggests, the funding formula itself is important. There is a disparity between the metropolitan boroughs and rural areas. I do not want to denigrate any rural areas, but the increased cost of policing a metropolitan area such as Greater Manchester must be accepted.
I fear that scaremongering in this financial debate will affect the people of Rochdale, even though crime in Rochdale has decreased significantly and police numbers have increased significantly since Labour took power. There is a great deal of concern that the comments made by the chief of police and the chair of

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the police authority in their budget debates with the Government are having a detrimental effect on the public and obscuring the facts.
Mr. Ainsworth: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was just about to say something about police numbers. Crime overall, as well as many categories of crime, has decreased in Greater Manchester, as it has in the rest of the country. However, fear of crime is a real issue. People's perception of the problems of crime and their vulnerability to it has not changed in line with the actual crime figures. Those who unnecessarily alarm people are adding to the fear of crime.
Police numbers are important as part of a comprehensive package of measures to ensure a modern and efficient police service. The public rightly feel reassured by the sight of police officers on our streets. That helps to reduce the fear of crime. It is for the police authority and the chief constable to determine the resources, the precise composition of the force, and the distribution of officers. On 30 September 2001, Greater Manchester had 7,036 police officers, 114 more than in March 1997 and the same number as in March 1995. Although there is more to be done, we have effectively restored the cuts to police numbers in the Greater Manchester area that occurred in the last two years of the Conservative Government. Civilian staff numbers have increased by 415 since March 1997, an increase of 6 per cent, to 3,027 on 30 September 2001.
Mrs. Patsy Calton: I hear all that the Minister is saying and I believe that the number of police officers has increased, but last Sunday I visited the Twining Brook road area of Cheadle Hulme in my constituency, where I met people who told me that women were afraid to go out at night or to let their children play outside during the early evening. How does that square with what the Minister is telling us? Is
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the distribution of police officers throughout Greater Manchester such that there are more in some areas than in my constituency? I simply do not understand what he is saying, and neither will my constituents.
Mr. Ainsworth: It squares precisely with what I have said. This is an important issue, so I ask the hon. Lady to think seriously about it, leaving aside party politics. Police numbers are not the whole issue. I mentioned the increase in civilian staff, because how on earth are police constables to do the job that only they are capable of doing and only they have been trained to do if we do not give them the back-up necessary to enable them to spend more time out on the streets?
That is part of the reasoning behind the proposals in the Police Reform Bill that we have introduced. We want police officers to be used much more effectively out on the streets of Greater Manchester and elsewhere in the country. That is what the hon. Lady's constituents and the Government want. I hope that our proposals, currently in Committee in the House of Lords, will receive the support of the Liberal Democrats, so that we can increase police numbers along the lines that we promised and ensure that the police are more effective, more visible and can use their time more efficiently.
Mr. Brady: I am sorry that, despite giving the Minister a clear indication at the start of the debate that I wanted an answer and a promise that the Government would meet the full cost of funding the Commonwealth games, and despite his long, meandering contribution to this short debate, the Minister has refused to do what I asked. He says that HMIC officials would reconsider the estimates, but he has not given a commitment that if those estimates are found to be accurate, they will be fully funded by the Government—
Mr. Bill O'Brien: Order.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at Two o'clock.

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

  Burial Arrangements
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners, what discussions he has had with leaders of the Muslim community about allowing burials in Church of England graveyards to take place at weekends. [38473]

  Mr. Bell
  None. So far as I am aware, no approach has been made to the Church of England's national organisations on this topic, and I do not know whether it has arisen in any parishes.

  Anyone who was resident in a parish or who died there, whatever his or her faith, is legally entitled to burial in a Church of England parish churchyard, provided it has not been formally closed for burials and space is still available there. It would not be possible to use a non-Christian religious rite in the churchyard, but the Burial Laws Amendment Act 1880 lays down a procedure under which the burial can take place without any religious service, subject to the conditions set out in the Act, for example as to the day and time of the burial. The design of grave markers would be subject to the jurisdiction of the Church's consistory courts.

  I understand that issues of timing may also arise in the case of interments in local authority-maintained burial grounds, although that is not a matter for the Church authorities.

  Ordained Women
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners, if he will estimate the total cost of the compensation scheme for those priests unwilling to accept the Ordination of Women up to the cessation of the scheme. [38495]

  Mr. Bell
  I refer my right hon. Friend to the answer I gave him on 27 February, which stated that expenditure to date and budgeted provision for future expenditure in respect of past and present claims for payment under the Ordination of Women (Financial Provisions) Measure 1993 is £24.2 million in total.

  The figure will rise if further claims are approved during the remaining lifetime of the legislation, which expires on 21 February 2004.

WALES

  Ministerial Trips
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list each of the overseas trips made by himself 148W
  and other members of his ministerial team in each of the last four years, specifying the purpose and cost of each trip. [30176]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by the Deputy Prime Minister on 4 February 2002,Official Report, column 707W.

  Entertainment Costs
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list for 1997–98 and each subsequent financial year the amount spent by(a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) its non-departmental public bodies in respect of hotel and other similar privately-provided accommodation (i) in the UK and (ii) abroad for (A) Ministers, (B) staff and (C) other persons; if he will list the proportion of this cost incurred in respect of (x) food and (y) alcohol in each case; and if he will list the average cost per hotel room or similar unit of accommodation provided in each case. [34379]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Cabinet Office on 14 February 2002,Official Report, column 560W.

  Statutory Instruments
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the statutory instruments issued by his Department in the last 12 months, indicating(a) the purpose of each and (b) the cost of each to (i) public funds, (ii) businesses and (iii) individuals. [36229]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  In the last 12 months my Department has issued the following four statutory instruments:The National Assembly for Wales (Transfer of Land) Order 2001 No. 398 which transferred to the Assembly land for the site of their new debating chamber to be constructed by the Assembly.
  The Government of Wales Act 1998 (Commencement No. 6) Order 2001 No. 1756 which brought into force provisions of the Government of Wales Act 1998 relating to the exercise of functions of the Forestry Commissioners in relation to Wales.
  The Auditor General for Wales (Transfer of Functions) (General Teaching Council for Wales) Order 2001 No. 2479 which transferred to the Auditor General for Wales the functions of the Controller and Auditor General in relation to the accounts of the General Teaching Council for Wales.
  The Environment Act 1995 (Commencement No. 20 and Saving Provision) (Wales) Order 2001 No. 3211 which brought into force for Wales various provisions of th Environment Act 1995 relating to contaminated land.

  The implementation costs associated with these statutory instruments are mainly a matter for the National Assembly for Wales.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Official Visits
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, pursuant to the answer of 25 February 2002,Official Report, column 86W, Ref 36818, what was the length and purpose of the overseas visit and the identity of the Parliamentary Private Secretary who undertook it. [39033]
  149W
  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: In May 1997, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton) supported the President of the Board of Trade on a three-day visit to Tokyo, Japan, which was focused on inward investment.

  Small Businesses
  Brian Cotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when she will publish the Government's response to the Competition Commission's report on small business banking. [39766]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Publication dates for such reports are not announced in advance. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and my end the Chancellor of the Exchequer will publish the report as soon as practicable.

  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the barriers that stand in the way of effective competition between the relatively small and the relatively large construction companies in Government Department construction contracts; and what measures regarding(a) aggregation, (b) contract bundling and (c) framework agreements she has implemented to ensure that businesses are offered a more level playing field. [38685]

  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Over the past year OGC and the Small Business Service have jointly undertaken research to identify the barriers to effective competition in the government marketplace. No specific research has been conducted in the construction sector.

  Aggregation, contract bundling and framework agreements were all raised by small firms as being barriers to accessing the government market. OGC is reviewing best practice in each of these areas to ensure optimum value for money.

  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the mission statement of small business/Europe is. [39647]

  Nigel Griffiths
  The mission statement of small business/Europe is to maximise the interests of UK small and medium-sized businesses at the European Union level.

  Regulatory Impact Assessments
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what percentage of the regulatory impact assessments which are relevant to small businesses have attracted comments from the Small Business Council. [36976]

  Nigel Griffiths
  None. It is the role of the Small Business Service to comment on individual regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) and not the Small Business Council.

  Engineering Industry
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the earnings on the services account by engineering consultancies and the proportion of exports from the United Kingdom that are manufactured goods. [39527]
  150W
  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: Information on the overseas earnings of engineering consultancies is given in Table C8.2 of UK Trade in Services 2000 which was published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In 2000, the latest year for which figures are available, this industry earned £1,449 million from exports overseas, representing 2 per cent. of UK exports of services.

  According to information published by ONS in the Monthly Review of External Trade Statistics, UK exports of manufactured goods in 2001 were worth £160.7 billion, representing 84 per cent. of exports of goods, or 60 per cent. of exports of goods and services, together.

  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the statement of the working group set up by the Hawley Review in the report "Universe of Engineering" on the research needed to estimate the number of people who practise engineering. [39532]

  Mr. Wilson
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: The "Universe of Engineering" Report was produced by The Royal Academy of Engineering to assist The Hawley Group in its review of the Engineering Council and the needs of the wider engineering and technology community in the UK. The Report concluded that at least 2 million people are now employed in skilled engineering and technology jobs in this country, and that a new type of organisation, taking over from the Engineering Council, was required to support them.

  The Engineering and Technology Board (ETB) has been established for this purpose and is now starting work with the full support of Government. The ETB's principal aims are:

  (1) Start the reversal of the downward trends in the supply of people (of all ages) with qualifications and skills relevant to engineering and technology based careers and jobs.

  (2) Achieve a marked notable shift in public attitudes towards, and understanding of, engineering and technology in today's economy.

  (3) Build effective and valued links with business and industry, reflecting its real-time and future needs.

  Transaction Costs
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the impact of the level of transaction costs in the provision of equity finance to private business. [37598]

  Nigel Griffiths
  Although this Department has made no assessment of the impact of these costs, the Government appreciate that they have the effect of encouraging private equity investors to focus on larger investments. This makes it more difficult for smaller enterprises to raise finance and is one of the reasons we have launched Regional Venture Capital Funds to provide smaller amounts of equity capital to growth businesses.

  Aerospace Industry
  Mr. Davidson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations she has received on helping the aerospace industry since the incidents of 11 September 2001; and if she will make a statement. [38199]
  151W
  Mr. Wilson
  Both Ministers and Officials have been in contact with the major trade associations, aerospace companies, hon. Members and other bodies. We remain in contact with the major companies to discuss how to best manage the situation.

  BNFL
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) pursuant to the answer of 20 November 2001,Official Report, columns 163–64W, for what reason the profit and loss figures of BNFL Inc. are commercially confidential; [39325]

  (2) pursuant to her answers of 20 November 2001, Official Report, columns 163–64W, 15 January 2002, Official Report, column 153W and 14 February 2002, Official Report, column 522W, on BNFL, on what basis she has refused to provide profit and loss figures for BNFL Inc. [39326]

  Mr. Wilson
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 20 November 2001,Official Report, columns 163–64W.

  BNFL has assured me that it complies with all requirements placed on it by financial regulators in the US and the UK.

  Smurfit Corrugated, Warrington
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps her Department is taking to ensure that people who lose their jobs at Smurfit Corrugated, Warrington, are helped to find alternative employment. [40001]

  Alan Johnson
  Cheshire and Warrington Business Link is working with the company to see exactly what support Smurfit Corrugated employees need from the Small Business Service. This is likely to include benefits advice, careers guidance, training and help with identifying job vacancies. The North West Development Agency is also aware of the situation and is considering, with the Employment Service, whether Rapid Response Funds are required.

  Pay Differentials
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the average gap between men's and women's pay in the Stafford constituency is. [39954]

  Alan Johnson
  Estimates for the parliamentary constituency of Stafford are not available. According to the 2001 New Earnings Survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics, average hourly pay for full-time employees excluding overtime in Staffordshire was £10.43 for men and £8.67 for women, a gap of £1.76.

  Dr. Starkey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the average gap between men's and women's pay is in Milton Keynes, South-West at the latest date for which figures are available. [40304]

  Alan Johnson
  Estimates for the parliamentary constituency of Milton Keynes, South-West are not available. According to the 2001 New Earnings Survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics, average hourly pay for full-time employees excluding overtime in the Milton Keynes Unitary Authority, was £12.53 for men and £10.03 for women, a gap of £2.50.

  Fishing
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether her scheme to compensate British fishermen for the loss of fishing when Iceland extended her fishing limit to 200 miles applies to statutory or nautical miles. [38483]

  Nigel Griffiths
  The 200 "miles" in the scheme rules applies to imperial miles and not nautical miles.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many claims for compensation for the loss of Icelandic fishing jobs have been submitted from(a) Fleetwood, (b) Grimsby and (c) Hull; how many from each port have (i) been paid, (ii) gone to appeal and (iii) gone to arbitration; and how many for each port have been reported. [38484]

  Nigel Griffiths
  The table shows the available information.

  Port

  Paid Compensation

  Requests to review the decision

  Appeals to the Independent Adjudicator

  Hull

  1,489

  444

  48

  Grimsby/Cleethorpes

  701

  298

  56

  Fleetwood/Blackpool

  312

  135

  20

  Aberdeen

  158

  205

  13

  Other

  889

  122

  13

  Total

  3,549

  1,204

  150

  Excluding duplicates, a total of 7,740 claims have been made. I regret that there is no breakdown by port of this figure.

  Climate Change Levy
  Mr. Page
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what calculation has been made of the amount of carbon dioxide produced by the nuclear energy industry; and what estimate has been made of the annual cost to the nuclear industry of meeting the climate change levy. [40703]

  Mr. Wilson
  As with any large project, the process of constructing a nuclear power station will lead to carbon dioxide emissions but these will be negligible in relation to the lifetime generation capacity of the plant. Generation of nuclear electricity does not produce any significant carbon dioxide emissions. It is estimated that in 2001 in the absence of nuclear generation, emissions of carbon dioxide would have been between 11 and 22 MtC higher, depending on the mix of generation used to replace it.

  The climate change levy (CCL) falls on supplies of electricity to business users rather than on electricity generators. The amount attributable to nuclear generation will depend on the extent to which consumers of nuclear electricity are domestic consumers or are businesses which are eligible for reductions in the rate of levy. For each terawatt hour of electricity supplied to business customers the CCL at the full rate would amount to £4.3 million.

  Fireworks
  Linda Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what her policy is on reducing nuisance caused by fireworks. [39757]
  153W
  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I understand the depth of current concerns about fireworks, particularly in relation to neighbourhood safety, noise and nuisance. We are now actively considering with relevant government departments what action can be taken within existing legislation to address these growing problems. I am also having further talks with the industry.

  Global Crossing (Ministerial Hospitality)
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will list the dates that Ministers in her Department have received hospitality in their ministerial capacities since 1 January 1999 from Global Crossing; and if she will make a statement. [37686]

  Ms Hewitt
  Offers of hospitality are accepted and registered in line with the requirements of paragraph 139 of the Ministerial Code.

  Paragon Finance
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations she has received about the activities of Paragon Finance following the judgment in the case of Paragon Finance plc v. Nash and Another, Sane v. Stanton and Another held before Lord Justices Thorpe, Dyson and Astill on 15 October 2001. [39027]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I have received correspondence concerning this case and it was also raised in some of the responses to DTI's recent consultation on reform of our consumer credit legislation. I am aware that the case has important implications for our plans to make the extortionate credit provisions of the Consumer Credit Act more effective and we will be studying the judgment carefully as we develop our proposals.

  Loan Sharks
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to reform the Consumer Credit Act to tackle loan sharks; and if she will make a statement. [39026]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The Department is in the process of reviewing the Consumer Credit Act in order to improve consumer protection against unfair lending practices. I published the summary of responses to our consultation paper "Tackling loan sharks—and more" on 18 February. The summary contains a provisional timetable for when DTI expects to publish further consultation papers on our plans to modify the Consumer Credit Act and improve consumer protection against unfair lending practices. The summary also sets out the following priorities for the review:

  Improving the consumer credit licensing regime;

  Making the extortionate credit provisions more effective;

  Increasing consumer protection by changing the Consumer Credit Act's financial limit and categories of exempt agreements and simplifying the rules on multiple agreements;

  Enabling consumers to conclude credit agreements on-line;

  Simplifying the advertising regulations, including the regulations on the Annual Percentage Rate (APR);

  Amending the rules on early settlement, and;

  Implementing recommendations by the Task Force on overindebtedness.

  Copies of both the consultation paper and the summary of responses have been placed in the Libraries of the House.

  British Steel Exports
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action she is taking to facilitate the export of British steel products to the USA. [38391]

  Mr. Wilson
  The US market is open to UK steel exporters. We are working closely with the European Commission to try to ensure that the US Government do not impose unilateral restrictions on steel imports. In addition, Ministers are taking every opportunity to lobby against any action by the US to restrict imports, which would be totally unjustified.

  LNM Holdings
  Mr. Whittingdale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if her Department was consulted by the Prime Minister's Office on the letter sent by the Prime Minister to the Romanian Government supporting the bid for Sidex steel by LNM Holdings. [39036]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: No.

  Correspondence
  David Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when the hon. Member for Walsall, North will receive a reply to his letter of 17 December 2001 regarding fireworks. [38457]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: My hon. Friend was sent a reply dated 26 February 2002.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Cheshire Police Authority
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on(a) the level of deducted grant taken from the Cheshire police authority 2001–02 baseline and (b) the relationship the deducted grant has with that attributable to National Crime Squad and National Criminal Intelligence Service funding. [31871]

  Mr. Denham
  The 2001–02 grant baseline was notionally adjusted to allow like-for-like comparison with 2002–03, following the transfer of funding for the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and the National Crime Squad (NCS) in 2002–03.

  As a result, the notionally revised grant for Cheshire police authority for 2001–02 became £96.6 million. Actual grant was £99.2 million, a difference of £2.6 million.

  The levies paid by Cheshire in 2001–02 for NCS and NCIS were £2.6 million.

  Cheshire police authority will receive grant in 2002–03 of £99.0 million—an increase of 2.5 per cent. on the adjusted figure for 2001–02. No police authority will receive less than a 2.3 per cent. increase on the adjusted notional figure.

  Police and Judiciary (Training)
  Paul Holmes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps the Government are taking to ensure that(a) the police force, (b) the Crown

  155W
  Prosecution Service and (c) judges take part in continuing training programmes, so they can identify and respond to the needs and concerns of people with a learning disability. [35546]

  Mr. Denham
  The basic training received by all recruits to the police service includes an element designed to raise awareness of all disabilities, including learning disabilities, and to highlight the importance of communicating effectively and sensitively with people suffering from mental illness and mental disorder. In addition, forces provide further training to meet local needs.

  For the future, we are developing national occupational standards and a core curriculum which will identify the knowledge and skills required for officers' roles and any training requirements.

  The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) provides a number of training courses, which consider the needs of people with disabilities (including learning disabilities) both as victims of crime and as employees of the service.

  The following training is available to staff and specifically considers the requirements of customers and staff with learning disabilities:

  Diversity Training

  Direct Communication with Victims and Witnesses

  Disability Discrimination Act Training

  Speaking Up for Justice Training.

  Judicial education is the responsibility of the Judicial Studies Board (JSB). The JSB comprises six committees one of which is the Equal Treatment Advisory Committee which issued the Equal Treatment Bench Book to all judges. A chapter in the Bench Book gives advice on identifying and responding to the needs and concerns of people with a learning disability. Continuing training is carried out by seminars organised by the criminal, civil and family committees of the JSB.

  Police Houses
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many police houses are empty; and if he will make a statement; [35806]

  (2) how many police houses, other than right-to-buy houses, were sold in 2000–01. [35807]

  Mr. Denham
  Information on the number of empty police houses is not held centrally.

  The number of police houses sold in 2000–01 was 620. No information is available on the terms under which the houses were sold.

  In its report entitled "Action Stations—Improving the Management of the Police Estate" (published March 1999), the Audit Commission recommended that police forces identify and dispose of buildings that were unsuitable or had maintenance liabilities which were beyond the forces' means. Further it recommended that the remaining residential estate was rationalised. In some cases, for example, it may be appropriate to sell off some vacant accommodation in order to refurbish and bring back into use other accommodation.
  156W
  In those areas where high housing costs are hindering recruitment and retention of police officers, allocations from the starter home initiative (SHI) will help about 1,100 police staff to buy first homes over the next three years. In Surrey about 40 police staff are expected to benefit from rounds one and two of the SHI.

  We have also recently agreed with the Department of Health that the role of the National Health Housing Co-ordinator will be extended to cover the police service.

  Police Secondments
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his estimate is of the cost borne by the Dorset police authority of secondments to(a) the NCIS, (b) the Police Staff College, (c) police training centres, (d) the International Police Task Force in Bosnia and (e) Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. [36805]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 25 February 2002]: I have been advised by the chief constable of Dorset that while an officer is seconded to the bodies named in the question, their pay, allowances and overtime are met initially by Dorset police but all costs are subsequently recharged to the seconding body. There are therefore no direct costs to Dorset police authority arising from these secondments.

  Lancet Inquiry
  Mr. Frank Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what powers he has to seek reimbursement of the costs of the Lancet inquiry. [36515]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 25 February 2002]: There are no powers to press for reimbursement of the costs of the Lancet inquiry.

  I recognise that the Operation Lancet investigation placed a significant burden on Cleveland police authority. Because of the length and complexity of the investigation a special grant of £1.9 million was made to the authority in March 2001.

  Brixton Police
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 11 February 2002,Official Report, column 56W, on Brixton police, how many staff were absent during the period; and what the total number of staff is at Brixton police station. [37514]

  Mr. Denham
  Statistics on absences are not available for Brixton police station separately from the whole of the borough of Lambeth. There are 240 police officers and 130 civilian support staff at Brixton police station; some of these staff have responsibilities relating to the whole of Lambeth.

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 11 February 2002,Official Report, column 56W, on Brixton police, if he will list the periods during 2001 when Brixton police were unable to accept telephone reports of minor crime. [37515]

  Mr. Denham
  I understand that the information requested is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Correspondence
  Andrew Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will make a substantive reply to the letter of 29 January from the hon. Member for Thurrock concerning his constituent, Andrew Palmer of East Tilbury; and if he will make a statement. [37435]

  Mr. Denham
  I replied to my hon. Friend's letter of 29 January 2002 on 25 February 2002.

  Humberside Police
  Shona McIsaac
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average number of days sickness absence per year for(a) police officers and (b) support staff was in each of the past five years for Humberside police. [37746]

  Mr. Denham
  The information is shown in the table.

  1996–97

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Police Officers

  12

  12

  8

  9

  9

  Support Staff

  12

  10

  8

  10

  11

  Yarl's Wood
  Alistair Burt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps were taken to alert residents of Thirleigh and Clayham, Bedfordshire, that an escape of detainees had taken place at the Yarl's Wood removal centre on 14 February. [38782]

  Angela Eagle
  I understand from Bedfordshire police that, as a precautionary measure, a general warning was issued to the public on the night of the incident to stay inside with windows and doors locked.

  Andrew Selous
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will ensure that Bedfordshire county council is not financially disadvantaged by the destruction of the Yarl's Wood Detention Centre. [38646]

  Angela Eagle
  There is no reason to believe that Bedfordshire county council will be financially disadvantaged by the incident at Yarl's Wood removal centre.

  Asylum Seekers
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many asylum seekers there are in each unitary or borough in Essex broken down by(a) country of origin and (b) gender. [38428]

  Angela Eagle
  The information is not available in the form requested.

  The availability of information on the location of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom (UK) is currently linked to the support the asylum seeker receives. Asylum seekers in the UK are receiving support from the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), local authorities and the Department for Work and Pension (DWP), or are supporting themselves.

  Currently asylum seekers supported by NASS are not dispersed to Essex because NASS has no dispersal accommodation there. Some asylum seekers supported by NASS find their own accommodation and receive
  158W
  vouchers from NASS. From available information, as at the end of December 2001, there were 1,690 asylum seekers (including dependants) in receipt of voucher only support in the east of England (which includes Essex).

  For asylum seekers supported by local authorities, DWP or who support themselves, no information is held centrally on the numbers living in Essex.

  Mr. Malins
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he plans to revise his target of 30,000 removals per year of failed asylum seekers. [38662]

  Angela Eagle
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: The 30,000 target (2,500 per month) for the removal of failed asylum seekers has always been ambitious and high risk, but our continued expectation is to achieve that removal rate in the next financial year.

  The full impact of the incident at Yarl's Wood has yet to be assessed. However, any measures taken are expected to be short term. At this current point in time it is not our intention to revise our removals target.

  "Secure Borders, Safe Haven"
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the responses to the various consultation exercises announced in his White Paper "Secure Borders, Safe Haven". [38471]

  Angela Eagle
  The Government will place copies of responses to the White Paper from organisations in the Library unless they have indicated they do not wish their responses to be published.

  Decisions on publication of the responses to the consultation exercises in respect of working holidaymakers and entitlement cards will be made later in the year.

  Car Theft
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent discussions he has had with car manufacturers about reducing the incidence of car theft. [38839]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: The principal forum for such discussions is the Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team. This was set up in 1998 under the chairmanship of the Director of Fleet Operations at the Ford Motor Company to develop, and oversee the implementation of, initiatives to meet the Government's target to reduce vehicle crime by 30 per cent. over five years. Members of the action team include the chief executives of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Retail Motor Industry Federation. It meets three times a year, with additional meetings of its executive committee, and has in our view been an outstanding success.

  Private Medical Insurance
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 11 February 2002,Official Report, column 57W, on private medical insurance, how many police authority employees will be covered by the private medical insurance scheme begun in November 2001; what assessment he has made of the

  159W
  reasons for Surrey police authority choosing to take out private medical insurance; and if he will make a statement. [37191]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: The chief constable of Surrey police informs me that about 2,800 police staff are covered by the private insurance scheme arranged by Surrey police authority.

  The reasons given by the force for introducing the scheme are that it will help reduce sickness absence and ill health retirements and increase officer availability.

  Chelmsford Prison
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what the maximum capacity is for prisoners at Chelmsford prison; and how many prisoners are housed in the prison; [37479]

  (2) what plans he has to increase the maximum number of prisoners at Chelmsford prison; by how many prisoners he plans to increase capacity; and if he will make a statement. [37481]

  Beverley Hughes
  On 25 February 2002 the operational capacity of Chelmsford prison was 531. This includes an increase of 30 places effective from 25 February 2002. On 27 February 2002 the population of the prison was 529. Consideration is being given to increasing the operational capacity by a further 45 places.

  Child Abuse
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police authorities within England and Wales have been involved in cases of child abuse; what resources have been utilised to service each investigation as a percentage of the total budget allocated to each police authority in each year since 1996; and what definition is used for a victim and complainant. [35958]

  Mr. Denham
  I have been informed by the Association of Chief Police Officers that all authorities are likely to have been involved in investigation of cases of child abuse and all authorities will have family protection units.

  It is for the chief officer to determine what level of resources should be allocated to any investigation. Provision will vary between cases.

  Central records of numbers of cases and resources employed are not held.

  A widely recognised definition of 'victim' is that of the European Union Council Framework Decision of 15 March 2001:
  "Victim shall mean a natural person who has suffered harm, including physical or mental injury, emotional suffering or economic loss, directly caused by acts or omissions that are in violation of the criminal law of a member state""

  There is no formal definition of "complainant".

  Asylum Seekers Accommodation Centres
  Tony Baldry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people he plans to accommodate in accommodation centres for asylum seekers; what length of average stay is planned; and what range of facilities will be provided. [37077]
  160W
  Angela Eagle
  The accommodation centre trial will be based on 3,000 places, spread across four centres.

  It is not possible to specify what an average length of stay will be, at this stage. We intend, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in the House on 7 February 2002, Official Report, column 1039, that no asylum seeker should be in an accommodation centre for in excess of six months.

  A range of facilities will be provided on site. They will include health care, interpretation, education for both adults and children (including English language), and other purposeful activities such as information technology classes and volunteering. Residents will also have access to legal advice.

  Tony Baldry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the sites that have been identified as potential sites for accommodation centres for asylum seekers. [37098]

  Angela Eagle
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) on 11 February 2002,Official Report, column 57W.

  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to locate all residential asylum facilities in areas with ready access to the emergency services. [38645]

  Angela Eagle
  As part of the initiative to develop new removal centres and trial accommodation centres for asylum seekers, the Home Office will consult and take account of the views of the relevant emergency services.

  Mr. Woodward
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 11 February 2002,Official Report, column 57W, on asylum accommodation centres, what the distance to the nearest (a) primary school, (b) secondary school, (c) special school, (d) further education college, (e) railway station, (f) bus stop, (g) post office, (h) chemist, (i) hospital, (j) leisure centre, (k) library and (l) Immigration Appellate Authority appeal centre is for each proposed site. [37849]

  Angela Eagle
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: We have not collected the information requested by my hon. Friend. Accommodation centres will have a range of on-site services and will provide for transport where necessary.

  Police Officers
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on changes made to the recruitment criteria for police officers in England and Wales in the last five years; and what further changes he plans. [30451]

  Mr. Denham
  The Police Regulations 1995 (as amended) set out qualifications for appointment to a police force.

  The Home Office provides medical and eyesight guidelines. These were issued in Home Office Circular (HOC) 9/95 and last revised in March 1998 by HOC 7/98.
  161W
  A Home Office project is under way to establish national recruitment standards (NRS) for the police service. It is reviewing all current entry requirements, to ensure they are job-related, evidence-based and non­discriminatory.

  NRS guidelines on age, previous criminal convictions and tattoos were issued in October 2001.

  We are putting in place a national fitness test for recruitment. The intention is that from 1 April 2002 recruits should be tested using the job-related fitness test (JRFT), against a set national standard.

  A change to the nationality requirement for entry to the police service was published in the Police Reform Bill on 25 January. It will allow European Economic Area (EEA) and other foreign nationals who are living in the United Kingdom free of restrictions to join the police service.

  As part of the NRS project the medical and eyesight guidelines are currently under review, with recommendations due this summer.

  A review of the police initial recruitment test (PIRT) is also taking place to ensure that it is job-related, non-discriminatory and consistent with the national competency framework.

  We are currently developing a common competency based application form and pack consistent with the national competency framework which will be used by all forces.

  The NRS work is due to be completed by April 2003.

  British Overseas Citizens
  John Mann
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what changes he plans to make to the special voucher scheme. [40868]

  Angela Eagle
  The special voucher scheme was introduced in 1968 in recognition of the specific hardship being suffered at that time by British Overseas Citizen (BOC) passport holders and their dependants, who were under political pressure to leave their countries of residence in East Africa, but who held no other citizenship and had nowhere else to go. Several thousand BOCs and other United Kingdom passport holders took advantage of the scheme and settled in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s.

  However, the world political situation has now changed and BOCs are no longer under threat of expulsion. They have, over the intervening years, either settled with their families in the new independent East African countries or, alternatively, some have moved with their families to India. Their families have now grown up and have families of their own.

  There are relatively few applications for special vouchers these days and those who do apply are not being pressured to leave the country in which they reside. The scheme no longer serves the purpose for which it was set up. The Government have therefore decided that the time has come to abolish the scheme, with immediate effect. No new applications for special vouchers will be considered.

  Attacks on Pensioners
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the estimated annual cost is of prosecuting individuals who have carried out criminal attacks on pensioners in each of the last three years. [38649]

  The Solicitor-General
  I have been asked to reply.

  Such information is not collated and so could be found only involving a disproportionate cost.

DEFENCE

  Departmental Retirement Ages
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the retirement ages that apply to the employees of his Department and its agencies, including how many and which categories of employees are affected by each; and if he will make a statement on his Department's policy on flexible retirement. [32829]

  Dr. Moonie
  Two-thirds of the Ministry of Defence's civilian work force of some 90,000 employees, mainly support, technical and industrial grades, have the options to retire at any time between 60 and 65. The remainder, most of whom are in managerial, professional and technical grades, have a normal retirement age of 60. Following the publication of the Government's Code of Practice on Age Diversity in Employment the MOD, like other Government Departments, has been reviewing its retirement policy and we expect to announce the findings in the next few weeks.

  MOD uses the full range of options for flexible retirement which are available under the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme to meet its business needs and in response to the individual preferences of employees where this is possible.

  Mobile Telephones
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list, for 1997–98 and for each subsequent financial year, the amount spent(a) in the United Kingdom and (b) abroad by (i) his Department, (ii) its agencies and (iii) its non-departmental public bodies on (1) providing mobile telephone equipment, including handsets and other associated equipment, (2) telephone calls made using such equipment and (3) telephone calls made using privately owned mobile telephones but subsequently reclaimed by (x) Ministers and (y) staff. [34317]

  Dr. Moonie
  This information is not held centrally in the form requested and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. I am therefore unable to provide a substantive answer under the terms of Exemption 9 (voluminous and vexatious requests) of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Nuclear Decommissioning
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what expenditure he incurred on the decommissioning and clean-up of nuclear materials, equipment and facilities in each year since 1997; and how much he expects to incur in this financial year. [37248]
  163W
  Dr. Moonie
  Expenditure on the decommissioning and clean-up of nuclear materials, equipment and facilities for the past four financial years is shown in the table together with expected expenditure in this financial year.

  £million

  1997–98

  124.387

  1998–99

  152.211

  1999–2000

  114.721

  2000–01

  224.602

  2001–02

  1203.081

  1 Expected expenditure

  The figures include Ministry of Defence's contribution to BNFL and UKAEA waste management and decommissioning costs and the costs of running UK NIREX Ltd.

  Refurbishment
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the cost of refurbishing each ministerial private office was in each year since May 1997. [37820]

  Dr. Moonie
  This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Relatively small costs, such as the ad hoc purchase of furniture, were involved as the offices are being redeveloped as part of the Main Building Redevelopment PPP contract signed in May 2000.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his estimate is of the cost of buildings refurbishment carried out by his Department between 1992 and 1997. [39466]

  Dr. Moonie
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total cost is of the public private partnership for the redevelopment of his Department's main building in Whitehall. [39467]

  Dr. Moonie
  The costs to the Ministry of Defence will be some £55 million per annum at March 2000 prices over the 30 years of the public private partnership contract. This encompasses the short-term decant arrangements as well as the long-term provision of a wide variety of services to both the redeveloped Main Building and the Old War Office Building.

  Defence Housing Executive
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) how many families are waiting for accommodation broken down by region; and if he will make a statement; [38231]

  (2) whether the Defence Housing Executive holds the details of (a) which families will be placed in houses awaiting families and (b) when the families will be placed in specific properties; and if he will make a statement. [38230]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Defence Housing Executive (DHE) provides housing to meet the entitled Service applicants' required dates for accommodation. When DHE accommodation is unavailable, Substitute Service Families
  164W
  Accommodation (SSFA) is provided by DHE from the private rental market. In the quarter October to December 2001, the last period for which information is available, there were no known cases of entitled Service families, having applied for Service Families Accommodation, being left without accommodation. Each DHE Area Office holds details of DHE or SSFA properties that have been allocated to Service families and the families' planned move-in dates. If the hon. Member has a specific case in mind perhaps he would let me know.

  The Defence Evaluation and Research Agency
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many lawyers are employed by DERA; and at what cost in the last 12 months. [39146]

  Dr. Moonie
  As part of the implementation of the DERA public-private partnership, the DERA Trading Fund Agency was disestablished on 1 July 2001. From its constituent parts two new organisations were created: QinetiQ plc, a wholly Government owned company, and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), an agency of the Ministry of Defence.

  Prior to vesting of the company, DERA employed three lawyers and 11 patent attorneys and would have also used the services of the MOD's legal department and consulted external legal advisers where appropriate. These costs fell to a number of different departments within the former DERA and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Since vesting, Dstl has used the services of the MOD's legal department and occasionally employed external legal advisers. QinetiQ employs six barristers/solicitors and 11 patent attorneys to deal in the main with intellectual property matters. It also employs external lawyers as and when necessary in connection with its joint venture and other business activities. In addition, a number of external lawyers have been contracted to advise on aspects of the PPP, including intellectual property, trademark and contractual issues. I am withholding details of costs in accordance with Exemption 14 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Special Urgency Provisions
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how often the Department has applied the special urgency provisions in paragraph 22 of Circular 18/84 (Development by Government Departments) to a development by the Department; and if he will make a statement. [38711]

  Dr. Moonie
  I will write to the hon. Member and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

  Ministry of Defence Police
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent guidance has been given to the MDP on the compatibility of their responsibilities for guarding(a) civil and (b) defence sites; and if he will make a statement. [39538]

  Dr. Moonie
  The primary responsibility of the Ministry of Defence police is to provide policing services to the Ministry of Defence. I refer the hon. Member to the
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  answer I gave on 18 December 2001, Official Report, column 176W to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), about the ongoing Quinquennial Review of the MDP. The MDP will however continue to provide certain policing services, as now, to external customers on repayment terms.

  Submarines
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when it is planned that each of the S and T class fleet submarines will be paid off. [40312]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: HMS Swiftsure was operationally decommissioned in 1992. The planned operational decommissioning dates for the remainder of the Royal Navy's S class submarines are given in the table.

  Swiftsure class SSN

  Planned operational decommissioning date

  HMS Sovereign

  2005

  HMS Superb

  2006

  HMS Sceptre

  2010

  HMS Spartan

  2006

  HMS Splendid

  2003

  The planned operational decommissioning dates for the Royal Navy's Trafalgar class submarines are shown in the table.

  Trafalgar class SSN

  Planned operational decommissioning date

  HMS Trafalgar

  2007

  HMS Turbulent

  2008

  HMS Tireless

  2011

  HMS Torbay

  2021

  HMS Trenchant

  2023

  HMS Talent

  2017

  HMS Triumph

  2019

  QinetiQ
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total cost was to QinetiQ of its proposal to base the future strategic tanker aircraft fleet at Boscombe Down airfield. [39315]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 9 April 2001, Official Report, column 368W, on the costs incurred by DERA, prior to its disestablishment as part of the DERA PPP on 1 July 2001, on its bid to base the future strategic tanker aircraft fleet at Boscombe Down. Information relating to any further costs incurred by QinetiQ since it was vested as a plc is commercial in confidence and is therefore withheld under Exemption 14 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  RAF Chilmark
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what have been(a) the costs to date of achieving certificated explosive ordnance clearance, (b) the revenue from sale of part of the site and (c) the area sold at RAF Chilmark. [39316]
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  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: The cost over five years since the closure of RAF Chilmark for clearing explosive ordnance has been in the region of £1.7 million. Receipts from sales of parts of the site since the closure total £1.5 million. The area of RAF Chilmark which has been sold is 65.2 hectares (161 acres).

  Axis Chemical Weapons
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the classification of documents relating to the dumping of Axis chemical weapons in the Baltic Sea by the Allies after World War Two. [40621]

  Dr. Moonie
  In accordance with custom and practice after World War Two, many records of sea disposals of munitions, including chemical weapons (CW), were destroyed when they were perceived to be of no further administrative use. As a result of this practice, a detailed inventory of all munitions and CW dumped at sea does not exist.

  Where relevant British records on sea dumpings of munitions and CW have survived, these have been declassified and transferred to the Public Record Office in accordance with the terms of the Public Records Act, 1958 and 1967. Furthermore, as the disposals took place largely between 1945 and 1948, prior to the creation of NATO, we are not aware of any NATO papers on this issue.

  War Cemeteries
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has made to the French Government about plans to build on war cemeteries for a new Paris airport. [40582]

  Dr. Moonie
  Her Majesty's Government have made no representations to the French Government about plans to build on war cemeteries for a new Paris airport. At this stage the matter is entirely the responsibility of the French authorities. However, following media speculation about the possibility that First World War cemeteries containing some British and Commonwealth casualties may be affected if the project goes ahead, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is responsible for the maintenance of the graves, has written to the French Ministry of the Interior seeking further clarification of the proposals. They have drawn attention to the concern expressed in the UK and have asked to be kept informed of any developments.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has made to the Belgian Government on plans to extend the Al 9 over war cemeteries. [40583]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Government have had no discussions with the Belgian Government regarding the proposal to extend the Al9 motorway across a previously undeveloped section of Pilckem Ridge, a battlefield in the Ypres Salient. In view of the number of British soldiers who lost their lives in this campaign and whose bodies were never found, it has been suggested that the area should remain untouched as an historical heritage site, but this is a matter for the Belgian Government to decide on.
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  However, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has had discussions with the Belgian authorities seeking clarification of the proposals. The Commission has been assured that while the proposed route has not as yet been finalised, it will not interfere with any of the cemeteries it maintains.

  US Visiting Forces
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total strength is of US visiting forces based in the UK; and where they are located. [39849]

  Mr. Ingram
  As at 28 February 2002, 13,457 members of the United States visiting forces were present in the United Kingdom. Numbers of the USVF by location are shown in the table.

  Site

  USVF numbers at each site

  RAF Alconbury/Molesworth/Upwood

  1,098

  RAF Croughton/Barford St. John

  377

  RAF Daws Hill/West Ruislip

  Eastcote/USN London

  1,118

  RAF Digby

  47

  RAF Fairford/Welford

  189

  RAF Feltwell

  132

  RAF Fylingdales

  1

  RAF Hythe

  5

  RAF Lakenheath

  4,853

  RAF Menwith Hill

  1,396

  RAF Mildenhall

  3,913

  Northwood

  18

  RAF Oakhanger

  1

  RAF St. Mawgan

  309

  In addition, there are approximately 140 US service personnel present in the UK, mainly serving in singleton posts at a wide variety of locations who are either participating in UK/US exchange programmes or engaged in specific bilateral projects or operational posts.

TRANSPORT, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS

  Rothwell/Desborough Bypass
  Phil Sawford
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when construction work will commence on the A6 Rothwell/Desborough bypass. [36654]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The contract for the construction of the A6 Rothwell/Desborough bypass was awarded on 13 February. Depending on how quickly the Contractor can set up his site and mobilise his work force, work could start on site shortly after Easter.

  Heathrow Terminal 5
  Pete Wishart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what assessment he has made of the impact of the proposed terminal 5 at Heathrow on the air services of the nations and regions of the UK. [36656]

  Mr. Spellar
  The possible impact of Terminal 5 on regional air services was considered at the planning inquiry. In section 8.6.6 of the main report on Terminal 5 the 168W
  inspector states that he does not consider that regional airports would be harmed if Terminal 5 were provided. The Secretary of State's reasons for his decision on Terminal 5 are set out in his decision letter of 20 November.

  Airport Development
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans he has to review his strategy for airport development in relation to local council borrowing. [36657]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Our proposed air transport White Paper will provide a framework within which airports can plan for the future with greater certainty. Meanwhile soundly-financed local authority airport companies are already free to invest without public sector borrowing controls.

  Rail Safety
  Ms Drown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what progress is being made on implementing the recommendations of the Cullen report. [36658]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Government have asked the Health and Safety Commission, the regulator for railway safety, to ensure that action is taken on all the recommendations made by Lord Cullen.

  The HSC published an action plan in November 2001 on how each of the recommendations in part 1 of Lord Cullen's report would be taken forward. The HSC intend to publish shortly a detailed progress report on the implementation of these recommendations in the six-month period to 20 December 2001.

  The HSC are currently consulting the industry about implementing the recommendations in part 2 of Lord Cullen's report. They intend to issue a progress report in April 2002 for the period to 8 March 2002.

  The HSC's first progress report on the recommendations from the joint inquiry into train protection systems was published in September 2001. The second report will be published in the spring.

  Local Authorities (Performance Assessment)
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what changes he proposes to introduce to the performance assessment for local authorities. [36659]

  Ms Coffey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans he has to introduce a more coherent and integrated system of local government performance measures. [36668]

  Dr. Whitehead
  In our White Paper—Strong Local Leadership-Quality Public Services—we announced that the Audit Commission would develop, in consultation with central and local government, a comprehensive performance assessment framework for local government. This will bring together the range of existing assessment processes to provide a coherent overall performance profile for each authority.

  Comprehensive performance assessment is at the heart of a significant move towards a more bespoke evaluation, inspection, support and intervention process for local

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  authorities. It will provide Government, councils and the public with a clear performance profile for each council. This information will allow a proportionate action plan to be agreed with each authority to address areas of concern, better inform negotiation of targets and provide a robust basis for action to tackle poor performance.

  Road Links (Mid Wales and West Midlands)
  Mr. Roger Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what discussions he has had with the Environment Secretary of the National Assembly for Wales on improving road links between mid-Wales and the west midlands. [36660]

  Mr. Jamieson
  My right hon. Friend and other Ministers are always willing to discuss these matters with the Assembly Secretary.

  London Underground
  Angela Watkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what percentage of the debt of the PPP deal for London Underground will be guaranteed by the Government. [36661]

  Mr. Spellar
  The Government will not guarantee any of the debt raised by the infrastructure companies to support the plans for the modernisation of the tube.

  London Transport is currently consulting the Mayor and Transport for London on proposed contracts. The draft contract provides that in certain circumstances, should a private sector infrastructure company persistently breach the contract and should no alternative contractor be found, London Underground would take control of the infrastructure company and ensure that 95 per cent. of approved third-party bank and bond debt was repaid. None of the finance provided by the shareholders would be repaid, providing a strong incentive on them to meet contractual obligations to improve performance.

  Mr. Pickles
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what the cost of capital is for each PPP contract on the London Underground. [37245]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I understand that London Underground intends to make information on the cost of capital on each contract publicly available following completion of the competitions. This information has already been made available to the Mayor and Transport for London by London Underground as part of the statutory consultation process.

  Tom Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when he or his Department is due to make a recommendation on the arbiter for the PPP of London Undergound; what the date, or timing, related to their appointment is; what early expressions of interest have been received; what the bidding process required with respect to their appointment is; and what discussions there have been to date regarding their appointment. [38963]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Section 225 of the GLA Act 1999 provides powers for the Secretary of State to appoint a PPP Arbiter. It also requires the Secretary of State to make such an appointment if requested in writing by a party to a PPP Agreement.
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  London Underground is currently consulting the Mayor and Transport for London. Following this consultation, the Board of London Transport is expected to take a final decision on whether to proceed with the PPP contracts. If the LT Board confirms its decision of 7 February that it is minded to sign contracts, and subject to the Secretary of State's statutory decisions in relation to the PPP agreements, it is the intention of the Secretary of State:

  (a) to appoint a PPP Arbiter as soon as possible after completion of the PPP contracts, on a permanent basis;

  (b) to ensure that the PPP Arbiter is supported by appropriate staff with technical, legal and financial expertise and understanding of the contracts;

  (c) to consult London Underground, Metronet, Tubelines and Transport for London before making an appointment.

  Given the requirements for making public sector appointments, this will necessarily take some time. However, the Secretary of State recognises the need to prepare the Arbiter's office and ensure continuity with the negotiation of the PPP contracts. The Secretary of State therefore intends to take steps to put in place interim staff before a permanent appointment can be made.

  Railtrack
  Ian Lucas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how he intends to improve the accountability of the successor to Railtrack to its passengers. [36662]

  Mr. Spellar
  All potential bidders for Railtrack will need to take account of the guidelines issued in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) on 31 October 2001,Official Report, columns 669–71W. The guidelines specify, among other things, that bidders must satisfy the Secretary of State on their proposals for creating, at regional level, relationships with railway passenger and freight service operators and other stakeholders. They should also provide evidence of the confidence of relevant industry stakeholders to their proposals.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if the Strategic Rail Authority has notified his Department of valuations of rail assets in the United Kingdom carried out by the Authority. [40219]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Strategic Rail Authority has not carried out any valuations of rail assets. It has, however, estimated the cost of enhancing the network to the levels that would be needed to meet the Ten-Year Plan targets for the railways. This information is published in the Authority's Strategic Plan.

  Chris Grayling
  o ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if the EU has placed conditions on the provision of state aid to Railtrack in administration. [40208]

  Mr. Jamieson
  No conditions were placed on the provision of state aid.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) if his Department has placed an estimated valuation on rail assets in the United Kingdom; [40218]
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  (2) if his Department has carried out joint work with the Treasury to estimate the total valuation of rail assets in the United Kingdom; [40220]

  (3) what work his Department has undertaken to estimate the total value of railway assets held by (a) Railtrack and (b) other rail-related organisations. [40217]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The valuation of the assets of Railtrack Plc is a matter for the administrator. The valuation of other railway assets is a matter for the individual companies that own these assets.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, (1) pursuant to his answer of 25 February 2000,Official Report, column 783W, ref 36311, if he will list the reasons for the administrator's additional funding request; and how much is being requested for each area of need; [39161]

  (2) pursuant to his answer of 25 February 2002, Official Report, column 783W, ref 36312, whether there are no such contingency plans. [39162]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 25 February 2002,Official Report, column 783W.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions whether the guarantees that he will provide to secure commercial funding for the Railtrack administrator are time-limited by the recent ruling of the European Commission on state aid. [40232]

  Mr. Jamieson
  They are time limited.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 25 February 2002,Official Report, column 782W, ref 30239, whether the Ford Motor Company is being paid for his services. [39160]

  Mr. Jamieson
  No.

  West Coast Main Line
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the level of investment projected for the west coast main line as included in the Strategic Rail Authority's 10-year plan. [36663]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The precise outputs of the west coast upgrade are currently under review by the Strategic Rail authority and the key stakeholders. Until the outputs are agreed the precise cost of the project will not be known. The plan makes it clear that the upgrade is a priority project.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what agreement has been reached on the allocation of capacity on the west coast main line. [39012]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Strategic Rail Authority is in the course of a review, with Railtrack and the rail operators, of future capacity utilisation on the west coast main line. As and when specific proposals for capacity allocation arise, these will be subject to the approval of the Rail Regulator.

  Housing Associations
  Margaret Moran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what measures he intends to take to monitor and cap salaries of registered social landlord chief executives. [36664]

  Ms Keeble
  Registered social landlords—better known as housing associations—are independent organisations. It is for them to decide the salaries of their senior staff, including chief executives. However, the Housing Corporation requires all housing associations to demonstrate good governance and to act in a way that maintains the sector's good reputation.

  Regional Assemblies
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if, in referendums to establish a regional assembly, he will make it his policy to require a majority of the votes cast in each county, metropolitan or unitary council area constituting the region to be cast in favour of establishing such an assembly before approving its establishment. [36665]

  Dr. Whitehead
  The forthcoming Regional Governance White Paper will set out our proposals for the referendums that must be held before a region can have an elected assembly.

  Mr. Peter Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions whether regional assemblies will levy a precept on council tax. [36670]

  Dr. Whitehead
  The forthcoming Regional Governance White Paper will set out our proposals for the funding of elected regional assemblies.

  Community Transport Services
  Judy Mallaber
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when he will introduce regulations to extend fuel duty rebate to community transport services. [36666]

  Ms Keeble
  We expect to introduce regulations shortly which will commence from I May this year that will provide a new entitlement to fuel duty rebate for a wide range of community transport services.

  Transport (North-West)
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what research his Department has undertaken to ascertain the transport needs of the north-west for the decade from 2001. [36667]

  Mr. Spellar
  The north-west Regional Assembly in consultation with the Government Office and other regional stakeholders have developed the draft Regional Transport Strategy which is part of the Regional Planning Guidance (RPG). The draft RPG was published by the north-west Regional Assembly in August 2001 and I am currently considering the report of the panel. I hope to make my announcement shortly and there will then be a twelve-week consultation period before the final RPG is published by the Secretary of State later this year.

  Housing
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the amount of empty private sector housing in particular local authorities. [36671]

  Ms Keeble
  The amount of empty private sector housing in some areas is a cause for concern. We are tackling this problem in high demand areas by encouraging local authorities to adopt empty property reduction strategies. In low demand areas—including parts of east Lancashire—we are considering proposals for housing market renewal schemes. We cannot give commitments about resources ahead of the conclusions of the current spending review.

  Councillors (Allowances)
  Mr. Hawkins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what proposals he has to review allowances for councillors; and if he will make a statement. [36672]

  Dr. Whitehead
  Basic and special responsibility allowances are discretionary allowances, with levels set by individual local authorities, having regard to the recommendations of their independent remuneration panels. Allowance levels will be considered as part of our forthcoming research into the operation of new council constitutions.

  We are currently considering changes to the regime of travel and subsistence allowances for councillors. We propose that these allowances should also be discretionary and set locally. We consulted on these proposals in October of last year.

  Local Government (Voting Methods)
  Siobhain McDonagh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans he has to introduce new methods of voting in local government. [36673]

  Dr. Whitehead
  As announced to the House on 5 and 13 February, we have given approval to 31 local authorities to run electoral modernisation of the pilot authorities to run electoral modernisation pilot schemes in the May 2002 local and mayoral elections. In addition to using traditional voting methods and all-postal voting, over half of the pilot authorities will explore innovative ways in which people can vote electronically. This programme will test new and easier arrangements while at the same time maintaining the integrity and security of the ballot. It will mark an important step towards making the electoral system easier to use and more relevant to today's society.

  Council Houses
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what steps he is taking to increase the number of council houses being built(a) for and (b) by local authorities. [36674]

  Ms Keeble
  Support for new affordable housing is mainly available to Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) via the Housing Corporation's Approved Development Programme. We are increasing this programme to over 174W
  £1.2 billion by 2003–04, almost double the amount in 2000–01. Local authorities can also fund provision through their housing capital programme although we expect this to be done through RSLs owing to their greater ability to draw on private sources of funding. £2.6 billion has been provided to support housing investment by authorities in 2001–02, which is three times the amount made available in 1997–98.

  Deprivation
  Vernon Coaker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what recent assessment he has made of Government policies to tackle small areas of deprivation. [36675]

  Ms Keeble
  Our National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal was built on an unprecedented exercise in joint working within and outside Government. 18 Policy Action Teams considered the whole range of policy problems affecting our most deprived neighbourhoods. Since the launch of the National Strategy in 2001 a research and evaluation strategy has been developed, which will look at all our neighbourhood renewal programmes and initiatives to identify what works, and why.

  Local Government White Paper
  Mr. Rammell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the proposal for reform of capital financing for local government contained in the local government White Paper. [36676]

  Dr. Whitehead
  We propose to allow local authorities to borrow without our consent, provided that the debt is affordable. Affordability will be assessed in accordance with a code being drawn up by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. We shall introduce legislation as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

  Regional Planning
  Mr. Wiggin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans his Department has to increase the role of regional planning. [36677]

  Ms Keeble
  The Green Paper "Planning: delivering a fundamental change" sets out proposals for increasing the effectiveness of regional planning. The new statutory Regional Spatial Strategy will provide the longer term planning framework required for the preparation of the proposed Local Development Frameworks, Local Transport Plans, and other relevant strategies and programmes.

  Eurostar
  Mr. Tom Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the provision of direct Eurostar services between Scotland and continental Europe. [36678]

  Mr. Jamieson
  It is for Eurostar to decide whether to run Regional Eurostar services from Scotland. The British Railways Board and an independent report for Government from Arthur D. Little have concluded that it
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  is highly unlikely that Regional Eurostar services will be commercially viable at least until CTRL Section 2 opens in 2007.

  Train Travel (South-East)
  Mr. Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what assessment he has made of the demand for train travel in the south-east over the next 10 years. [36679]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Government's 10-year plan assumptions about demand for train travel are set out in "Transport 2010: The Background Analysis".

  Antisocial Behaviour
  Mr. Russell Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what measures he is taking to tackle antisocial behaviour among tenants in the private rented sector. [36680]

  Ms Keeble
  The Government are committed to tackling antisocial behaviour across all housing tenures. We are striving to promote a healthier private-rented sector and to do this we recognise the importance of tackling the problem of tenants who behave in an antisocial manner.

  Much work has already been done across Government to try and tackle the problem. My own Department, for example, is currently considering responses to our recent consultation paper on the selective licensing of private landlords. This will ensure that in areas where local authorities adopt such a scheme all landlords meet minimum management standards and participate with others in dealing with antisocial tenants. We envisage that these powers will be available alongside the mandatory licensing of houses in multiple occupation, which although it is primarily concerned with targeting properties that are the highest risk to tenants, will also require that the licensee is a fit and proper person.

  Road Safety
  Jean Corston
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what measures he is taking to improve roadside safety outside schools. [36681]

  Mr. Jamieson
  There is a wide range of measures available to local authorities to improve safety outside schools. As well as urban safety measures, such as 20 mph zones, they can, for example, designate no waiting areas outside school entrances and provide school crossing patrols. In many areas school travel plans consider safety within the wider context of journeys to and from school.

  Housing Authorities
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many housing authorities have been designated consistently as band I authorities since this designation was introduced. [36682]

  Ms Keeble
  Since performance bandings in the Housing Investment Programme were first published in 1995 only one local authority—Derby, has maintained a top performance assessment throughout.

  Planning Green Paper
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what representations from environmental groups he has received concerning the planning Green Paper. [36655]

  Ms Keeble
  A number of environmental groups have written to their Members of Parliament who have passed on the correspondence to Ministers. In addition we have had more than 3,000 consultation responses of which about 2,000 are from environmental groups or their members. The consultation period on the Green Paper ends on 18 March.

  Departmental Overseas Visits
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many overseas visits have been undertaken by Parliamentary Private Secretaries in his Department at departmental expense in each of the last four years; and at what cost to public funds. [36819]

  Dr. Whitehead
  [holding answer 25 February 2002]: Parliamentary Private Secretaries supporting Ministers in this Department or in the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions have not travelled overseas on Government business in the last four years.

  Airline Group
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when the Government expect to receive the £35 million from the Airline Group for deferred sale proceeds. [37057]

  Mr. Jamieson
  [holding answer 25 February 2002]: The information on the date for payment of the deferred proceeds is commercially confidential.

  Local Authority Houses
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list the investment by English local authorities in new build of homes for rent in the past year; and if he will also list, per housing authority, by(a) joint venture and (b) other resources. [36618]

  Ms Keeble
  [holding answer 25 February 2002]: Available information reported by local authorities about their capital investment during 2000–01 in the provision of new homes, including support for registered social landlords, has been placed in the Libraries of the House. Information collected by the Department on local authorities' funding of housing capital expenditure does not separately identify joint venture resources. The available information on funding for each local authority in England was provided in my answer of 27 February 2002 [Ref: 36621] to my hon. Friend.

  Trunk Roads
  Mr. Pickles
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions which roads have been de-trunked in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement on de-trunking. [37230]
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  Mr. Jamieson
  A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England published in July 1998 set out the Government's conclusions on its strategic review of the trunk road programme. These included a proposal to de-trunk roads not on the core network so that their management and improvement can be fully integrated with land use planning and the new local transport plans for delivering integrated transport.

  Road

  From

  To

  Date of de-trunking

  A638

  Junction with A1(M)

  Doncaster

  1 April 2001

  A650

  Westgate Hill Street

  A62 (Drigh Bypass)

  1 April 2001

  A10

  Junction with A505

  Kings Lynn

  1 May 2001

  A134

  Kings Lynn

  Thetford

  1 May 2001

  A12

  Ipswich

  Lowestoft

  1 June 2001

  A140

  Needham Market

  Norwich

  1 June 2001

  A361

  A361 Southam Road/A422 Hennef Way Roundabout in Banbury Junction with B4100

  Castle Street/Warwick Road

  15 June 2001

  A423

  Ryton-on-Dunsmore Roundabout

  A361 Southam Road/A422 Hennef Way Roundabout in Banbury

  15 June 2001

  A15

  (a) M180

  (a) Humber Bridge

  1 July 2001

  (b) Roundabout on north of Humber Bridge

  (b) Junction with Ferriby High Road

  1 July 2001

  A6

  Luton

  Bedford

  31 August 2001

  A6

  Junction with A45

  Junction with A14/A6003 Burton Latimer

  31 August 2001

  A43

  M1 Junction 15A

  Junction with A16 Stamford

  31 August 2001

  A428

  Junction with A421 East of Bedford

  Northampton

  31 August 2001

  B1525 (formerly part of A16)

  Junction with A15/A16, West of Market Deeping

  Junction with A16, North of Deeping Common

  1 September 2001

  A557

  M62 Junction 7

  Runcorn—Widnes Bridge

  1 December 2001

  A58

  Leeds

  Halifax

  28 January 2002

  This excludes trunk roads that were transferred to Transport for London and also any de-trunking that has been implemented as part of improvement schemes.

  Non-governmental Organisations
  Mr. Sanders
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list non-governmental organisations operating in the south-west region that receive public funds from his Department; and what amount of annual funding they received in the most recent year for which figures are available. [39179]

  Dr. Whitehead
  The information is not available in the form requested and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Air Traffic Control
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in relation to the New En Route Centre at Swanwick(a) what was the final commissioned cost, (b) how many extra air traffic control officers are employed and (c) what will be the estimated increased capacity at the new centre in each of the next five years; and by what means this will be achieved. [39761]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The final commissioned cost of the New En Route Centre at Swanwick was £623 million. Approximately 80 extra air traffic controllers are employed there. Capacity increases at the new centre are planned to match peak demand over each of the next five years. This would be achieved by applying traditional air traffic control workload splitting (sectorisation) and traffic flow simplification (systemisation) improvements.
  178W
  Some 1,900 miles of non-core trunk roads (about 30 per cent.) are in the process of being transferred to local authorities. The roads for which resource have been transferred to local authorities by means of the Special Grants Report and de-trunked as part of this programme are shown in the table.

  Transport Funding
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) for what purpose the funding budgeted but not used in the 2000–01 financial year for transport has been used subsequently; [39431]

  (2) what his latest estimate is of the final figure for underspend in the 2001–02 transport budgets. [39430]

  Dr. Whitehead
  Amounts carried forward into 2001–02 under end year flexibility arrangements were published in the Public Expenditure 2000–01 Provisional Outturn White Paper (Cm 5243). Amounts taken up, and the programmes for which they were taken up, were announced in written answers preceding supplementary estimates on 22 June 2001,Official Report, columns 12–13W; 28 November 2001, Official Report, columns 948–52W and 13 February 2002, Official Report, columns 398–401W.

  Estimated outturn for 2001–02 in respect of transport budgets will be published in my Department's annual report after the end of this financial year.

  Shoreham Port Authority
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions on what criteria members of the Shoreham Port Authority are appointed by him. [39237]

  Mr. Jamieson
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Six appointments made by the Secretary of State to the Shoreham Port Authority are made after consultation with various stakeholder groups. These are: the Chamber of Shipping, Brighton and Hove council, Adur district council, the Shoreham Private Wharfingers and such

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  persons appearing to the Secretary of State to be representative of organised labour as the Secretary of State thinks appropriate.

  Three appointments are made directly by the Secretary of State following public advertisement of these posts. The criteria for these posts will vary at the time of each vacancy depending on what skills, knowledge and experience are required on the board at that time.

  Housing Market Renewal Fund
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the proposed housing market renewal fund. [39038]

  Ms Keeble
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Low demand for housing is adding to the decline of many of our inner cities and towns, particularly in the north. It blights communities, and the lives of those who live in the areas affected. We are determined to tackle this, and the Government have made a commitment to turn around the incidence of low demand by 2010.

  A number of northern local authorities and housing associations have submitted a proposal to Government for a strategic housing market renewal fund to tackle areas of the country most adversely affected by low demand. We are considering the housing market renewal fund proposal in the context of the current spending review. We can make no commitments in advance of its conclusions.

  Volunteers
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many members of his staff in each of the past two years have been granted a day's paid leave to work as a volunteer; and if he will make a statement. [39736]

  Dr. Whitehead
  This information is not recorded centrally. The Department supports volunteering and allows staff both paid and unpaid time off for a range of voluntary public service.

  Fair Trade
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions whether fair trade products are sold in his Department. [39834]

  Dr. Whitehead
  I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) on 13 February 2002,Official Report, column 396W. The Department supports the sale of fair trade products; some of them are on sale in staff canteens.

  Asbestos
  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what scientific evidence has been received in respect of white asbestos and the proposed control of asbestos at work regulations. [38869]

  Dr. Whitehead
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Research by Professor Peto and Health and Safety Executive epidemiologists, published in The Lancet on 4 March 1995 confirmed that building and maintenance workers are the largest group at risk of exposure to
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  asbestos. At least a quarter of the 3,000 people now dying from asbestos related diseases have at some time worked in these trades. The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations are therefore being tightened to ensure workers know where asbestos is in premises and can take appropriate precautions. A copy of the research paper is available in the Libraries of the House.

  Departmental Policies (Cities of London and Westminster)
  Mr. Mark Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will set out, including statistical information relating as directly as possible to the constituency, the effect on Cities of London and Westminster constituency of his Department's policies and actions since 2 May 1997. [40187]

  Dr. Whitehead
  The information requested can be obtained only at disproportionate cost, as such statistics are normally collected on the basis of administrative units (such as local authorities) rather than parliamentary constituencies.

  Business Rates (Greater London)
  Mr. Mark Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how much revenue was raised from the business rate in the Greater London area during(a) the last 12 months and (b) each year since 1992. [40182]

  Dr. Whitehead
  The table gives the revenue raised from business rates in Greater London for 1991–92 to 2000–01, and estimated revenue from business rates for 2001–02 and 2002–03. This information is based on returns provided by London boroughs and the City to the Department.

  £ billion

  Net business rate yield

  1991–92

  3,211

  1992–93

  3,272

  1993–94

  3,149

  1994–95

  2,845

  1995–96

  2,802

  1996–97

  3,191

  1997–98

  3,090

  1998–99

  2,793

  1999–2000

  2,810

  2000–01

  3,117

  2001–02

  3,552

  2002–03

  3,804

  Revenue from business rates between 1991–92 and 2000–01 is based on local authorities' outturn net yield figures shown on the national non-domestic rates return (NNDR3). Figures for 2001–02 and 2002–03 are based on the local authorities' net rate yield figure shown on the national non-domestic rates return (NNDR3). The net rate yield is the amount of business rates local authorities expect to collect.

  Council Tax
  Mr. Mark Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what
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  assessment he has made of the impact of increasing the number of council tax band rates; and if he will make a statement. [40183]

  Dr. Whitehead
  In the White Paper, "Strong Local Leadership—Quality Public Services" (CM5237), we said that we would legislate to require properties to be revalued for council tax purposes every 10 years, that work on the first revaluation would commence in 2005 and that it would be completed in time for the council tax bills issued in 2007. We said that we would listen to the views of taxpayers and local government about council tax bands and related matters.

  Mr. Mark Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the change in levels of band D council tax since 1997. [40184]

  Dr. Whitehead
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, gave to the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) on 9 January 2002,Official Report, column 849W.

  Mr. Mark Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list the average band D council tax level in(a) Greater London and (b) the City of Westminster for each year since 1992. [40178]

  Dr. Whitehead
  Council tax was introduced in England in April 1993. The table shows the average band D council tax for the Greater London area, and the City of Westminster's own and area band D council tax for each financial year from 1993–94 to 2001–02. Council tax figures for 2002–03 are not yet available.

  £

  Greater London

  City of Westminster

  Average band D council tax1

  Own band D council tax

  Area band D council tax1

  1993–94

  558

  131

  295

  1994–95

  534

  73

  245

  1995–96

  576

  189

  275

  1996–97

  616

  206

  295

  1997–98

  651

  203

  304

  1998–99

  687

  212

  325

  1999–2000

  731

  230

  350

  2000–01

  778

  235

  375

  2001–02

  841

  259

  410

  1 The area council tax includes amounts collected for the Metropolitan Police and London Fire and Civil Defence Authority (1993–94 to 1999–2000), and the Greater London Authority (from 2000–01), as well as amounts collected for individual boroughs.

  Housing (Supporting People Grant)
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list the funding streams that are being consolidated into the supporting people grant. [40213]

  Ms Keeble
  Supporting People will consolidate the following Funding Streams:

  SHMG (Supported Housing Management Grant from the Housing Corporation). This is a revenue grant which is paid to RSLs (registered social landlords) to fund the
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  cost of support services. Only RSLs can receive this grant as the Housing Corporation only funds RSLs. It is a block grant, which is paid quarterly in advance.

  THBS (Transitional Housing Benefit System) this is an individual welfare benefit. It is paid as part of an individuals Housing Benefit entitlement to cover the cost of housing support. It was introduced in April 2000 as a means of identifying the amount of Housing Benefit paid for support, prior to transfer to the Supporting People pot. Providers must separate out the cost of support services that was previously just charged as part of the rent. From April 2003 support costs will be ineligible for housing benefit and transitional housing benefit will be transferred to the Supporting People pot.

  PAGS (Probation Accommodation Grants) this is a grant paid by the probation service for housing service for offenders. Each local probation service has a number of contracts with providers. The contract value will transfer to the pot. Until recently, part of the PAGs funding came from local authorities, this is no longer the case.

  HIA (Home Improvement Agencies) funding this is paid by the DTLR to local authorities to fund the cost of home improvement agency services. It has to be match funded by the authority. Continuing the local authority match funding for the life of the existing funding period will be a condition of the Supporting People grant paid to the authority by DTLR.

  Income support—this welfare benefit is paid to owner occupiers. It is used to fund housing support services in the leasehold sheltered sector. This will not be a big element of the pot but we are not sure yet of the precise size. We are working with DWP and the Benefits Agency on how to identify the recipients and costs.

  Funding from sources other than those listed above will not transfer to the Supporting People pot. We expect that there will continue to be a range of funding sources for housing related support. Authorities will be expected to establish all funding paid for services to ensure that they understand the full picture.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what additional funds his Department has provided to local authorities and other agencies to fund the one-off transition costs to the supporting people framework. [40214]

  Ms Keeble
  The Government have allocated £40 million to local authorities to fund the implementation of the Supporting People programme in 2002–03. This is in addition to the £15.2 million allocated to local authorities in 2001–02. In addition, £3.5 million has been made available for provider organisations to help prepare for implementation.

  Local Government Finance
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what estimate he has made of the total cost to local authorities of implementing Best Value in(a) monetary terms and (b) terms of officer hours. [40229]

  Dr. Whitehead
  No reliable estimates exist as to the costs incurred by local authorities in complying with their duty under the Local Government Act 1999, either in monetary or officer hour terms. Any such costs have to
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  be set against the benefits of improved services. My Department has commissioned research from Cardiff Business School to consider both the costs and benefits of best value; their interim report is expected in April.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) when he expects to provide updated guidelines to local authorities on future applications for e-Government support funding; and if he will make a statement; [40469]

  (2) when he expects to provide local authorities with the definitive strategy and detailed guidelines for implementation of the e-Government agenda; and if he will make a statement; [40468]

  (3) what forward funding there will be for the next five years for local authorities implementing the Government's e-Government agenda; and if he will make a statement; [40466]

  (4) what requirements there will be on local authorities to provide match funding for e-Government implementation; and if he will make a statement. [40467]

  Revenue and capital grants paid to Haringey

  £000

  Outturn

  Budget

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  Central Government funding

  Revenue support grant

  137,723

  146,158

  146,206

  148,064

  157,404

  Redistributed non-domestic rates

  46,577

  49,195

  54,223

  61,509

  60,645

  SSA reduction grant

  0

  0

  601

  0

  0

  Specific grants inside AEF1

  14,079

  22,126

  35,856

  61,243

  64,970

  Revenue grants paid into GFRA2

  184,300

  195,353

  200,429

  209,573

  218,049

  Capital grants3

  7,939

  11,097

  10,843

  7,296

  9,685

  Public funding

  192,239

  206,450

  211,272

  216,869

  227,734

  1 Aggregate External Finance (AEF) is central Government support towards total standard spending. It comprises RSG, NNDR, and certain specific, supplementary and special grants. Specific grants inside AEF, reported asylum seekers grant increasing from £3.8 million in 1997–98 to £34.6 million in 2000–01. Haringey budgeted for £40 million asylum seekers grant in 2001–02.

  2 This includes all revenue grants paid into the General Fund Revenue Account (GFRA), but may exclude certain public funding, for example from some non-departmental public bodies, which is recorded as income and is not separately identifiable.

  3 Consists of central Government, non-departmental public bodies and National Lottery.

  Sources:

  1. Revenue Summary and GFRA Budget Estimates return.

  2. Capital Outturn returns and Capital estimate return.

  Statutory Plans
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list the statutory plans that each local authority is required to produce. [40207]

  Dr. Whitehead
  The recent Local Government White Paper announced, as part of our commitment to decrease unnecessary bureaucracy, that we will reduce the number of plans local authorities are required to produce by one half. The research report published on 18 February 2002—"Review of Local Authority Statutory and Non-Statutory Service and Policy Planning Requirements"—will provide a vital steer in taking this forward.

  Of the 66 plans reviewed within the report, 31 are statutory. The titles of these plans, and details of the Department/agency with responsibility for them, are as listed. Further details of the nature and purpose of each plan are set down within the research report.
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  Dr. Whitehead
  The Government have committed £350 over three years from 2001–02 to support local authorities making their services e-enabled. I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government on 17 December 2001,Official Report, column 25W, to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) on the funding that has been provided to date. We will announce detailed plans for the remainder of this funding with the publication of the draft National Strategy for consultation shortly.

  There are no match funding requirements for the allocation of e-government money as such. However, we have always made clear that funding from Government to local authorities would only be a contribution to the overall costs.

  Mr. Lammy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how much public money has been provided for the London borough of Haringey since 1997. [36970]

  Dr. Whitehead
  London borough of Haringey have reported the following public funding.

  DTLR

  Best Value Performance Plan

  Community Strategy

  Homelessness Strategy (forthcoming duty under Homelessness Act, 2002)

  Development Plans: Local Plan

  Development Plans: Minerals Local Plan (in non UDP areas)

  Development Plans: Structure Plan

  Development Plans: Unitary Development Plan

  Development Plans: Waste local Plan (in non UDP areas)

  Local Transport Plan

  DEFRA

  Local Air Quality Action Plan

  Home Energy Conservation Report

  Rights of Way Improvement Plan

  Strategy to Identify Contaminated Landv

  Waste Recycling Plan

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  DH

  Community Care Plan

  Health Improvement and Modernisation Plan

  Quality Protects Management Action Plan

  Training/Human Resources Plan

  HSE

  Off Site Emergency Plan

  Pipeline Safety Emergency Plan

  HO

  Crime and Disorder Reduction Strategy

  Youth Justice Plan

  CO

  Civil Defence Plan

  DCMS

  Annual Library Plan

  Accessibility Strategy

  DFES

  Behaviour Support Plan

  Class Sizes Plan

  Early Years Development and Childcare Plan

  Education Development Plan

  Office for Standards in Education and Teaching (Ofsted) Action Plan

  School Organisation Plan.

  Green Belt Land
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in what circumstances his Department does not call in planning consents granted by local authorities for green belt land. [40206]

  Ms Keeble
  The Secretary of State's general approach is not to interfere with the jurisdiction of local planning authorities unless it is necessary to do so. Parliament has entrusted them with responsibility for day-to-day planning control in their areas. Local planning authorities are normally best placed to make decisions relating to their areas and it is right that, in general, they should be free to carry out their duties responsibly, with the minimum of interference.

  There will be occasions, however, when the Secretary of State may consider it necessary to call in a planning application to determine himself instead of leaving it to the local planning authority. His policy is to be very selective about calling in planning applications. He will, in general, only take this step if planning issues of more than local importance are involved and if those issues need to be decided by the Secretary of State rather than at a local level. Each case is, however, considered on its own facts.

  MOT Test
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what information he has about the number of cars which failed an MOT test in 2000–01. [40209]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Vehicle Inspectorate collects returns from all 19,000 MOT testing stations on a monthly basis which contain details of the vehicles tested, failures and passes. A 2 per cent. sample of the returns is used as 186W
  the basis for calculating an annual fail rate. In 2000–01 22,775,000 cars, vans and passenger vehicles with up to 12 seats were tested, with a fail rate of 31.7 per cent. More information about failure rates and defect categories can be found in the Vehicle Inspectorate Effectiveness Report 2000–01, a copy of which has been placed in the House of Commons Library.

  The introduction of the computerised MOT database from January 2003 will provide the Inspectorate with the facility to improve the reporting of pass and fail rates.

  Bus Lanes
  Jane Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when his Department will consult on CCTV enforcement of bus lanes; and if he will make a statement. [40305]

  Ms Keeble
  Work is in progress on preparing the regulations. Our target is to make the regulations this autumn.

  Rough Sleepers
  Mrs. May
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how those conducting the count, for the latest rough sleeping head count conducted by the RSU, chose the areas of the various cities in which their counts would take place; and if he will publish the guidance issued as to how the count areas were to be chosen. [40053]

  Mr. Byers
  Rough sleeping head counts are conducted by local authorities and voluntary sector agencies and the results are submitted to the DTLR.

  The method used to conduct counts, including deciding which areas should be covered is clearly set out in our guidance, which was first published in 1996. This states that a working group of key local agencies should be formed and that this working group in consultation with other local agencies should:
  "Agree on the boundaries of the area and identify segments of the area where people sleeping rough are likely to be found."

  This is the guidance that was used for the latest rough sleeping head count.

  Mrs. May
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how it was determined whether someone on the streets during the latest rough sleeping headcount conducted by the Rough Sleepers Unit was a rough sleeper; and if he will publish the guidelines issued to those conducting the count, relating to whom should be included in the count. [40052]

  Mr. Byers
  Rough sleeping headcounts are conducted by local authorities and voluntary sector agencies and the results are submitted to the DTLR.

  The definition of people who should be included in rough sleeper counts is clearly set out in Government guidance, which was first published in 1996. It is:
  "people sleeping, or bedded down, in the open air (such as on the streets, or in doorways, parks or bus shelters); people in buildings or other places not designed for habitation (such as barns, sheds, car parks, cars, derelict boats, stations or 'bashes')".

  This is the guidance that is still used today.

  Concessionary Travel
  Dr. Starkey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 14 February 2002,Official Report, column 551W, on concessionary travel schemes, if it is his intention to publish the results of the Department's survey of concessionary travel in England before the Easter recess. [39974]

  Ms Keeble
  The results of this survey are scheduled for publication on 28 March 2002.

  Pensions
  Mr. Truswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) what assessment he has made of the cost of extending Local Government Pension Scheme benefits to the partners of its members; [40288]

  (2) what recent representations he has received regarding the extension of Local Government Pension Scheme benefits to the partners of its members; and if he will make a statement. [40289]

  Dr. Whitehead
  I am considering a proposal from the local authorities employers' organisation and the trade unions to extend the benefits payable under the Local Government Pension Scheme to surviving spouses to include unmarried partners. Representations from scheme members have also been received supporting changes to the scheme. A full assessment of the proposal is being made in the light of the costs identified by the scheme's actuaries and advice provided by the Government Actuary's Department. A response will be sent to the employers' organisation and the trade unions shortly.

  Coalfields Regeneration Trust
  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will make a statement on the work of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust with particular reference to(a) the Cynon Valley and (b) Wales. [40538]

  Ms Keeble
  This is a devolved matter and should be addressed to the National Assembly for Wales.

  Congestion Charging (London)
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what powers there are under European legislation for an environmental assessment to be conducted into the effects on London of congestion charging. [39847]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: The proposed London congestion charging scheme does not fall within the scope of Directive 85/337/EEC (as amended by Directive 97/11/EC) on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment.

  Park and Ride
  Mrs. Brooke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many park and ride sites in England have been supported with 188W
  Government funding in the last five years; how many of these sites are operating; what the average level is of Government financial support per park and ride scheme supported by Government; and how many such schemes have opened and subsequently been discontinued in England in the last five years. [40000]

  Ms Keeble
  The information requested is not held centrally and can be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Funding for new park and ride schemes and extensions to existing schemes in England is provided through the annual Local Transport capital settlement and we announced on 13 December 2001 that the 2002–03 settlement provided for a range of small scale transport schemes including up to 50 new or extended park and ride sites. Transport authorities in England reported in Annual Progress Reports on their Local Transport Plans in August 2001 that capital funding had been used or is expected to support 24 new or extended park and ride sites in 2000–01 and 32 such schemes in 2001–02.

  Al2
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans his Department has to introduce measures to reduce traffic noise on the Al2 by Margaretting, Chelmsford; and if he will make a statement. [38359]

  Mr. Jamieson
  In my answer of 9 July 2001,Official Report, column 327W, I said that the precise timing of measures to reduce traffic noise on the Al2 between Margaretting and Boreham would be determined in the light of criteria which had then to be announced.

  Those criteria were announced in October 2001. They are:
  That wherever possible the application of quieter surfaces will fit in with normal maintenance needs;
  That priority will be given to those sites where treatment would benefit the greatest number of people;
  That the works will be carried out in such a way as to minimise disruption to the general public and users of the network
  That priority will be given to roads, opened since June 1988, where actual noise levels have turned out to be significantly higher than predicted at the time of the Public Inquiry.

  In the light of these criteria, the Highways Agency has identified in its programme of future works a major maintenance scheme on the A12 Margaretting Bypass which will include the provision of a quieter surface. Although the Agency has not yet determined a start date for the scheme they currently expect that work will start within the next three to five years.

  Affordable Homes
  Mr. Fallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many new affordable homes were provided in the south-east in 2001, broken down by(a) housing associations, including rent and shared ownership, (b) housing benefit subsidy of privately rented homes, (c) right-to-buy resales, (d) local authorities and (e) sale below market value by private housebuilders; and what was the total number provided. [39560]

  Ms Keeble
  The available estimates are as given in the table.
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  New provision of affordable homes in the south-east region 2001

  Number

  Registered social landlords1

  7,302

  Right-to-buy re-purchases by local authorities2

  26

  Local authority new build for rent

  52

  1 RSLs' (formerly referred to as housing associations) data represents new homes for rental, outright or shared ownership (including "off the shelf" purchases of properties built by private developers), and existing property acquisitions for refurbishment (including temporary social housing provision). Completions are recorded when the final tranche payment for the scheme is made.

  2 Local authority acquisitions of ex-council properties under "Buyback" scheme arrangements.

  Source:

  Housing Corporation returns

  DTLR P1B (quarterly) and P2 (monthly) housing activity returns

  Information about the number of affordable housing units built without any form of public funding, eg by private housebuilders, is not collected centrally.

  The number of private sector householders in the south-east, excluding those renting from RSLs, in receipt of rent allowance as at August 2001 was estimated at 90,000.

  Mr. Fallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what the Housing Corporation allocation was for shared ownership in each year since 1997. [39562]

  Ms Keeble
  The funding for shared ownership through the Housing Corporation's Approved Development Programme in each year since 1997–98 to the end of January 2002 was as follows.

  Shared ownership funding

  £ million

  1997–98

  87.95

  1998–99

  86.59

  1999–2000

  51.49

  2000–01

  70.63

  2001–02

  141.85

  110 months

  Funding fell in 1999–2000 because (a) the do-it-yourself shared ownership scheme (DIYSO) was replaced by the Homebuy scheme on 1 April 1999 (local authorities may still fund DIYSO through Local Authority Social Housing Grant); and (b) the Approved Development Programme was no longer subject to a national target for the percentage of expenditure allocated to schemes which help people into low cost home ownership: this allows schemes to be selected on the basis of local needs.

  These figures exclude the Government's £250 million Starter Home Initiative which will provide 10,000 homes for key workers over the period 2001–04, mostly through equity loan and shared ownership schemes.

  Mr. Fallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will introduce a definition of affordable housing related solely to rental and shared ownership houses provided by housing associations and local authorities. [39561]
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  Ms Keeble
  There are no formal definitions of affordable housing within housing policy and we have no plans to introduce a definition confined to rental and shared ownership homes. We will continue to keep the situation under review.

  For the purposes of securing affordable housing through the planning system affordable housing encompasses low-cost market and subsidised housing whether for rent or shared ownership. Local authorities are expected to define in their local plans what they consider to be affordable in the plan area, in terms of the relationship between local income levels and house prices or rents for different types of households.

  We are looking at how the planning system can deliver more affordable housing, including through the proposals for reforming planning obligations that we announced in December.

  Public Bodies
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how many people from Warrington, North he has appointed to non-departmental public bodies since 1997. [39450]

  Ms Keeble
  As far as we have been able to ascertain, no people who live in Warrington, North have been appointed to DTLR's non-departmental public bodies since 1 May 1997.

  River Safety
  Mr. Pond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will report on progress in implementing the recommendations of Lord Justice Clarke's inquiry into river safety. [36669]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I refer my hon. Friend to my answer of 18 December 2001,Official Report, column 230W. Further updates will be placed in the libraries at about six-monthly intervals and so the next one will be available sometime in the late spring.

  Chiltern Line
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what timeframe has been agreed for the investment programme in the Chiltern Line; and what the timeframe was in the original heads of agreement. [39011]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The investment programme in the new Chiltern Railways Franchise Agreement will be staged for implementation throughout the duration of the franchise—as was the case when Heads of Terms were signed.

  Rail Strategic Plan
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, pursuant to his answer of 25 February 2002,Official Report, column 795W, ref 36451, for what reason this work was not carried out prior to the finalising of the 10–year plan and the SRA Strategic Plan. [39158]
  191W
  Mr. Jamieson
  The contribution of assumed fare levels to the projected increase in rail demand is outlined in Annex A of the Ten-Year Plan Background Analysis. General elasticities in relation to fares are provided in paragraph 3 of this annex.

  Rail Passengers
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1) how many passengers, on average, board trains each day at each station on the(a) LTS Rail Line and (b) First Great Eastern Rail Line; [38421]

  (2) how many passengers, on average, board trains each day at (a) Sudbury, (b) Felixstowe, (c) Harwich Town, (d) Walton on Naze, (e) Clacton, (f) Southminster, (g) Shoeburyness and (h) Braintree. [38422]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I understand this information is available from the appropriate train operating companies.

  Rail Industry
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will place in the Library the memorandum submitted to him on the future of the rail industry by Sir Alistair Morton in June 2001. [40203]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The information requested falls under exemption 2 Part II of the Code of Practice on Access to Information.

  Rail Investment
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions if he will list the total public and private investment, not including public resource expenditure, allocated(a) in total and (b) for the railways to be spent over the period 2001 to 2011, at (i) today's prices and (ii) outturn prices as at (A) the launch of the 10 year plan in July 2000, (B) 1 April 2001, (C) 2 April 2001, (D) 13 January 2002, (E) 14 January 2002, (F) 22 January 2002, (G) 23 January 2002, (H) 29 January 2002, (I) 7 February 2002 and (J) the present date. [40307]

  Mr. Jamieson
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: I refer the hon. Member to Table A3 of the 10-Year Plan and a revised version of this table that was placed in the House Library on 25 February. These tables provide a breakdown of projected public and private investment from the original 10-Year Plan and reflect the £4.5 billion increase in public sector funding for rail since then.

  No similar detailed breakdowns were undertaken at the particular dates mentioned. The investment profiles can be translated into today's prices by applying standard HM Treasury inflation assumptions.

  Railway Industry
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions when(a) he and (b) Ministers in his Department last met officials of the RMT Union to discuss industrial relations in the railway industry. [37194]
  192W
  Mr. Jamieson
  Ministers are in regular contact with the Rail, Maritime and Transport union on a number of transport-related issues.

HEALTH

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mrs. Humble
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the time taken to reply to written questions tabled for answer by his Department. [41128]

  Mr. Milburn
  Concerted action has been taken in the Department to reduce the number of outstanding parliamentary questions. The Department is now receiving questions at the rate of around 45 a day, almost double the rate of the last session. Last week the Department responded to over 500 questions. There are currently 411 outstanding questions due for reply before 14 February 2002. I aim to have provided right hon. and hon. Members with answers to those outstanding questions by 12 March 2002.

  Several Members have raised concerns about unanswered questions and the length of time it has taken for questions to be answered. Last week in the course of dealing with these inquiries evidence came to light of what appears to be systematic falsification in recording the handling of parliamentary questions in the Department's parliamentary section. This included recording questions as having been answered when no such reply had been given to the Member or to the Official Report. Some of these questions date back to the beginning of this session.

  The falsification that took place meant that both officials and Ministers were wrongly led to believe that Members had received replies to their questions when they had not. A full investigation is now under way to ensure that all the facts are known and that the necessary remedial action is taken. An official from the Department's parliamentary section has been suspended and is now the subject of a disciplinary investigation. The decision to suspend the official was taken by the line manager of the individual concerned in accordance with standard departmental disciplinary procedures.

  Ministers and officials within the Department are fully committed to supporting the system of accountability to Parliament which underpins our democracy. We aim to provide timely and accurate responses to parliamentary questions. There has been a serious failure in honouring that commitment which I deeply regret. All possible steps will now be taken to deal with the backlog of outstanding parliamentary questions. As soon as I am able I will also report to Parliament on the outcome of the investigation that is now under way.

  Asbestos
  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health on what grounds the Health and Safety Executive is proposing to tighten regulations governing the presence of white asbestos in buildings. [39286]

  Dr. Whitehead
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: I have been asked to reply.
  193W
  Research by Professor Peto and Health and Safety Executive epidemiologists, published in The Lancet on 4 March 1995 confirmed that building and maintenance workers are the largest group at risk of exposure to asbestos. At least a quarter of the 3,000 people now dying from asbestos related diseases have at some time worked in these trades. The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations are therefore being tightened to ensure workers know where asbestos is in premises and can take appropriate precautions. A copy of the research paper is available in the Libraries of the House.

  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he plans to publish the evidence that white asbestos is dangerous to human health. [39287]

  Dr. Whitehead
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: I have been asked to reply.

  The evidence that white asbestos represents a risk to human health has been published. The evidence has been recently reviewed by a WHO task force and published in the International Programme on Chemical Safety's Environmental Health Criteria (EHC) Series. A recent review of the studies providing the basis for quantification that confirmed the risk from chrysotile is: "The Quantitative risks of mesothelioma and lung cancer in relation to asbestos exposure" by Hodgson and Darnton. Copies are available in the Libraries of the House.

  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his estimate is of the cost to local authorities of the proposed new Health and Safety Executive regulations on asbestos. [39289]

  Dr. Whitehead
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: I have been asked to reply.

  The Health and Safety Executive cannot precisely separate costs to local authorities. Total costs in Government offices, public buildings and state schools are estimated at £440 million over a 50-year period, including costs arising from the provisions implementing the Chemical Agents Directive. The average yearly cost over the first five years the proposals would be in force in these buildings is £47 million. A large proportion of this cost would fall to local authorities.

  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his estimate is of the likely cost to business of the proposed new Health and Safety Executive regulations on asbestos. [39291]

  Dr. Whitehead
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: I have been asked to reply.

  Details of the costs of the proposals were given in the Consultation Document published by the Health and Safety Commission, and have since been revised. The total cost to businesses, charities and voluntary organisations of the proposals are currently estimated at £4.2 billion over a 50-year period. This includes a relatively small number of Government buildings open to the public, and also includes the estimated costs of complying with the provisions in the regulations arising from the Chemical Agents Directive. This cost is equivalent to £2.9 billion once costs are discounted to present values following Government costing conventions. The average yearly cost over the first six years the proposals would be in force is £460 million.
  194W
  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if white asbestos, or chrysotile, is chemically distinguishable from talcum powder. [39292]

  Dr. Whitehead
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: I have been asked to reply

  White asbestos is chemically similar to talc, but it is the fibrous nature of asbestos, not its chemical composition, that makes it a risk to human health. Talc is not fibrous.

  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what threat to human health is posed by chrysotile, or white asbestos. [39293]

  Dr. Whitehead
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: I have been asked to reply.

  White asbestos is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, on behalf of the World Health Organisation, as a category 1 carcinogen hazardous by inhalation. The most recent and comprehensive study carried out on the relative risks of asbestos "The Quantitative Risks of Mesothelioma and Lung Cancer in Relation to Asbestos Exposure" suggests there is a real risk of cancer from white asbestos (1 in 5,000) at levels of exposure realistically experienced by maintenance workers. The quantification of risk at these levels of exposure is however highly uncertain. The same paper implies the arguable range of risk runs from a quarter to seven times the central estimate.

  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he plans to pay compensation to workers who can prove exposure to white asbestos. [39298]

  Dr. Whitehead
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: I have been asked to reply.

  The Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions has no plans to pay compensation to workers who can prove exposure to white asbestos.

  Asthma
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many local education authorities in England are implementing an asthma policy. [36875]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Department does not collect this data. While there is no legal requirement for local education authorities and schools to have specific medical support policies, the Department promotes the drawing up of school policies in its good practice guide "Supporting Pupils with Medical Needs" (produced jointly with the Department of Health), which includes a section on asthma.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  DPP
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many and in what proportion of cases in the last year where police have issued charges the DPP decided to discontinue prosecution. [39665]

  The Solicitor-General
  I have been asked to reply.
  195W
  In the period between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2001 the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions received files in respect of 1,832 persons who had already been charged by police at the point of submission of the file. Current information indicates that no prosecution was directed of 200 such persons (10.92 per cent.).

  RUC Sergeant A
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what reasons have been given by the DPP for NI for not prosecuting RUC Sergeant A for the killing of Pearce Jordan in 1992. [34126]

  The Solicitor-General
  [holding answer 11 February 2002]: I have been asked to reply.

  No reasons, other than in general terms, have been given to date. Inquest proceedings in relation to the death of Pearce Jordan are currently live. Once the proceedings have been completed, the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland will give further consideration to whether any prosecution should follow. Following the decision of the ECHR in the case of Jordan v. UK the Director has reviewed his policy on the giving of reasons. I would refer my hon. Friend to a written reply the Attorney-General gave on 1 March 2002, Official Report, House of Lords, column WA 259 which I reproduce here:
  "The Government are considering a package of measures which, taken together, should meet the concerns expressed by the European Court of Human Rights in its judgments in a series of cases from Northern Ireland, including that of Jordan v The United Kingdom.
  In furtherance of that objective, I have had a number of discussions with the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland (the Director) regarding the giving of reasons when a decision is reached not to initiate or continue a prosecution. We have agreed that the following statement should issue.

  "The policy of the Director in the matter of providing reasons for decisions not to initiate or continue prosecutions, is to refrain from giving reasons other than in the most general terms. The Director recognises that the propriety of applying the general practice must be examined and reviewed in every case where a request for the provision of detailed reasons is made. This policy is based on a series of public interest considerations. It also reflects the duties owed by the Director to a range of parties as a public authority under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The lawfulness of the policy was upheld by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal in Re Adams Application for Judicial Review (2001) NI 1.
  The Director, in consultation with the Attorney General, has reviewed his policy in the light of the judgments delivered by the European Court of Human Rights on the 4 May 2001 in a number of Northern Ireland cases, including the case of Jordan v The United Kingdom. Having done so, the Director recognises that there may be cases in the future, which he would expect to be exceptional in nature, where an expectation will arise that a reasonable explanation will be given for not prosecuting where death is, or may have been, occasioned by the conduct of agents of the State. Subject to compelling grounds for not giving reasons, including his duties under the Human Rights Act 1998, the Director accepts that in such cases it will be in the public interest to reassure a concerned public, including the families of victims, that the rule of law has been respected by the provision of a reasonable explanation. The Director will reach his decision as to the provision of reasons, and their extent, having weighed the applicability of public interest considerations material to the particular facts and circumstances of each individual case."

  Marriage Value Taper
  Mr. Mark Field
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what her policy is on setting a marriage value taper in respect of the provisions of the Commonhold and Leasehold Bill. [40175]

  Ms Keeble
  I have been asked to reply.

  It is our view that the current valuation basis provides its own taper. The price payable for enfranchisement increases progressively as leases get shorter. We do not accept there is a case for a further arbitrary apportionment of the marriage value which would effectively reduce the price payable by leaseholders.

  Pre-trial Publicity
  Mrs. Humble
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when he will publish a consultation paper on proposals to amend the law in relation to payments to witnesses and pre-trial publicity. [40869]

  Mr. Wills
  The Lord Chancellor today issued a consultation paper seeking views on the detail of the legislation the Government intend to introduce to outlaw payments to witnesses. The legislation proposed is that it should be a criminal offence to make, or agree to make, or to receive, a payment to a witness or potential witness in criminal proceedings for his or her story with a view to publication.

  Also, following the abandonment of the first trial of R v. Woodgate and others the Government intend to amend s.19 of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 to empower the court to order a third party to pay costs incurred as a result of his or her unnecessary or improper act. Copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  Information Commissioners
  Brian Cotter
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if his Department will place a notice on its website warning businesses about fraudulent organisations that claim to have statutory powers to maintain the register of data controllers as part of the Information Commissioner's public information campaign. [39763]

  Mr. Wills
  Details of the Information Commissioner's public information campaign were given in my reply to the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mr. Wood) of 5 February 2002,Official Report, columns 906–07W. The Commissioner's website at www.dataprotection.gov.uk provides further information. In the interests of assisting the Commissioner's campaign, I am happy to provide a link to her website from the Lord Chancellor's Department website at www.lcd.gov.uk. The necessary arrangements are being put in hand.

  Volunteers
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many members of her staff in each of the past two years have been granted a day's paid leave to work as a volunteer; and if she will make a statement. [39742]
  197W
  Ms Rosie Winterton
  All staff in the Lord Chancellor's Department are entitled to one day's paid leave to work as a volunteer.

  Also, provided the nature of any service undertaken is compatible with the work of the employee concerned, the Department provides higher allocations of special leave with pay, within specified limits, for a wide range of voluntary public service, such as acting as a school governor, sitting on a health boards, parish council work etc.

  Although we do not keep a central register of staff who participate in voluntary work, we are aware that a large number of staff have taken advantage of these arrangements.

  Director of Public Prosecutions
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the annual budget of the DPP is in Northern Ireland; and what his estimate of the additional sum required to finance proposals contained in the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill is. [39663]

  Mr. Browne
  I have been asked to reply.

  In the current financial year (2001–02)—the budget of the DPP in Northern Ireland is £12,023,000 and the additional sum required to finance proposals contained in the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill is £1,267,000.

  Resident Magistrates
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many resident magistrates serve in Northern Ireland; what the average number of sitting days is at which each magistrate presides; what mileage cost allowance is available for travel expenses for resident magistrates; and what was the cost of travel expenses paid over the last convenient 12 month period to resident magistrates. [38294]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  There are 19 resident magistrates in Northern Ireland. In 2001, the average number of sitting days for each resident magistrate was 191. Resident magistrates are paid mileage allowances in accordance with the rates that are applicable in the Northern Ireland Court Service. The rates paid are determined by the engine capacity of cars. There are four bands that range from 28p per mile for the smallest engine capacity to 53p per mile for the largest. After 4,000 miles are claimed, the rates reduce to a range from 17p per mile to 36p per mile. Subsistence allowances are also payable in accordance with the rates that are applicable in the Northern Ireland Court Service—£4.25 per day for more than five hours and £9.30 per day for more than 10 hours. Travel expenses (including subsistence) paid to resident magistrates in 2001 totalled £88,918.34.

  Legal Aid
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many family applications have been made for legal aid for representation at an inquest since 1997; and how many have been granted. [38818]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  Public funding is not generally available for representation at inquests. However, under section 6(8)(b) of the Access to Justice Act 1999, the Lord 198W
  Chancellor has the power to authorise the Legal Services Commission to grant funding for representation at inquests in exceptional cases.

  Since April 2000, 182 applications for exceptional funding for representation at inquests have been received and 90 granted. The vast majority of those granted were for representation for family members, although there may be a very few cases where non-family members have been granted funding.

  Before April 2000, the Lord Chancellor exercised a discretionary power under Part 2 of the Legal Aid Act 1988 to grant funding for representation at a very small number of inquests.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Correspondence
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the President of the Council what the average response time was for responding to departmental correspondence; what percentage of letters took longer than one month for a response; and what percentage took longer than three months for a response in each of the last five years. [37451]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  The service standard deadline' in my department for replying to correspondence from hon. Members is 15 working days.

  Information for the period 1999 and 2000 could not be provided in the form requested. However, set against this deadline, the information is as follows:2

  1999

  2000

  Number of letters received

  151

  271

  Percentage of replies within target

  81

  94

  The average response time for 2001 was 11 days. Of the total number of correspondence received, 3 per cent. took longer than one month and 0 per cent. longer than three months.

  Data for 1997 and 1998 could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
  1 Information on the performance of other Government Departments is currently available on the Cabinet Office website http://www.servicefirst.gov.uk/2000/introduc/six.htm.
  2 Written reply from the Minister for the Cabinet Office, 6 April 2001, Official Report, column 325W.

TREASURY

  Pesticides
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what assessment he has made of the success of the voluntary approach to the regulation of pesticides against the criteria set by his Department; [38565]

  (2) which organisations he is consulting in the course of his review of the self-regulation arrangements for pesticides; [38563]
  199W
  (3) if he has received the progress reports from the independent steering group on the voluntary pesticides partnership approach; and if he will publish those reports; [38564]

  (4) if it is his policy that his assessment of the success of the voluntary approach to pesticides control should take account of the costs of clearing up pollution currently borne by water companies. [38566]

  Mr. Boateng
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: The independent steering group overseeing the voluntary package of measures to minimise the environmental impact of pesticides is made up of signatories to the package, an equivalent number of environmental organisations and an independent chairperson. The steering group reports to DEFRA. Publication of its reports is a matter for DEFRA.

  Reports from the independent steering group will help the Government's assessment of the success of the package. The assessment of whether the package is delivering environmental benefits over and beyond those that would result from a pesticides tax will consider the uptake of the measures in the package, their coverage, effectiveness and cost. It will therefore take account of the impact of the measures on pollution that has to be cleaned up by water companies.

  Climate Change Levy
  Mr. Page
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment is taking place to evaluate the effect of the climate change levy; and if he will place the relevant documentation in the Library. [40702]

  Mr. Boateng
  The climate change levy is designed to promote greater energy efficiency. Part of the levy revenue is being recycled to provide enhanced advice on energy efficiency to business and to provide support for energy efficiency investments. As the levy package has only been operational since April 2001, it is too early for an assessment to be made of its impact.

  Pensioners
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what advice has been tendered by his Department to British contributors(a) already resident abroad and (b) about to take up residence abroad as to the continuing payment of Class 3 contributions in order to qualify for retirement pension. [40690]

  Ruth Kelly
  Customers should contact Inland Revenue National Insurance Contributions Office International Services on their helpline (telephone number 0191 225 4811) or visit the Inland Revenue website for information. Leaflet NI 38 "Social Security Abroad" sets out the conditions for the payment of voluntary contributions and includes an application form, CF83. There are separate information leaflets covering the EU Social Security Regulations and separate leaflets (one for each country) covering those countries with which the UK have entered into a bilateral social security agreement. International Services can give advice on the appropriate leaflet depending on the country.

  Progressive Beer Duty
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received about giving brewers producing up to 200,000 hl a reduction in their standard duty rate in respect of progressive beer duty. [39357]

  Mr. Boateng
  Treasury Ministers and Customs and Excise have received numerous representations from the brewing industry, trade bodies and members of the public in relation to the introduction of progressive beer duty.

  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what considerations will inform his decision regarding volume criteria when introducing a system of progressive beer duty; and if he will make a statement. [39355]

  Mr. Boateng
  The Government have announced that they are minded to introduce a reduced rate of duty on the beer produced by small breweries. The Chancellor will take into consideration a wide range of factors when making a decision, including representations from the industry. A decision will be announced in Budget 2002.

  Smuggling
  Brian Cotter
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what HM Customs and Excise procedure is with regard to the policy of seizing private vehicles at UK ports for offences relating to the smuggling of tobacco and alcohol; and what the levels are of fees that must be paid. [39767]

  Mr. Boateng
  When vehicles are detected being used for smuggling tobacco and alcohol, they are currently seized and are not usually restored. Where vehicles are restored, it is for a sum equal to the revenue the smuggler has attempted to evade.

  Seminars
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 25 February 2002, (ref 37050), how many seminars were conducted; what the title and date of each seminar was and which firms sponsored each one; and if he will make a statement. [39501]

  Ruth Kelly
  Three seminars were held following publication of the guidance "Selling Government Services into Wider Markets". The titles, dates and companies which were involved in the organisation of each event are given in the table.

  Title

  Date

  Supporting Company

  Selling Services into Wider Markets

  26 October 1998

  Ernst and Young

  Joint Ventures Workshop

  20 November 1998

  PricewaterhouseCoopers

  Creating Knowledge: Creating Wealth

  14 April 1999

  Arthur Andersen

  Excise Duties (Tobacco and Alcohol)
  Brian Cotter
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the Government have formally responded to the formal request for information received from the European Commission relating to excise duties on tobacco and alcohol; and if he will place a copy of this response in the Library. [39809]
  201W
  Mr. Boateng
  The Government replied to the formal request for information from the European Commission relating to excise duties on tobacco and alcohol on 18 December 2001.

  Due to the confidentiality of the response it is not possible to place a copy of the Government response in the Library. Documents relating to infraction proceedings, of which the letter of formal notice is the first stage, remain confidential unless and until the proceedings reach the European Court of Justice. This is covered by the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information (Part II, Section 1 (c)) which exempts from disclosure
  "information received in confidence from foreign Governments, foreign courts or international organisations".

  Conscience Money
  Ian Lucas
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much conscience money was received by the Exchequer in each financial year since 1979. [39969]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  No central records are kept of conscience money payments to Government Departments. Since 1979 the annual amounts received by the Treasury itself have never exceeded £3,000, and the largest single payment has been £2,500 (in 1979).

  Spending Reviews
  Pete Wishart
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish the comparability percentages for each Government Department, used in each spending review from 1979. [38766]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Details of comparability factors were published for the first time by the Treasury in the first Statement of Funding Policy in March 1999. This was updated in July 2000 reflecting the 2000 spending review. Information on the changing composition of the blocks since 1978 was published in the report of the Treasury Committee on the Barnett formula published in December 1997.

  Devolved Administrations
  Pete Wishart
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish the mathematical formula he uses to decide net change in spending for devolved Administrations. [38767]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  The formula was published by the Treasury in the Statement of Funding Policy in July 2000.

  Pete Wishart
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish comparability percentages used when deciding the net change to all three devolved Administrations for(a) each Government Department and (b) each of the last spending reviews. [38765]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  The departmental comparability factors for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland used in the 2000 spending review were published in the Statement of Funding Policy in July 2000, and in the March 1999 Statement of Funding Policy for the 1998 spending review.

  Volunteers
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many members of his staff in each of the past two years have been granted a day's paid leave to work as a volunteer; and if he will make a statement. [39732]

  Ruth Kelly
  Central records are not kept in the form requested. The Treasury allows staff to take up to 10 days paid special leave in any 12 month period, for public service such as membership of a committee of a local education or health authority or service as a school governor. In addition all staff are allowed one day's special (i.e. extra) leave to undertake voluntary work in a private capacity. Special leave may also be granted in other circumstances.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Union Duties
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many staff in his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies receive paid leave to undertake union duties; how many days they are allocated; and what has been the cost to public funds in each of the last four years. [36201]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  All FCO staff are entitled to paid leave to undertake union duties. About 50 members of staff are members of union or branch committees. Information on the number of days taken is not held centrally and could be supplied only at disproportionate cost. In the British Council the total cost for union activities is approximately £23,000 per year in each of the last four years.

  Pakistan
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what(a) explanation he has requested and (b) assessment he has made of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh being held in custody for a week by Pakistan Security Services (ISI) before the civilian authorities were notified of his arrest; and if he will make a statement. [38993]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The British High Commission in Islamabad and the Deputy High Commission in Karachi asked for information on the detention of Mr. Sheikh on 13 February, but did not specifically ask about the delay in notifying the civil authorities. We are investigating the case further. If Mr. Sheikh is a dual UK/Pakistani national, Pakistani authorities are not obliged to give us consular access or information.

  Krishna Maharaj
  Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what response has been received to the request to Florida State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle that she not proceed to another death sentence for Mr. Krishna Maharaj. [39860]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  We have made clear to the Florida state authorities our opposition to the death penalty and have asked on various occasions that they do not proceed to another death sentence for Mr. Krishna Maharaj. The Florida authorities have to date responded that, given the
  203W
  circumstances of the murder, they are obliged to seek the death sentence. We will continue to do all we properly can on Mr. Maharaj's behalf.

  Volunteers
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many members of his staff in each of the past two years have been granted a day's paid leave to work as a volunteer; and if he will make a statement. [39730]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office supports the Prime Minister's initiative on volunteering and staff are entitled to take at least one day's special paid leave every year to engage in voluntary or community activities.

  FCO staff are periodically reminded of this entitlement through, for example, staff newsletters. The granting of specific days is at line managers' discretion, and no central records are kept.

  Nepal
  Mr. Alan Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of links between the Nepalese Maoist insurgents, and other non-Maoist terrorist organisations outside that country. [40059]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  We have no credible evidence of links between the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and non-Maoist terrorist organisations outside of Nepal. This is an issue which we watch very closely, particularly since the events of 11 September 2001.

  Mr. Alan Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what support the British Government have given to the Nepalese peace process since July 2001. [39928]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  Our Ambassador in Kathmandu was in regular contact with the Nepalese Prime Minister and other senior figures during the period when the Nepalese Government and the Maoists in Nepal were engaged in peace talks. Unfortunately the peace talks were ended abruptly in November 2001 by the Maoists who returned to violence to further their aims. Our Ambassador remains in close contact with the Nepalese Government. I made it clear to the Nepalese Prime Minister and others during my recent visit to Kathmandu that the UK stands ready to help in the peace process if asked to do so.

  Mr. Alan Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the visits to Nepal made by his Department's Ministers, by date, since 1 January 1999; and what plans Ministers have to make further visits. [39930]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House visited Nepal on 20–21 April 2000 as Foreign Secretary. I visited Nepal from 19–20 February 2002. There are currently no further plans for Ministers from this Department to visit Nepal. However, we will keep under review, in conjunction with the other two Government Departments with particular interest in Nepal, the MOD and DFID. In this context my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for International Development and for Defence visited Nepal in November 1998 and December 2001 respectively.
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  Mr. Alan Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Government of Nepal regarding the recent unrest and Maoist violence in that country. [39929]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  During my visit to Nepal on 19 and 20 February I held discussions with the King of Nepal, the Nepalese Prime Minister and the Nepalese Assistant Foreign Minister. In all of these meetings I discussed the current security situation in Nepal and condemned the recent barbaric attacks by the Maoists on the Nepalese security forces, politicians and general public.

  Afghanistan
  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his assessment is of the interim Afghan administration's ability to apprehend drug traffickers. [40397]

  Mr. MacShane
  The Interim Administration, with support from the International Community, is developing its law enforcement capabilities. We are working with the Interim Administration to ensure the development of a significantly enhanced capacity to apprehend drug traffickers and other criminals.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what targets have been set for the reduction of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan; and if these targets have been met. [40394]

  Mr. MacShane
  It is our long-term aim to have effective and sustainable drugs law enforcement in Afghanistan. An important element of the international community's approach will be measures designed to break the dependence on poppy cultivation of many within Afghanistan. In order for these measures to be effective the Interim Administration will need to set appropriate targets.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress there has been towards creating alternative sources of credit for poor Afghan farmers who rely on drug traffickers as their main source of credit. [40396]

  Mr. MacShane
  International assistance to Afghanistan has in the first phase focused on humanitarian relief. In the reconstruction and developmental phase the international community, including the UK, will consider structural issues such as the provision of legitimate rural credits.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what acreage of the opium poppy crop has been destroyed as part of the Bonn conference agreement. [40401]

  Mr. MacShane
  The Bonn conference agreement was a political agreement intended to lead to a stable government in Afghanistan after a transitional period. In the agreement the international community and regional organisations were urged to co-operate with the Interim Administration to combat international terrorism, cultivation and trafficking of illicit drugs and provide Afghan farmers with financial, material and technical resources for alternative crop production. The Interim Administration has already introduced a ban on drugs production, processing and trafficking but it is too early to assess the impact on areas already under poppy cultivation.
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  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his assessment is of the role of regional leaders, who operate outside the control of the Afghan Interim Administration, in the Afghan opium poppy production and drug trafficking. [40385]

  Mr. MacShane
  There was no effective governance in Afghanistan for many years. As a consequence authority was traditionally exercised primarily at the regional level. As a result of the Bonn Process, on 22 December 2001, the Afghan Interim Administration took office as the country's first national Government for many years. In order to establish sustainable drugs law enforcement throughout Afghanistan it will be important for regional leaders to co-operate constructively with national counter-narcotics institutions established by the Afghan Interim Administration.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his assessment is of the number of drug traffickers apprehended by the interim Afghan administration. [40398]

  Mr. MacShane
  The Interim Administration has been in place for just over two months. With support from the International Community it is developing its law enforcement capabilities. Over time, the Interim Administration is expected to develop a significantly enhanced capacity to apprehend drug traffickers and other criminals.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many Afghan poppy farmers have participated in crop substitution projects since the fall of the Taliban. [40395]

  Mr. MacShane
  In the short period since the Taliban fell, the international community has co-ordinated a comprehensive programme of humanitarian and development assistance for Afghanistan, within which an anti-narcotics strategy will be an integral part. The provision of alternative livelihoods for Afghan farmers currently dependent on poppy cultivation to sustain themselves and their families will be an important element of the international community's long-term programme of assistance for Afghanistan. We are working closely with the relevant UN agencies to ensure that this assistance is effective and sustainable.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the(a) EU and (b) UN since the demise of the Taliban on the destruction of (i) heroin stockpiles and (ii) the current opium poppy crop. [40393]

  Mr. MacShane
  Tackling drugs in Afghanistan is an area of key concern to the international community, including the UK. We are consulting closely with partners in the EU and UN on how to address this issue.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his assessment is of the level of heroin stockpiles in Afghanistan. [40392]

  Mr. MacShane
  There is evidence that stockpiles exist. There are no reliable figures as to their exact size.
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  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what support the international community is providing to the authorities in Herat in their efforts to disrupt the drugs trade. [40399]

  Mr. MacShane
  Herat Province accounts for a very small proportion of Afghan opium cultivation (0.05 per cent. in 2000). The International Community is committed to supporting the Interim Administration's drug control efforts in all parts of Afghanistan. This includes the creation of alternative legal livelihood, the reconstruction of infrastructure, the creation of effective law enforcement institutions and the promotion of good governance.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what crop substitution incentives the international community has in place to encourage Afghan farmers to destroy their current poppy crop. [40400]

  Mr. MacShane
  Sustainable drug control in Afghanistan can only be achieved by using a variety of different measures including the creation of alternative legal livelihoods (including crop substitution), the reconstruction of infrastructure, effective law enforcement and good governance. Reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are addressing these issues and the Interim Administration, supported by the international community, is working to achieve effective drug control.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his assessment is of the progress towards the destruction of heroin stockpiles in Afghanistan. [40390]

  Mr. MacShane
  The Afghan Interim Administration is developing its law enforcement capacity to act, inter alia, against the illegal drugs trade. The Interim Administration has already declared a ban on drugs production, processing and trafficking which we have publicly welcomed. The international community, including the UK, is exploring how best to help the Afghans implement this ban and carry out effective and sustainable law enforcement including against the stockpiling of drugs.

  Montagnard Refugees
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what discussions he has had with his European counterparts regarding the persecution of Christians, with particular reference to the Montagnard refugees, in the Mondolkiri province of Cambodia; [39872]

  (2) if he will make a statement regarding the treatment of repatriated Montagnard refugees in Vietnam; and what estimate he has made of the numbers of refugees involved; [39873]

  (3) what action Her Majesty's Government are taking to press the Cambodian and Vietnamese Governments to (a) improve the treatment of the Montagnard refugees in their refugee camp in Mondolkiri province, Cambodia and (b) ensure that these refugees are allowed to freely choose whether to return to Vietnam. [39874]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  We have been monitoring the plight of the Vietnamese refugees in Cambodia for several months. Our embassies in Hanoi and Phnom Penh have been in regular contact with the Vietnamese and Cambodian
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  Governments, the local UNHCR representatives, and resident EU partners about this issue. The issue has also been discussed at official level in Brussels. When the Deputy Prime Minister visited Vietnam in December he urged the Secretary General of the Vietnamese Communist Party to co-operate with the UNHCR to ensure that the Vietnamese refugees could return without fear of retribution.

  We are deeply concerned at recent reports that the Vietnamese and Cambodian Governments have failed to abide by the agreement they reached on 21 January with the UNHCR for the voluntary return of the refugees under UNHCR supervision. We are currently consulting with the UNHCR, EU partners and other sympathetic Governments on what action we should take to best safeguard the welfare of these refugees. 15 refugees were repatriated to Vietnam on 19 February, and we believe that there are around 1,070 refugees still remaining in two camps in Cambodia.

  British Prisoners (Guantanamo Bay)
  Mr. Ancram
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if it is his policy to ensure that British prisoners being held at Camp X-Ray be brought to face trial in the United Kingdom; and what representations to the US Administration he has made on the repatriation of British prisoners being held there. [39513]

  Mr. Straw
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: We are in close touch with US Government about the British detainees in Guantanamo Bay and the legal processes to which they might be subject.

  Any prosecution of the detainees in the UK would be a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service.
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  Mr. Bailey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent assessment has been made of the(a) living and (b) physical conditions of the British detainees in Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [40697]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  I refer my hon. Friend to my statement in the House on 21 January and to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Anniesland (John Robertson) on 4 March 2002,Official Report, columns 69–70W.

  Zimbabwe
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what steps are being taken to ensure compliance by Zimbabwe with the terms of the Lancaster House agreement in relation to payment of pensions accrued during public service prior to independence and owed to British citizens; [40484]

  (2) what steps are being taken to ensure continued payment by the Zimbabwean authorities of pensions owed to British citizens resident in the UK. [40483]

  Mr. MacShane
  The British High Commission in Harare regularly reminds the Zimbabwean authorities of their obligations to pensioners under the terms of the Lancaster House agreement.

  The 1979 Lancaster House agreement stipulated that the Zimbabwe Constitution should contain provisions entitling public servants to state pensions, and that pension benefits should continue to be paid to former public employees no longer resident in Zimbabwe. The agreement did not contain any undertaking by the British Government to assume responsibility for the payment of pensions to those eligible, should the Zimbabwean authorities fail to maintain payments.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Government Building Procurement
  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what incentives for excellence in design she is proposing for Government building procurement. [40357]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Office of Government Commerce is supporting the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Construction Industry Council to develop a set of key performance indicators for design which can be applied across government building procurement.

  The annual Prime Minister's Award for Better Public Building rewards excellence in Government building and construction procurement, including design excellence. The first award was made last year.

  Procurement decisions must be based on value for money. Value for money is the optimum combination of whole-life cost and quality to meet the user's requirement. Attention to design excellence is a critical element of this.

  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what incentives for sustainability she is proposing for Government building procurement. [40356]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  I have been asked to reply.

  In June 2000, Government launched the Achieving Sustainability in Construction Procurement Action Plan setting targets for the implementation of a wide range of practices in government construction procurement.

  Market Research
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what expenditure has been incurred by her(a) Department, (b) agencies and (c) non-departmental public bodies in each of the last four years on (i) opinion polling, (ii) focus groups and (iii) other forms of market research; and if she will list the surveys commissioned and the purpose of each. [27952]

  Mr. Morley
  The Department has only been in existence since June 2001, so does not have such historical information. Producing figures for the current year to the level of detail required would involve disproportionate cost.

  Secondments
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many staff in her Department have been seconded to jobs in the(a) private and (b) public sector in each of the last four years. [31767]
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  Mr. Morley
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office on 7 February 2002,Official Report, columns 1129–30W.

  GM Maize
  Mr. Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what further information has been obtained from the European Commission following the suspension of the public hearings on Aventis T25 genetically modified maize; what evidence and clarification has been obtained from the French competent authorities; if she will(a) make this information publicly available and (b) place it in the Library; and when the hearings will be reconvened. [34938]

  Mr. Meacher
  The European Commission has not responded substantively to letters from DEFRA Ministers and officials on the French maize variety testing system. However, the Commission has proposed amendments to Directive 72/180/EEC determining the minimum characteristics and conditions for examining the distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) of maize and some other species. These amendments, which bring the Directive into line with current best scientific practice, came into force on 14 February 2002 for implementation in member states no later than 31 March 2002.

  The French testing authorities carried out a further year of official tests on the genetically modified maize variety Chardon LL in 2001 and provided a test report to the UK authorities in November 2001 based on the required two years of official DUS tests. The French authorities have confirmed that the tests were conducted according to the new Directive requirements. A copy of the French DUS report on Chardon LL will be placed in the Library.

  Ministers have agreed in principle that if all of the legal and technical requirements have been met, the Chardon hearing may resume in spring 2002. The parties to the hearing will be informed when a decision has been taken.

  Recycling (Refrigerators and Freezers)
  Mr. Maples
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many applications there have been for recycling plants for refrigerators and freezers in the west midlands region; and when she expects them to he operational. [35457]

  Mr. Meacher
  There have been no applications submitted for waste management licences for the treatment of refrigerators in the west midlands region. However Aqua Force Special Waste are considering a plant at Wolverhampton.

  Fishing Industry
  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent discussions she has had with her counterparts in(a) EU countries and (b) Norway to protect the future of low-impact fishing methods throughout the fishing nations. [35263]
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  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 11 February 2002]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 29 January 2002, Official Report, column 244W.

  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent assessment she has made of the requirements of the Sea Fisheries Committee in relation to(a) their regulatory framework and (b) their management budget and regime. [35262]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 11 February 2002]: I refer the hon. Member to the answers given to him on 21 December 2001, Official Report, column 268W and 5 December 2001, Official Report, column 399W, and to the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) on 25 January 2002, Official Report, column 1162W.

  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent discussions she has had with her counterparts in EU member states on the impact of(a) minimum mesh sizes and (b) minimum landing sizes on hake stocks in (i) area VII and (ii) area VIII. [35259]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 11 February 2002]: Following discussions in which the UK and other EU member states working in ICES Area VII or VIII took part the Commission issued an emergency Regulation on 14 June 2001. This Regulation which expires at the end of February has the effect of increasing the towed gear mesh size from 70mm to 100mm in Area VIII and from 80mm to 100mm in Area VII. Minimum landing size for hake was not changed.

  Following discussions with the member states last month the life of these rules is to be extended. It will be some time before their long term benefits can be assessed.

  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent discussions she has had with her counterparts in(a) the EU member states and (b) Norway to secure a long term cod recovery programme. [35260]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 11 February 2002]: As a result of very difficult negotiations between the European Commission, member states and Norway an agreement was reached in June 2001 about stage two of the North sea cod recovery programme. This agreement deals with improved technical conservation measures and came into operation in the North sea on 1 January 2002. Currently, the Council of Ministers is discussing a new proposal from the Commission for a multi-annual recovery programme for cod and hake stocks.

  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what progress she has made in securing a plan for the long-term sustainability of the North sea cod industry beyond spring 2003. [35261]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 11 February 2002]: At the Fisheries Council in December 2001 the Commission presented a proposal for a Council Regulation establishing
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  measures for the recovery of fish stocks threatened with collapse. This provides for a multi-annual recovery plan for cod and hake stocks. Discussions are continuing.

  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) whether the Government's fishing decommissioning scheme will be funded through budgets solely within the gift of her Department; [36636]

  (2) whether the moneys allocated through the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Objective 1 Programme to support her Department's commitment to a £6 million decommissioning scheme will be restored. [36638]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 25 February 2002]: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 14 February 2002, Official Report, column 653W.

  Foot and Mouth
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many appeals have been(a) heard and (b) upheld against (i) livestock culls and (ii) contiguous culls since 20 February 2001. [37795]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: We are aware of 131 cases where animal owners challenged decisions to slaughter livestock, of which 105 were appealing against contiguous culls. Of the 131 cases, 29 were upheld, 28 of which were appeals against contiguous culls. We are currently seeking data from DEFRA's offices so that a definitive list of all appeals against livestock culls can be compiled.

  Four of the 131 appeals were heard in court, of which three were against contiguous culls. Two of the four were upheld; one was an appeal against a dangerous contact cull and the other was against a contiguous cull. The successful appeal against a contiguous cull subsequently became an infected premise.

  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether a request was made to Northumberland county council on behalf of her Department to close the road to the Hemscott Hill site during(a) the burning of carcases on that site and (b) the removal of ash from the site. [39792]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: Yes, a request was made by the Department to Northumberland county council to close a section of road at Hemscott Hill during (a) the burning of carcases and (b) the removal of ash from Hemscott Hill burning site.

  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the criteria for a confirmation of foot and mouth disease; and whether the criteria for identifying an infected premises have changed since the last case in the UK. [39510]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: During last year's outbreak, diagnosis of foot and mouth disease (FMD) was normally confirmed by the National Disease Control Centre on the basis of clinical observations of a veterinary inspector on the spot. Some cases were

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  confirmed on the basis of laboratory tests which confirmed the presence of FMD antibodies or virus. It is nearly five months since the last outbreak of foot and mouth and confirmation of any future case would need to be based on laboratory tests that confirm the presence of the virus.

  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the monitoring procedure to assess foot and mouth status in farm animals; and if she will make a statement. [38862]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: I am satisfied that we have effective arrangements for monitoring the presence of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in the national flock and herd. These are as follows:
  (i) Any person who suspects that an animal in his possession or care may be affected by FMD is legally obliged to notify my Department.
  (ii) Ante and post mortem inspections are conducted on livestock at slaughterhouses by official veterinary surgeons working on behalf of the Meat Hygiene Service.
  (iii) Our extensive programme of serological testing of sheep flocks was an important part of the process of satisfying the Office International des Epizooties and the Standing Veterinary Committee of the EU the Great Britain is free of FMD. Nearly three million blood samples, from over 32,183 farms, have been tested. This includes samples taken from sentinel animals prior to the re-stocking of premises on which livestock have been slaughtered during the outbreak and from animals prior to movement under licence.
  (iv) Official veterinary surgeons and local authority inspectors are present at markets and carry out farm visits as part of their routine duties.
  (v) As part of the controlled restocking process, animals are examined regularly during a four week period of 'sentinel' restocking. In addition, sheep and goats on restocking premises are subject to blood testing after 28 days before restrictions are removed.

  Although it is now over five months since the last outbreak, the FMD investigation at a farm near Hawnby, North Yorkshire last week, underlines the importance of maintaining our guard, and shows that the system of monitoring for FMD during controlled restocking is vitally important. Farmers and vets should remain vigilant and all those who have contact with livestock must maintain the highest standards of bio-security.

  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much has been paid in compensation to councils in the UK in respect of damage to roads and infrastructure during the foot and mouth disease outbreak; and if she will estimate the sums still to be agreed and paid. [37383]

  Mr. Morley
  No compensation has been paid in respect of damage to roads and infrastructure. The Department is considering claims or approaches from a small number of councils. I have no estimate of the total sum involved.

  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the most recent assessment was of the contribution of wild brown rats to the spread of foot and mouth; and what the outcome was. [39489]
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  Mr. Morley
  Rats are not susceptible to foot and mouth disease but are theoretically capable of spreading the disease mechanically. For this reason an intensive programme of rodent control is carried out on infected premises. We have no record of any case of FMD being attributable to rats.

  Common Agricultural Policy
  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the(a) timetable and (b) practical requirements of delivering CAP payments to British farmers in euros. [36962]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 25 February 2002]: The Government are committed to providing farmers with the option of receiving grant and subsidy payments in euro at the earliest practical opportunity.

  To operate a manual system, even to cope with modest demand, would be inefficient. IT systems are therefore being developed in the Rural Payments Agency and in the devolved Administrations to deliver such a service. The work has to be dovetailed with other developments and is therefore not expected to be complete before 2004.

  Once a system for direct payments in euro is in place, it is likely that farmers would be asked to commit three months in advance and to sign up for a minimum of a year.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at which European Council meeting the decision was taken to replace the ECU as the common currency for the Common Agricultural Policy with the euro; which UK Ministers attended; what reasons underlay the decision; and what assessment she has made of the financial consequences of the EU payment to UK agriculture. [37643]

  Mr. Morley
  On 9 June 1997 the UK Parliament lifted its long-standing scrutiny reserve on the regulations under article 235 (now article 308) of the treaty providing the legal basis for the introduction and use of the euro. This allowed the text to be adopted formally by the Council in Luxembourg on 17 June. My right hon. Friends the Deputy Prime Minister and the Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang) represented the UK. These provisions applied to all transactions involving the ECU, including those relating to the Common Agricultural Policy. The introduction of the euro was in accordance with the procedure and timetable set out in the treaty. It is not possible to assess the financial consequences to UK agriculture of the replacement of the ECU with the euro, because we cannot tell how the currencies from which the value of the ECU was calculated would have fluctuated had the euro not been introduced.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural ffairs (1) how much of the CAP underspend related to arable farming in each of the last five years for which figures are available; [39284]

  (2) how much of the CAP underspend has been given back to the UK in each of the last five years for which figures are available; and if she will make a statement; [39285]
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  (3) what representations she has made to the EU about the CAP underspend; and if she will make a statement. [39283]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Expenditure on the Common Agricultural Policy is made in accordance with the EU regulations. Actual CAP expenditure may be higher or lower than forecast at the beginning of each budgetary year, due to the market situation, exchange rate fluctuations, or exceptional items. Surplus from one year's EC Budget is returned to member states in the following year's Budget by means of a reduction of the amount to be financed from own resources. This has the effect of reducing the amount each member state is required to pay from GNP-based resource. Moneys returned in this way are not broken down by category and information is not therefore available for specific items of expenditure. So we have made no representations on this matter.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many new entrants to the civil service were employed in her Department in each of the last five years; and how many in each year were aged 50 and over. [36487]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 25 February 2002]: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Leslie) on 25 February 2002, Official Report, column 880W.

  Milk
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent discussions she has had with other EU countries concerning monopolies with respect to milk marketing; and if she will make a statement. [39264]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had no discussions with other member states about monopolies with respect to milk marketing.

  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has made to the European Commission on the proposed milk quota allocation for applicant EU member states; and what assessment she has made of the impact on the UK dairy industry of the quota allocations proposed under the EU formula for new member states. [37922]

  Mr. Morley
  The UK favours the abolition of milk quotas in advance of enlargement. If, however, this does not prove to be possible we believe the approach taken in the European Commission's paper on milk quota allocation for acceding countries to be a sound one. It follows previous practice, when quotas were first introduced in 1984, and in other EU enlargement processes, whereby quota is fixed on the basis of historical production during a set reference period, in this case the average for the years 1997–99. As such, there should be no impact on the UK dairy sector. We have made it clear to the Commission that we are looking for an outcome which is both fair and does not create new obstacles for CAP reform.

  Lessons Learned Inquiry
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what transport was arranged for DEFRA official Mr. Tim Render to return home after the public hearing in Okehampton on 23 January of the Lessons Learned inquiry. [38208]

  Mr. Morley
  Mr. Tim Render (Director, Food, Farming and Rural Development in the Government Office, South West) accompanied the Lessons Learned inquiry for part of its visit to the South West. Mr. Render made his own travel arrangements but, after the public meeting in Okehampton, asked for a lift on the inquiry mini-bus to Gloucestershire, in preparation for the continuation of the visit the following day, which was granted.

  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what transport was arranged for the chairman of the Lessons Learned inquiry to return home after its public hearing in Okehampton on 23 January. [38209]

  Mr. Morley
  I understand the Inquiry Secretariat hired a mini-bus for Dr. Anderson's visit to the South West. He left the public meeting at Okehampton by this mini-bus to continue his visit in Gloucestershire the following day.

  Dolphins
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many dolphins have been drowned through being caught in fishing nets in each of the last three years in the EU; and if she will make a statement. [38073]

  Mr. Morley
  Information on the full extent of dolphin casualties caused by fishing is not available.

  Sample surveys of the incidental capture of cetaceans have demonstrated that there is a significant bycatch problem in the bass fishery off South West England which is why we are urgently conducting trials of mitigation measures to reduce bycatch in this fishery.

  In my recent letter to Commissioner Fischler on the bycatch problem and the need for EU action, I also pressed the Commission to institute an observer programme across the EU to broaden the information available on bycatch.

  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what plans she has to press for the compulsory introduction of new fishing nets with an escape hatch for dolphins across the EU; and if she will make a statement; [38071]

  (2) what plans she has to require new fishing nets to have an escape hatch for dolphins within the UK; and if she will make a statement. [38072]
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  Mr. Morley
  I have written recently to Commissioner Fischler explaining the trials on separator grids which the Sea Mammal Research Unit will be undertaking on our behalf in the offshore bass fishery in March. I urged the Commissioner to be ready to take action to address the problem of cetacean bycatch in this EU fishery, either through compulsory introduction of this gear if the trials are successful, or by other means if they are not.

  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has made to the(a) French, (b) Spanish and (c) Portugese Governments on the issue of dolphins being trapped in fishing nets; and if she will make a statement. [38282]

  Mr. Morley
  For international fisheries implicated in the bycatch problem, action is required at EU level. This is why I have written recently to Commissioner Fischler alerting him to my concern on this issue and urging EU action to resolve the problem. We will also be briefing other member states about the evidence we have and the state of progress of trials on mitigation methods. As a start I have written to M. Glavany, the French Minister with responsibility for fisheries, drawing my concerns to his attention and seeking support for my approach to the Commission. Spain rarely fishes in the mouth of the Channel where the current problems seem to be focused. We are not aware of any Portuguese activity in this area.

  Waste Disposal
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the UK strategy is with respect to the EU Landfill Directive, for the disposal of liquid waste; and what the locations are of sites capable of treating liquid waste. [38276]

  Mr. Meacher
  The forthcoming Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations which will implement the regulatory and technical requirements of the Landfill Directive will ban the landfilling of hazardous liquid wastes from July 2002 as required by the Directive. The Directive also requires that non-hazardous liquids are banned from landfill 'as soon as possible' and no later than July 2009. The Government are working with the Environment Agency and the waste industry to set a date within these parameters for the ban on non-hazardous liquids to come into effect.

  The Department does not hold details of the locations of individual treatment facilities for liquid waste and to collate it would be disproportionately costly.

  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans the Government have to extend the principle of producer responsibility to other groups who benefit from the sale, purchase and use of cars and other consumer goods. [38125]

  Mr. Wilson
  I have been asked to reply.

  The End of Life Vehicles Directive (2000/53/EC) defines "producers" and sets down the responsibilities they have for vehicle design and composition, and at end-of-life; the Directive also defines "economic operators", and sets down ELV recovery and recycling targets which must be achieved by 2006 and 2015. The Government are currently considering how they wish these producer responsibilities to be discharged, and how
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  the targets should be met. The current draft of the proposed EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive contains similar provisions. The Department has undertaken also to publish shortly a discussion paper on a possible producer responsibility model for tyres. Consideration is also being given within Government to producer responsibility initiatives for direct mail and non-packaging farm plastics.

  Empty Properties
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her answer of 29 January 2002,Official Report, column 240W, what the total area in square feet of all empty properties owned by (a) her Department, (b) her agencies and (c) other public bodies for which she has had responsibility was in each year since May 1997. [37913]

  Mr. Morley
  The information requested is set out in the tables. As the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was created on 8 June 2001, this relates to the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The Department does not hold centrally information about properties occupied by non-departmental public bodies.

  Under Treasury guidelines, Departments have up to three years or more to dispose of surplus properties to ensure that the best possible price is obtained. The areas of some empty properties will, therefore, be included in more than one of the total annual area figures shown in the tables.

  Redundant buffer depots (food stores) formerly used to accommodate the strategic food stockpile account for a large proportion of the empty core DEFRA space (figures shown in italics). However, the programme of disposals of buffer depots is now nearing completion.

  Total area of empty core DEFRA properties in square metres and (square feet) including former buffer depots1

  Square metres

  Square metres

  Square feet

  Square feet

  2000–01

  89,800

  88,200

  996,600

  949,400

  1999–2000

  106,300

  106,200

  1,144,200

  1,43,100

  1998–99

  118,400

  111,600

  1,274,400

  1,201,300

  1997–98

  132,900

  128,100

  1,430,500

  1,378,900

  1Also shown separately in italics

  Total area of empty DEFRA agency properties

  Square metres

  Square feet

  2000–01

  4,800

  51,700

  1999–2000

  5,800

  62,400

  1998–99

  1,700

  18,300

  1997–98

  1,700

  18,300

  Weeds Act 1959
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what resources her Department is devoting to enforcement of the Weeds Act 1959 in the current financial year. [38497]

  Mr. Morley
  This Department will investigate complaints about the spread of injurious weeds covered by the Weeds Act 1959 to farmed land or land used for the keeping of horses as part of a diversified farm
  219W
  business. Where the complaint is valid the occupier of the land will be asked to take action to remove the weeds. In most cases the occupier will co-operate and act promptly to remove the weed. However in a small number of cases, following discussion with the parties involved, the occupier will persistently refuse to take action. If this is the case we will arrange for the weeds to be cleared and will recover the cost from the occupier of the land.

  When following up a complaint we may arrange for an inspector from the Rural Payments Agency to visit the holding to identify the weed concerned and the level of infestation. If necessary a follow-up visit may also be carried out to ensure the weeds have been removed. Technical staff from the Department's Rural Development Service will oversee clearance work arranged by DEFRA.

  In the current financial year all work involving farm visits has been severely constrained by the foot and mouth outbreak. As a result only some one and a half staff years were devoted to this work over the period from April to December 2001.

  Vets
  Mr. Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many vets are employed in Somerset; and how many were involved in the foot and mouth epidemic in the South West. [38481]

  Mr. Morley
  The number of vets employed in Somerset as at 28 February 2002 is 22.

  The number of vets involved in the foot and mouth epidemic in the South West was 810.

  Pollution
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent steps her Department has taken to assist local authorities with inspection of polluting processes. [38642]

  Mr. Meacher
  Local authorities receive income from fees and charges required to be paid by relevant polluting processes to cover the costs of undertaking their Local Air Pollution Control functions. The new risk-based regulation methodology being developed should provide local authorities with a framework for planning their inspection programmes.

  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps her Department(a) has taken and (b) plans to take to ensure that local authorities conduct the inspection of polluting processes required by (i) her Department and (ii) statute. [38406]

  Mr. Meacher
  Local authorities have been given the Local Air Pollution Control regulatory function and it is for them to ensure that it is carried out adequately. They are letting down those they represent if they do not do so.

  Local authorities have powers of entry under section 108 of the Environment Act 1995 to carry out inspections. Although the statute does not prescribe any specific level or frequency of inspections, like any statutory power this power must be exercised reasonably, to pursue the purpose of the statute.
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  The Department works closely with the Local Government Association and the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health over the implementation of LAPC. Specifically, in the last two years it has publicly listed all local authorities with a low inspection record, and has this year written to all these local authorities asking to be told what action will be taken to rectify the situation. We will shortly be writing to chief executives of all local authorities to remind them of the importance of undertaking adequate inspection.

  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment her Department has made of the results of the local authority pollution control statistical survey since 1997; and what steps have been taken by her Department in consequence. [38643]

  Mr. Meacher
  The statistical survey covers a wide spectrum of issues concerning the local air pollution control system; the 2000–01 report is over 200 pages long. It ranges from simple numbers of applications and authorised processes in each of the 24 process categories, to data on speed of local authority decision, numbers and types of prosecutions, whether cost accounting is undertaken, and whether authorities have enforcement policies. Each statistical report is circulated to key stakeholders for their comment and the reports are now published. The reports are very carefully considered by the Department and decisions made on what steps should be taken. For example, in the light of figures on local authority take-up of cost accounting, steps were taken to reinforce to local authorities the importance of adopting such practice, and practical guidance was issued to all local authorities on cost accounting methods.

  Aquatic Pursuits
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what action the Environment Agency has taken to improve access to waters for canoeists. [39476]

  Alun Michael
  On those navigations managed by the Agency, it has taken measures to improve facilities for canoeists. Canoe portage facilities have been installed on the rivers Great Ouse, Nene, and Stour with similar works planned for other rivers including the Thames. On rivers where there is no right of navigation, the Agency has sought to improve access for canoeists nationally through the Angling and Canoe Liaison Group which it hosts, chairs, and provides secretarial support for. With support from this Group, the Agency has funded the production of a booklet, "Agreeing Access to Water for Canoeing".

  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which members of the Environment Agency Board have had interests in(a) angling and (b) boating/canoeing. [39479]

  Alun Michael
  No information is retained on the leisure activities of Environment Agency Board Members.

  Board Members are drawn from, but do not represent, a wide range of relevant interests. They are selected on the basis that their stature, background and breadth of experience will enable them to make wide-ranging, direct and relevant contributions to the management of the Agency.

  Meat Imports
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what reports(a) she and (b) Parliament receive from the (i) Ports Authority, (ii) HM Customs and Excise and (iii) Foods Standards Agency regarding the importing of illegal meat. [39262]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 5 March 2002]: We receive information on seizures of illegally imported animal products from all the enforcement agencies involved. This information is shared among enforcement authorities and kept on a DEFRA database. Reports are made to Parliament in response to Parliamentary Questions.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the interaction of the Ports Authority, HM Customs and Excise and the Foods Standards Agency in tackling illegal imports of meat. [39261]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 5 March 2002]: Since April last year initiatives on illegal imports have been co-ordinated by officials in DEFRA, working closely with other departments such as HM Customs and Excise and the Food Standards Agency, as well as the local authorities and port health authorities who are responsible for controls at ports and airports.

  This joint approach has led to more effective information sharing and improved targeting of activity at ports and airports.

  DEFRA is also holding a high level forum next month involving enforcement agencies, port and airport authorities airlines and other stakeholders, to consider the next steps for intensifying our efforts and to agree further priorities and action.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what percentage of meat imports are checked on entry to the UK; and if she will make a statement. [39263]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: All consignments of meat legally imported from third countries into the UK are subjected to a documentary check on the veterinary certification and an identity check to match the goods to certification. At least 50 per cent. of poultry and game meat and 20 per cent. of other meat imports are also given a physical check, which may include organoleptic checks, temperature checks and laboratory tests for pathogens or contaminants. Meat imported from other member states is not checked at the frontier but may be subjected to random checks at the point of destination.

  Mr. Oaten
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many prosecutions for importing illegal meat have been carried out in each of the last three years. [39368]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: HM Customs and Excise have prosecuted three people for offences under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) involving illegal meat imports. Two of these were convicted as a CITES offence and one was acquitted but convicted under a separate Animal Health charge.
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  Mr. Oaten
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what new resources she is putting into inspections at ports and airports to track illegal meat imports. [39367]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: As part of a programme of action on illegal imports we are reviewing the appropriate level of inspection. However, currently responsibility for checks on illegal meat imports are the responsibility of the local or port health authority and it is for the appropriate local authority to deploy staff accordingly depending on the volume and nature of the products imported.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much(a) beef and (b)lamb is produced annually in the UK; what the annual consumption of these products in the UK is; how much of these products was imported in each of the last five years for which figures are available; and if she will make a statement. [39260]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Figures for beef and lamb/mutton combined (separate figures are not available for lamb) are provided in the table.

  Thousand tonnes1

  Home fed production

  Imported

  Consumption1

  Beef

  1996

  710.4

  169.1

  732.4

  1997

  698.3

  216.5

  856.6

  1998

  699.5

  151.9

  858.2

  1999

  678.8

  183.2

  934.3

  2000

  705.9

  196.6

  915.0

  Mutton and Lamb

  1996

  382.5

  156.2

  378.0

  1997

  350.8

  151.7

  359.6

  1998

  385.5

  141.5

  380.5

  1999

  402.7

  137.1

  386.9

  2000

  390.6

  134.1

  395.0

  1 Dressed carcase weight

  Note:

  Total domestic use; home fed production plus imports less exports net of stock.

  IACS Payments
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will pay interest to farmers who have received their IACS payments late. [39278]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: EC regulations do not provide for the payment of interest. The extent to which claimants might be entitled to compensation for delays in their payments will be considered in the light of the merits of any representation made.
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  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what percentage of IACS payments due were made before 31 January 2002(a) in Gloucestershire and (b) in England. [39276]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: 80 per cent. of IACS claims in Gloucestershire and 94 per cent. of IACS claims in England were authorised for payment as at 31 January 2002.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will investigate the time taken for payment of IACS in Gloucestershire; and if she will make a statement. [39277]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Claims throughout the country were delayed as a result of the diversion of staff to foot and mouth disease duties and, more significantly, by industrial action by staff in the RPA. Until the industrial action was suspended on 11 January it was not possible to take action to relieve sites which were under the greatest pressure. Gloucester claims are processed at Exeter and, following the suspension, extra teams were drafted in from other RPA sites across the country and significant amounts of overtime were worked. As a result of this recovery action most of the Gloucestershire claims which are able to be paid will have been cleared by the end of February.

  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the average time taken is for making IACS payments to farmers(a) in the UK and (b) in other EU countries; and if she will make a statement. [39280]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 5 March 2002]: The information requested is not collected. However, payments were delayed due to industrial action together with the knock-on effect of staff deployed on foot and mouth disease duties. The Rural Payments Agency as part of their change process are seeking to ensure payments are made as early as possible in the payment window.

  Wheat
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the average price of wheat has been in the UK in each of the last five years for which figures are available; what the(a) world and (b) EU prices were; and if she will make a statement. [39282]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Average wheat prices for the last five years, for the UK, EU and world, are given in the tables.

  World price1 $/t

  EU price2 euro/t

  UK price3 £/t

  1997

  144

  136

  92

  1998

  111

  100

  78

  1999

  97

  92

  74

  2000

  99

  108

  70

  2001

  108

  122

  76

  1 US Soft Red Winter No. 2 fob US Gulf.

  2 EEC Standard wheat France Rouen.

  3 Production-weighted average of milling and feed wheat ex-farm prices.

  Sources:

  1. HGCA (Home Grown Cereals Authority)

  2. IGC (International Grains Council)

  3. HGCA
  224W

  Prices converted to sterling

  World price £/t

  EU price £/t

  UK price £/t

  £/$ exchange rate

  £/euro exchange rate

  1997

  88

  94

  92

  0.6118

  0.6906

  1998

  67

  68

  78

  0.6034

  0.6762

  1999

  60

  61

  74

  0.6181

  0.6589

  2000

  65

  66

  70

  0.6607

  0.6093

  2001

  75

  76

  76

  0.6941

  0.6218

  Fly Tipping
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the impact of the landfill tax on fly tipping; and if she will make a statement. [39271]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: The Department does not collate statistics on fly tipping. Reports by the Tidy Britain Group on this issue showed that the type of waste most frequently fly-tipped is household waste. It is unlikely that the landfill tax causes householders to fly tip waste because local authorities have a legal obligation to collect or accept this type of waste and, as a result, householders do not directly meet the cost of the tax.

  Under Section 59 of the Environment Protection Act 1990, local authorities (or the Environment Agency) have the power to remove any fly-tipped waste and recover costs incurred from any person who made or knowingly caused or permitted the deposit of the waste.

  The local authority or the Environment Agency also has the power to prosecute the perpetrators of fly tipping which can lead to an unlimited fine and/or imprisonment for up to two years (five years for special wastes).

  Agrimonetary Compensation
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to claim agrimonetary compensation from the CAP; and if she will make a statement. [39281]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: We have made no plans to claim any further agrimonetary compensation. We are waiting for the Commission to confirm whether any further compensation is available, and we will take a decision when we have the information.

  Volunteers
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many members of her staff in each of the past two years have been granted a day's paid leave to work as a volunteer; and if she will make a statement. [39743]

  Mr. Morley
  DEFRA actively supports its staff in giving time to their communities. We aim to raise the profile of volunteering and make it easier for staff to give their time and effort to voluntary work.

  Staff are allowed varying amounts of paid time off for voluntary public duties such as serving as magistrates or school governors. Additionally, in September 2000, we introduced arrangements that allow all staff a day's paid

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  special leave each year to participate in an unpaid voluntary activity. Up until the end of March 2001, 10 people had taken advantage of this in DEFRA (including the Pesticides Safety Directorate, Rural Payments Agency, Veterinary Laboratories Agency and Veterinary Medicines Directorate). Due to major staff re-deployment during the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak, no records were kept between April and December 2001. So far this year three people have taken a day's paid leave for voluntary work.

  DEFRA is supporting staff who wish to join the volunteer programme to help in the arrangements for the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games and will be allowing staff 50 per cent. of their time volunteering as paid special leave up to a maximum of eight days.

  I have asked the Chief Executives of the Central Science Laboratory and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science to reply separately.

  Organophosphate Pesticides
  Hugh Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what economic assessment has been made of the cost of banning Thinsec (Carbaryl) for the top fruit industry. [39245]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Pesticide products containing carbaryl have been reviewed as part of the general review in the UK of all organophosphate pesticides. The main purpose of the review is to address public concerns about the potential toxicity of these chemicals and economic impact is not an overriding consideration where safety is concerned. However, the loss of some compounds may have an economic impact on particular sectors of industry. The decision to revoke a particular compound is not taken lightly. It may be revoked because serious safety concerns remain following the evaluation of data submitted in support of the compound or because there was insufficient data submitted for an adequate evaluation of the data to be made. The loss of carbaryl stems from a commercial decision by the approval holder not to support the compound under the UK review.

  Hugh Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs why the use of Thinsec (Carbaryl) for top fruit has been banned. [39246]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Carbaryl has been included as part of the general review in the UK of all organophosphate pesticides. The review was undertaken because of public concerns about the potential toxicity of these chemicals.

  Organophosphate pesticides are mainly older compounds and the review will establish whether there is sufficient safety data available to satisfy modern standards. Companies are therefore required to submit data they hold on human health and environmental effects to support the continued safe use of the products containing these compounds. If data are not submitted then the approval for these products are revoked.

  The approval holder for carbaryl did not submit supporting data, therefore products containing carbaryl have been revoked. The approval for the product Thinsec expired on 31 July 2001.
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  Hugh Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what discussions she has had with her EU counterparts on the decision to ban Thinsec (Carbaryl) for UK top fruit producers; and which EU countries plan to follow the UK's lead. [39244]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Under EU rules the UK is not obliged to inform other member states of any national review programme of pesticide products undertaken to address national issues. However, all member states and the commission were informed of the UK programme to review organophosphate compounds, which includes carbaryl. In addition, all are automatically informed of any new product approvals and revocations. A separate European programme intends to review all active substances used in plant protection products within the community and all member states and the commission are involved in this decision-making process.

  The approval holder for carbaryl did not submit supporting data under the UK review and therefore the approval for all products containing carbaryl, including Thinsec, have been revoked. Under the European review programme carbaryl has been supported so far. Data for the evaluation of carbaryl must be submitted to the member state evaluating the compound by the end of April 2002. The continued approval of carbaryl throughout Europe is therefore dependent on the conclusions of that evaluation.

  It is possible for member states to carry out their own review exercises and for these to be carried out at different times to the European review. Member states are not obliged to follow other countries, domestic decisions regarding the approval or revocation of compounds. In this case, the UK organophosphate review was introduced to address public concerns about the safety of these compounds and we have acted in a consistent manner to revoke their use where appropriate.

  Farming
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps she is taking to improve the public image of farming in England; and if she will make a statement. [39398]

  Mr. Morley
  The public image of farming in England is not the responsibility of Government alone. Farming faces a wide range of challenges and we are committed to working with all those with an interest in the future of farming to help tackle these and develop a more sustainable industry that better meets society's expectations.

  That is why we established the independent Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food. The Commission's report to Government sets out a clear vision for a sustainable competitive and diverse farming and food sector, playing a dynamic role in the rural economy and delivering the environmental outputs that society demands. Delivery of this vision is for industry and other organisations, as well as Government. We will be launching shortly a process for engaging with interested organisations on the details of this with a view to launching a strategy for sustainable food and farming in the early autumn.

  Social Exclusion (Transport)
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on what research the Countryside Agency has launched into social exclusion and transport; and when it is expected to publish its research. [39395]

  Alun Michael
  The Countryside Agency is not currently involved in research specifically into social exclusion and transport. However, certain other studies include elements relating to the transport needs of the socially excluded. One such study is on "Wheels to Work", an evaluation and good practice guide on access to education and employment for young people. This is due to report in April.

  Countryside and Rights of Way Act
  Ms Drown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when Section 47 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 will be implemented. [39522]

  Alun Michael
  Section 47 is part of a group of provisions relating to restricted byways. Our aim is to consult later this year on the secondary legislation needed to implement these provisions, with a view to bringing them into effect in the early part of 2003. The task is complicated by the need to amend any relevant existing highways legislation: in primary legislation alone there are over 40,000 references to be investigated.

  Village Halls
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent discussions she has had with the Countryside Agency on the subject of village halls. [39394]

  Alun Michael
  I believe strongly that community buildings and village halls have an important role to play in village life. They can make an enormous difference to the well-being of communities by providing sustainable, multi-functional and flexible resources. They can provide a focus for a range of activities including child care, employment training and advice, sports, leisure and participative activities involving all members of the rural community.

  Recent evidence from the Countryside Agency's "Rural Services Survey" suggests that the substantial amounts of funding from various sources over recent years—the 21' Century Halls for England Fund, the Community Fund, Awards for All funding and local authorities—has been very successful in increasing provision of village halls. We are in regular contact with the Countryside Agency on these issues and my officials will be meeting Action for Communities in Rural England shortly to discuss how best to support local communities so as to complement the investment that has gone into village halls.

  Cattle Feed
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to review the importation of cattle feed into the UK; and if she will make a statement. [38525]
  228W
  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: New EU-wide measures (implemented domestically under the Processed Animal Protein Regulations from 1 August 2001) already control intra-Community trade and imports from third countries of a wide range of processed animal proteins effectively preventing their inclusion in feed for farmed animals in order to stop the propagation of BSE.

  In Great Britain, a national feed sampling programme has been in place since 1996 to monitor compliance with BSE-related feed controls. This programme, operated by the State Veterinary Service, typically takes around 20,000 samples per year from feed mills, on-farm mixers and other premises handling livestock feed. The results of the programme are very encouraging and indicate wide compliance with the feed controls, confirming that prohibited ingredients (from domestic or imported sources) are being effectively removed from the market, distribution channels and farms.

  One theoretical issue is that recent cases of BSE in younger animals may have been exposed to infection as a result of cross-contamination (during transhipment) of imported vegetable protein used in the production of animal feedingstuffs with meat and bone meal. We are continuing carefully to investigate such cases, but there is currently no clear evidence that individual animals have been infected by this route.

  Veterinary Medicines
  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will define suitably qualified persons who may sell animal medicines for food-producing animals under EU directive 2001/82/EC. [39301]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: Directive 2001/82/EC restricts the retail sale of veterinary medicinal products to persons permitted to carry out such operations by the legislation of the member state concerned. There are no proposals to change this provision. Under UK legislation veterinary medicines for food-producing animals may be sold by veterinary surgeons, registered pharmacists, registered agricultural merchants and saddlers or, in some cases, by any retail outlet, depending upon the conditions of use and consequent distribution category under which a particular product is classified.

  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if the Government define veterinary surgeons as the only suitably qualified professionals to sell animal medicines, under the terms of EU Directive/2001/82/EC. [39294]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: No. Directive 2001/82/EC restricts the retail sale of veterinary medicinal products to persons permitted to carry out such operations by the legislation of the member state concerned. UK legislation does not restrict the sale of veterinary medicines to veterinary surgeons. Veterinary medicines may be sold by veterinary surgeons, registered pharmacists, registered agricultural merchants and saddlers or by any retail outlet, depending upon the conditions of use and consequent distribution category under which a particular product is classified.

  Livestock Markets
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent representations she has received on the future of auction marts. [40377]

  Mr. Morley
  I have received a number of representations from auctioneers and the livestock industry. From 11 February it has been possible, under the Interim Animal Movements Regime, for some livestock markets to re-open, subject to biosecurity conditions. I am keeping the position of livestock markets under review.

  Agricultural Tenancies
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the Government's approach to the review of farm business tenancies. [39950]

  Mr. Morley
  Farm business tenancies can be established under the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995. This Act is currently the subject of a policy evaluation review which is being carried out by the University of Plymouth. This work is nearing completion, and the final report is expected shortly.

  The recommendations made by the research team will be considered in detail over the coming months, in parallel with the tenancy related recommendations of the Policy Commission on Food and Farming.

  Meat and Plant Imports
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many checks on meat and plant imports were carried out in each of the last five years; and how many imports were found to be illegal. [39508]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: We do not hold figures for the last five years.

  Between November 2000 and October 2001, 19,140 checks were made at Border Inspection Posts and 458 of these were rejected.

  In terms of personal baggage, since April 2001, 1,142 seizures of illegally imported animal and plant products have been made.

  EU Fruit Marketing Standard
  Hugh Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if a decision has been taken on proposals to amend the EC Marketing Standard for Apples and Pears. [40078]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: No decision has yet been taken on the EU Commission's proposals to amend the EU Marketing Standard for Apples and Pears. As I indicated in my written reply of 15 January, we will ensure that the views expressed by all stakeholders are taken into consideration in any future discussions.

  Scottish Executive
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what reason a devolved administration minister did not attend the 230W
  2410 European Union Council of Ministers meeting (Agriculture) on 18 February; which particular matters of concern from the Scottish Executive were raised in their absence by the UK Government delegation; and what evidence is being provided by her Department to guarantee effective post-council scrutiny by the European Committee of the Scottish Parliament. [40322]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: Scottish Executive Ministers did not attend the February Agriculture Council as there was nothing on the agenda of specific interest to Scotland and the UK Government are well briefed on the Scottish Executive interests in more general matters. There was no need for the UK Government to raise any issues of particular concern to the Scottish Executive. On the third point, it is the responsibility of the European Committee of the Scottish Parliament to scrutinise the Scottish Executive's involvement in preparations for EU Council meetings. These arrangements are a matter for the Committee and the Scottish Executive. My Department provides information to Scottish Executive officials as part of that process.

  Horticulture (Climate Change Levy)
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the impact of the climate change levy upon the(a) profitability and (b) competitiveness of British horticulture. [38579]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: It is not possible to comment precisely on the effect of the climate change levy on the competitive position of our horticulture industry. This depends, among other things, on the extent to which individual sectors and firms within the industry are exposed to international competition; its future energy use; and the extent to which it takes up the incentives which the Government have introduced to help it improve its environmental performance and to protect its competitiveness. These incentives include:
  a special package of support which aims to improve energy efficiency across the sector, including the provision of site-specific advice for individual businesses;
  exemptions from the levy for most renewable sources of energy and for fuel used by good quality combined heat and power systems;
  enhanced capital allowances for investments in energy efficiency technologies including thermal screens, boilers, combined heat and power systems and lighting; and
  a temporary 50 per cent. discount on the levy to the horticulture sector for a period of up to five years while the energy efficiency measures targeted at the sector take effect.

  Private Sewers
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what action is being taken in respect of private sewers. [40937]

  Mr. Meacher
  I announced this morning that agreement has been reached with the House Builders Federation and the water industry that all new sewers will be built to one agreed standard. We now have in place a protocol which sets out the key elements of design and construction for new development to enable wider adoption of sewers. As a result, owners of new property will not have the kind of problems experienced by those
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  with existing private sewers. Copies of the protocol and the report on the outcome of the consultation undertaken by the Department into new sewers and drains have been placed in the Library. They are also on the Department's website.

  I am equally keen that we should assist owners of existing private sewers. We have therefore appointed outside consultants to undertake research to establish the extent of the private sewer network, identify and examine the problems associated with private sewers and produce workable solutions. The research began in December and is due to last 18 months.

  Waste Water Treatment
  Mr. Bailey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what progress has been made to review and identify further areas under the Urban Waste Water Treatment (England and Wales) Regulations 1994; and if she will make a statement. [41242]

  Mr. Meacher
  Based on recommendations from the Environment Agency I (by authority of the Secretary of State) announced this morning that I have reviewed the identification of Sensitive Areas in England in accordance with the criteria in Part I of Schedule I of the Urban Waste Water Treatment (England and Wales) Regulations 1994 (which transposes the European Council Directive (91/271/EEC) concerning urban waste water treatment).

  This review has resulted in the identification of four freshwater stretches of the rivers Stour, Wissey, Chelmer and Leam, which are intended for the abstraction of drinking water, to be identified as Sensitive Areas (nitrate) on the basis of elevated levels of nitrate under the terms of the regulations.

  These new requirements on water companies to remove nitrate from sewage treatment discharges will complement the action required by farmers under the Nitrates Directive.

  Work to provide more stringent treatment (nitrogen removal) at six qualifying treatment works is expected to be completed by end 2004. 180 bathing waters (already identified under the Bathing Waters Regulations 1991) in England are also to be identified as Sensitive Areas as discharges from qualifying sewage treatment works receive, or are to receive by 2005 more stringent treatment (ultraviolet disinfection) to fulfil standards of those regulations.

  Funding for these improvements have already been provided for in the Office of Water Services (Ofwat) Periodic Review of water company price limits for the five-year period from 2000.

  We are committed to a steady improvement to Britain's freshwater and bathing quality. Already we have the best ever recorded bathing water quality. Today's moves mean that we can continue our efforts to ensure clean and healthy water both for this country's inhabitants and its aquatic life.

  Lists of the new sensitive areas have today been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses. Maps showing the location of all current sensitive areas (nitrate) and (bathing waters) will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and at offices of the Environment Agency in due course.

  Hazardous Waste
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what regulatory impact assessment she has made of the(a) Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive and (b) Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive; [37529]

  (2) what the estimated cost is to (a) public funds and (b) the industry of implementing the (i) Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive and (ii) Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive in the United Kingdom; [37530]

  (3) what representations she has made within the Council for Ministers regarding the (a) Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive and (b) Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive; and if she will make a statement. [37531]

  Margaret Beckett
  The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive and Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances Directive were discussed at the Environment Council on 18–19 December 2000, 8 March 2001 and 7–8 June 2001, where my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment represented the UK. He stated our support for the environmental objectives of the Directives, which are very much in line with our national Waste Strategies. The UK negotiating line on the Directives was clearly explained to the House in European Standing Committee C on 28 March 2001 by the former Minister of State for Industry and Energy, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

  My hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy has the lead responsibility for negotiating these Directives. He placed initial Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIA) for each in the Libraries of both Houses on 7 December 2000 and I am informed that he will be submitting revised RIAs later this month. Based on the principle of Producer Responsibility, these Directives provide that producers will be responsible for financing the costs which arise.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

  Ministerial Meetings
  Adam Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills on what date she and her Ministers last met the Education Secretary of the National Assembly for Wales. [35458]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills and her Ministers last formally met the Education Secretary of the National Assembly for Wales on 24 September 2001.

  Departmental Website
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the total cost of her Department's website was in real terms in each of the last four years; and how many hits it received in each of those years. [36147]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  Core programme cost for the Department for Education and Skills central website (real terms figures are all compared with 2000–01 cost) were as follows.
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  £

  1997–98

  42,275

  1998–99

  82,420

  1999–2000

  137,328

  2000–01

  261,000

  2001–02

  640,976

  There is now wide acceptance among professionals in the web industry that hits are not a measure of site performance. So the Department, in line with the Government, as a whole gives more importance to unique visitors and page impressions than hits.

  For example, the Department made a big effort in 2000 to speed up download times by reducing numbers of files on the site, hence hits went down from 173 million in 2000, to 89 million in 2001, while use was increasing.

  Reliable site traffic figures are only available since January 2000.

  Estimated site traffic for year 1999 is as follows:
  Hits: 11.4 million.

  Site traffic for year 2000 is as follows:
  Unique visitors: average 1,293.000 per month
  Page views: 43.7 million.

  Individual Learning Account
  Alistair Burt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will make a statement in respect of the progress of her investigations into alleged fraud and abuse concerned with the individual learning account scheme; and whether her Department has the information necessary about individual learning account holders from the Capita database. [36946]

  John Healey
  The Department's Special Investigations Unit is investigating 97 registered learning providers. Of these, police are investigating 16 and the Department's Special Investigation Unit is discussing a further 52 with the police. 44 arrests have been made in relation to allegations of fraud with the operation of the individual learning account programme and 13 people have been charged, one of whom has been convicted.

  As at 31 December, the Department had received some 5,900 complaints from individuals claiming that money had been drawn from their individual learning account (ILA) without their knowledge or consent. Complaints received will be followed up with providers, and where we have evidence of fraud we will make referrals to the police.

  The Department's Special Investigation Unit has had access to information from the ILA Centre system about ILA holders necessary to carry out its investigations.

  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills on what date the new registration scheme for ILAs was(a) commissioned of and (b) delivered by Capita; when the new scheme was announced and by what means. [37535]

  John Healey
  The Department signed a letter of intent in April 2000 with Capita Business Services Ltd., but Capita began working on an action plan in March 2000. The Department signed the contract with Capita to act as the customer service provider for individual learning 234W
  accounts on 2 June 2000. Registration for ILA holders and ILA learning providers was open from 12 June 2000 before the ILA national framework was launched on 4 September 2000.

  Capita Contracts
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when the Cap Gemini report on the operation of the ILA scheme was commissioned; when it was due for delivery; when it was delivered; and what response her Department has made to the report. [37537]

  John Healey
  Cap Gemini Ernst and Young were commissioned by the Department to "Baseline the Capita computer systems" and to "Examine the Capita ILA system security arrangements". The assignments are not on the operation of ILAs. Work began in late December and it is envisaged that the final reports will be received in March.

  Mr. Boris Johnson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list the contracts that have been awarded to the Capita Group by the Department. [39338]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  My Department has a number of contracts with Capita for a range of different services. These are as follows:Teachers' Pensions: Administration of the Teachers' Pensions Scheme.
  Connexions Card: Development of the Connexions Card.
  Individual Learning Accounts: Administration of the ILA scheme.
  Consultancy Framework Contracts: Framework contract to provide general management consultancy support and consultancy support for LEA interventions.

  They are all existing contracts within my Department.

  Paul Holmes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list all contracts awarded by her Department to Capita since 1997, including(a) start and finish date of contract, (b) value of contract, (c) description of work to be carried out, (d) evaluation mechanism for successful delivery of contract, (e) penalty charges for failure to deliver and (f) if penalty charges have been incurred; and if she will make a statement. [40489]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  My Department has awarded a number of contracts to Capita since 1997 for a range of different services. These are as follows:Connexions Card—Development of the Connexions Card. A public-private partnership with a contract value in excess of £100 million over seven years from 2001 to 2008.
  Individual Learning Accounts—Administration of the ILA scheme. A contract for five years with an estimated value of around £55 million from 2000 to 2005.
  Consultancy Framework Contracts—Framework contract to provide general management consultancy support and consultancy support for LEA interventions. Both framework contracts were awarded for three years and expire in 2002 and 2004 respectively. Their level of usage determines the value of these contracts. Estimated expenditure to date has been £436,500.

  The Department establishes clear arrangements for monitoring the quality of outcomes delivered and for evaluating the contractor's performance as part of all of its contracting activity. Those contract management arrangements apply to each of the Capita contracts listed, and my officials have put those monitoring arrangements into operation. None of the Department's contracts

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  include penalty clauses, as these are unenforceable under English law. The Department's contracts often include arrangements which motivate the contractor to perform by linking payment to performance and also provide for termination if the contractor is in breach of the contract terms.

  Sector Skills Council (Sport and Fitness Industry)
  Gillian Merron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans she has to ensure the creation of a sector skills council for the sport and fitness industry. [37099]

  John Healey
  My Department is looking to employers to bring forward proposals for sectors that meet the Sector Skills Council (SSC) licensing standard and make sense to their industries. An expression of interest by employers to form an SSC in any sector will be considered by the Sector Skills Development Agency when it is made. If the expression of interest meets initial criteria then a period of up to six months will be agreed to develop a full SSC proposal. If this is successful an SSC licence will be issued. A Business Adviser has been allocated to advise employers in the sport and recreation sector on the preparation of an expression of interest.

  Refurbishment
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her answer of 25 January 2002,Official Report, column 1131W, what the cost of refurbishing each ministerial private office was in each year since May 1997. [37890]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The cost of refurbishing ministerial offices in each of the last four years is as follows:

  £

  2000–01

  1,960

  1999–2000

  5,674

  1998–99

  10,567

  1997–98

  74,404

  Teachers (Performance Management)
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what the cost has been of the performance related pay threshold assessment, broken down by(a) pay given to teachers, (b) administration costs paid to CEA including the costs of external assessors and (c) administration costs paid to CfBT, including costs of training for threshold assessment; [38048]

  (2) what the cost has been of providing external advisers for the performance management of head teachers in England; [38050]

  (3) what the total training cost has been of the performance management system. [38052]

  Mr. Timms
  Since December 2000 the Department has paid about £650 million to local authorities to cover the additional salary costs of teachers passing the threshold. To help with the operation of threshold assessment and performance management we also make £28 million per year available to schools through the Standards Fund.
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  The Department has a contract with Cambridge Education Associates (CEA) for the provision and deployment of threshold assessors and external advisers to governing bodies on heads' performance. We also have a contract with the Centre for British Teachers (CfBT) for training in threshold assessment and performance management. The value of these contracts depends on the volume and quality of activity. Since January 2000 total CEA contract costs have been around £36.5 million and CfBT costs around £12 million, including the value of investment that will support future activity.

  Universities
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what her definition is of a high-ranking university as mentioned in Chapter 4 of "14–19: extending opportunities, raising standards"; and if she will collect information regarding the socio-economic background of students entering such institutions to enable comparisons with those entering other universities. [38091]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The reference to "high ranking universities" is to those universities which have particularly demanding entry requirements, as the higher award is based on at least ABB grades at A level plus one AS level or on an NVQ level 4. The Higher Education Funding Council for England already collects and publishes information on the social class of students entering higher education, which is broken down by institution. It published the information for the academic year 1999–2000, "Performance Indicators in Higher Education in the UK", last December (HEFCE Report 01/69). This is available on the HEFCE website at www.hefce.ac.ukipi.

  Civil Servants (Employment With Consultants)
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list the dates and indicate the nature of the guidance given by her Department to Government Departments since May 1997 with respect to civil servants seeking employment within(a) Capita, (b) PricewaterhouseCoopers, (c) WS Atkins, (d) Nord Anglia, (e) Cambridge Education Associates, (f) KPMG and (g) Ernst and Young; and if she will place related documents in the Library. [36969]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 26 February 2002]: Civil servants wishing to take up employment outside the civil service are subject to the requirements of the Business Appointment Rules, which are set out in full in the Civil Service Management Code.

  Secondments
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many staff were seconded between(a) Capita, (b) PricewaterhouseCoopers, (c) WS Atkins, (d) Nord Anglia, (e) Cambridge Education Associates, (f) KPMG and (g) Ernst and Young and her Department in (i) 1999–2000, (ii) 2000–01 and (iii) 2001–02. [36572]
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  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 26 February 2002]: The information is set out in the table in respect of Ernst and Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers; there were no secondments during these periods between any of the other companies listed and this Department.

  Ernst and Young

  PricewaterhouseCoopers

  1999–2000

  1

  —

  2000–01

  5

  1

  Pupil Data
  Mr. Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills for what reason the Government are collecting the names and addresses of all children; and how this information will be used. [38482]

  Mr. Timms
  The Department is collecting the names of most children, but not the addresses of any. This January we introduced the "Pupil Level Annual Schools Census" (PLASC) for maintained schools in England. Schools provided a list of the pupils on their register together with each pupil's name, "unique pupil number" (UPN), home postcode (not full address), and other details such as ethnic group, special educational needs and eligibility for free school meals. This information will be combined with details of Key Stage assessment and examination results collected separately from schools, marking agencies and exam boards, and with future PLASC returns, to create statistical profiles of pupils. The Department has no interest in the identity of individual pupils as such. However pupil names (in addition to UPNs) are needed to ensure that all data relating to the same pupil are collated correctly, and therefore that the statistical profiles are accurate. Within the Department only technical staff directly engaged in the data collation process will have access to pupil names.

  Analysis of these statistical profiles will provide major new information to help schools, LEAs, the Department and other educational agencies in the drive to raise standards. It will also enable groups of pupils (such as ethnic minorities) who may be under-achieving to be identified far more effectively so that programmes can be developed or improved to meet their needs. Home postcodes too will be used for statistical purposes only. The postcode mix of a school's pupils provides an indication of socio-economic background which can be taken into account (along with other factors) in comparing the performance of different schools and setting targets for improvement. Postcode information also enables neighbourhood analyses to be carried out.

  Certain limited disclosures of PLASC data with pupil names may take place provided these comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 and any other legislative requirements. For further details I refer the hon. Member to my answer on 28 January 2002, Official Report, columns 109–11W to the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington).

  Special Urgency Provisions
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how often the Department has applied the special urgency provisions in paragraph 22 of Circular 238W
  18/84 (Development by Government Departments) to a development by the Department; and if she will make a statement. [38707]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  My Department has not used the special urgency provisions in paragraph 22 Circular 18/84 (Development by Government Departments).

  School Absence
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the(a) number and (b) percentage of half days missed each year was in (i) maintained primary schools, (ii) maintained secondary schools and (iii) all maintained schools in each year since 1997. [38807]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The information is as follows:

  Half days missed (authorised and unauthorised absence) in maintained schools in England 1997–2001

  Academic years

  Number of half days missed (thousand)

  Percentage of half days missed

  Primary schools

  1996–97

  66,839.5

  6.1

  1997–98

  66,912.6

  6.2

  1998–99

  66,501.5

  5.9

  1999–2000

  62,926.5

  5.7

  2000–01

  67,094.9

  6.1

  Secondary schools

  1996–97

  75,934.5

  9.1

  1997–98

  74,902.7

  9.0

  1998–99

  77,722.3

  8.9

  1999–2000

  75,701.5

  8.6

  2000–01

  79,906.9

  9.0

  Primary and secondary schools

  1996–97

  142,774.0

  7.4

  1997–98

  141,815.4

  7.4

  1998–99

  144,223.8

  7.2

  1999–2000

  138,628.1

  7.0

  2000–01

  147,001.9

  7.4

  Notes:

  Figures are based on maintained mainstream schools and exclude maintained special schools and City Technology colleges. Information is collected for the period from the start of the school year in September to the mid-term break in May.

  In the second round of Education Development Plans (EDPs), local education authorities were asked to set targets for the percentage of half days missed each year. The targets have now been submitted and are currently being assessed.

  Special Educational Needs (Autism)
  Mr. Hepburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much was spent on autistic education in each year since 1997 in(a) South Tyneside, (b) the north-east and (c) the UK. [39618]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  Funding is not made available for specific categories of special educational need. Rather, funding is allocated and distributed via local education authorities (LEAs), who have a duty to provide appropriately for all children in their area. This includes the duty to identify children's individual special educational needs and to deliver the most appropriate provision to meet those needs.
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  More than £23 billion is available annually for the education of school children, including children with special educational needs. Over £1 billion of this is used by LEAs to provide additional support for children with special educational needs.

  We have also made £91 million of supported expenditure available for special educational needs in next year's Standards Fund (2002–03). This is five times the amount available in 1997–98. The fund can be used for a range of activities including training for staff in special educational needs, improvements in speech and language therapy provision for children with communication difficulties and the greater inclusion of children with SEN in the mainstream. This latter includes early intervention for pupils with SEN, training on child development and behaviour management, and improved links between special and mainstream schools.

  Mr. Hepburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what action is being taken to promote Autism Awareness year. [39621]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health gave to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on 8 January 2002,Official Report, column 672–73W.

  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State welcomes initiatives that aim to improve our knowledge and understanding of autism and raise awareness of the condition. Better outcomes for children with autism are encouraged by early identification and intervention to meet their special educational needs. In 2002, the Department for Education and Skills will be publishing guidance for schools, local education authorities and others, which will include pointers to good practice on provision for children with autism, including early identification. The Department will continue to work with the National Autistic Society and other interested parties to raise awareness of autism and improve provision for children with the condition.

  National Curriculum
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list those maintained schools which are known not to be offering the full national curriculum. [38859]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: For a school not to offer the full national curriculum, it must make an application to the Department for Education and Skills, to disapply elements of the national curriculum, under section 362 of the Education Act 1996. This is to allow curriculum development or experimentation.

  The schools that are currently disapplying elements of the national curriculum, through section 362, according to departmental records, are shown in the following list:

  Churchfields Performing Arts College (Swindon)

  Falmer High School (Brighton)

  Wye Valley School (Bucks)

  Blurton High School (Stoke)

  The Lord Silkin School (Telford)

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  Moatbridge School (Greenwich)

  Willington High School (Wallsend)

  Cambourne School and Community College (Cambourne)

  Walton-le-Dale High School (Preston).

  Amy Gehring
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to the answer of 25 February 2002,Official Report, column 746W, on Amy Gehring, if she will make a statement on the content of that letter; and what action, and when, her Department took in response. [39414]

  Mr. Timms
  The letter received on 20 November 2000 from Surrey police contained factual information about allegations made against Miss Gehring and stated that no further police action would be taken. The letter did not express concern about the risk that Miss Gehring might present to children. After receiving the letter my officials initiated their List 99 procedures, making a criminal background check and writing to Timeplan seeking copies of all the documents relating to the case. On 8 January 2001 my officials were informed by Surrey police that Miss Gehring's conduct was the subject of a fresh police investigation. The officials then followed normal practice and suspended further inquiries until documents, witness statements and other evidence from the police investigation and trial became available.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to the answer of 25 February 2002,Official Report, column 746W, on Amy Gehring, on how many occasions in each of the past three years a police force has written to her Department to raise issues about a working teacher; and what action was taken in each case. [39415]

  Mr. Timms
  This information could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The Department receives notification of misconduct from a number of sources including the police, a working teacher's employer and from press reports.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to the answer of 25 February 2002,Official Report, column 746W, on Amy Gehring, on what date the contents of the letter were communicated to Ministers. [39416]

  Mr. Timms
  Ministers were informed of the contents of the letter from Surrey police on 24 January 2002.

  Teachers
  Paul Holmes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many teachers were at each point on the pay band in each local education authority in January 2001. [39218]

  Mr. Timms
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: The data requested are not yet available.

  The numbers of full-time regular qualified classroom teachers on each point of the then classroom teacher pay spine, in March 2000, from records provided by local education authorities, are contained in tables, copies of which have been placed in the Library.

  Security
  Mr. Nigel Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what recent steps she has taken to improve security in(a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools, (c) colleges and (d) universities; and if she will make a statement. [40277]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  From 1997–98 to date, we have supported spending totalling £110 million through local education authorities to provide security improvements at maintained primary and secondary schools in England. In 1997 the Department issued joint guidance with the Home Office on "School Security-Dealing with Troublemakers", and in March 2001 the Department produced a video "Can You See What They See?" and set up a website "www.dfes.gov.uk/schoolsecurity/". Further education colleges and universities, as autonomous bodies, are responsible for their own security arrangements within the resources available to them.

  School Expenditure (Leeds)
  Mr. Truswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the total spending was on schools in Leeds local education authority in each of the last 10 years in(a) cash and (b) real terms; and what the spending per pupil on the same basis in that period was. [39963]

  Mr. Timms
  The information requested is contained in the following tables.

  Spending on schools in Leeds LEA

  £ million

  Cash terms

  Real terms

  1991–92

  196

  246

  1992–93

  228

  278

  1993–94

  229

  272

  1994–95

  236

  276

  1995–96

  228

  259

  1996–97

  237

  262

  1997–98

  237

  254

  1998–99

  256

  267

  1999–2000

  294

  299

  2000–01

  325

  325

  Spending per pupil in Leeds LEA

  £

  Cash terms

  Real terms

  1991–92

  1,880

  2,360

  1992–93

  2,150

  2,620

  1993–94

  2,100

  2,500

  1994–95

  2,120

  2,490

  1995–96

  2,030

  2,320

  1996–97

  2,110

  2,320

  1997–98

  2,100

  2,250

  1998–99

  2,260

  2,360

  1999–2000

  2,600

  2,640

  2000–01

  2,890

  2,890

  Notes:

  Expenditure figures are based on net current expenditure after recharges on pre-primary, primary, secondary and special schools.

  For 1993–94 to 1998–99 includes payments to GM schools.

  Total spending rounded to the nearest £ million.

  Spending per pupil rounded to the nearest £10.

  Real terms figures are in 2000–01 prices using the December 2001 GDP deflators.
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  Source:

  1991–92 to 1998–99 expenditure data are drawn from ROI returns.

  1999–2000 and 2000–01 expenditure data are drawn from the S52 outturn returns.

  2000–01 expenditure figures are provisional and subject to change.

  Apprenticeships
  Mark Tami
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans she has to promote the level of apprenticeships in the UK. [39897]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  Last November, at the launch of the new generation of Modern Apprenticeships, the Secretary of State announced a £16 million marketing campaign, to be run over three years in England, to promote apprenticeships and boost participation. That campaign, led jointly by the Department and the Learning and Skills Council, starts on 4 March with a new television advertisement, aimed at young people, which will run until the end of the month.

  From the spring, a range of marketing measures will be introduced to reach not only young people, but also key influencers and employers. At the local level, Learning and Skills Councils, Connexions Partnerships, careers services and other partners will work together to raise awareness of, and foster support for, Modern Apprenticeships; and to provide young people with essential information and advice on the opportunities available in their communities. It is a key role of National Training Organisations and their successors the Sector Skills Councils in partnership with the LSC to ensure that employers continue to support MA and that they provide sufficient places to meet the demand from young people.

  Marketing and promotion of MAs in the rest of the country is for the devolved Administrations.

  Cambridge Education Associates
  Dr. Vis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what restrictions she has placed on the information which Cambridge Education Associates can publish. [39952]

  Mr. Timms
  The Department's general terms and conditions for contractors include requirements about the publication of information. Our contracts with Cambridge Education Associates are consistent with this.

  Supply Teachers
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what estimate she has made of the number of supply teachers working in maintained schools for periods over one week but less than one month in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area. [39554]

  Mr. Timms
  [holding answer 1 March 2002): Information is not collected centrally in the form requested. The numbers of occasional teachers with contracts of less than one month, working for the whole day on the survey date, in the maintained schools sector, in January of each year, 1997 to 2001, by local education authority1,2, were as follows.
  243W

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  City of London

  3—

  3—

  3—

  3—

  3—

  Camden

  80

  90

  100

  110

  70

  Greenwich

  60

  70

  60

  50

  100

  Hackney

  50

  80

  70

  110

  230

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  80

  90

  80

  90

  230

  Islington

  90

  60

  140

  130

  120

  Kensington and Chelsea

  90

  70

  60

  50

  60

  Lambeth

  70

  30

  30

  90

  50

  Lewisham

  110

  100

  110

  90

  100

  Southwark

  110

  130

  130

  140

  120

  Tower Hamlets

  70

  110

  80

  90

  220

  Wandsworth

  30

  70

  50

  50

  50

  City of Westminster

  50

  70

  70

  50

  80

  Barking and Dagenham

  60

  100

  90

  60

  110

  Barnet

  40

  60

  90

  80

  100

  Bexley

  70

  60

  100

  130

  110

  Brent

  50

  60

  70

  110

  100

  Bromley

  60

  40

  60

  100

  110

  Croydon

  110

  100

  100

  110

  190

  Ealing

  30

  60

  50

  70

  100

  Enfield

  60

  90

  70

  100

  140

  Haringey

  120

  120

  130

  100

  100

  Harrow

  40

  40

  40

  120

  120

  Havering

  60

  70

  80

  100

  90

  Hillingdon

  30

  30

  40

  70

  90

  Hounslow

  90

  60

  90

  80

  50

  Kingston upon Thames

  20

  40

  40

  30

  60

  Merton

  60

  70

  60

  80

  60

  Newham

  170

  160

  130

  200

  230

  Redbridge

  30

  40

  40

  30

  60

  Richmond upon Thames

  60

  20

  60

  70

  110

  Sutton

  60

  40

  40

  70

  40

  Waltham Forest

  30

  50

  50

  50

  40

  Birmingham

  300

  460

  200

  220

  300

  Coventry

  120

  80

  70

  100

  110

  Dudley

  70

  130

  80

  120

  120

  Sandwell

  60

  70

  60

  60

  90

  Solihull

  50

  80

  40

  50

  80

  Walsall

  110

  60

  60

  80

  80

  Wolverhampton

  70

  70

  60

  70

  150

  Knowsley

  60

  60

  80

  100

  40

  Liverpool

  230

  130

  150

  190

  130

  St. Helens

  60

  60

  80

  70

  60

  Sefton

  100

  90

  110

  140

  150

  Wirral

  120

  90

  120

  130

  170

  Bolton

  110

  100

  110

  120

  140

  Bury

  80

  50

  60

  70

  100

  Manchester

  100

  140

  140

  120

  240

  Oldham

  40

  40

  60

  40

  30

  Rochdale

  110

  90

  100

  110

  130

  Salford

  70

  110

  90

  80

  100

  Stockport

  120

  130

  60

  60

  120

  Tameside

  40

  30

  40

  80

  80

  Trafford

  70

  60

  40

  10

  100

  Wigan

  110

  180

  190

  170

  170

  Barnsley

  120

  100

  110

  140

  140

  Doncaster

  100

  70

  70

  80

  100

  Rotherham

  100

  100

  110

  140

  140

  Sheffield

  150

  150

  190

  190

  210

  Bradford

  180

  120

  200

  260

  310

  Calderdale

  70

  50

  70

  110

  80

  Kirklees

  140

  110

  150

  140

  130

  Leeds

  150

  160

  170

  170

  240

  Wakefield

  100

  90

  120

  140

  140

  Gateshead

  50

  60

  60

  100

  130

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  60

  70

  80

  70

  120

  North Tyneside

  70

  60

  80

  90

  100

  South Tyneside

  50

  30

  60

  60

  80

  Sunderland

  60

  110

  80

  80

  80

  Isles of Scilly

  3—

  3—

  3—

  3—

  3—

  Bath and North-east Somerset

  60

  30

  60

  70

  60

  City of Bristol

  220

  160

  130

  230

  150

  North Somerset

  30

  80

  120

  90

  70

  South Gloucestershire

  130

  70

  80

  90

  130

  244W 245W

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  Hartlepool

  40

  30

  50

  50

  30

  Middlesbrough

  60

  40

  50

  40

  60

  Redcar and Cleveland

  30

  50

  50

  60

  40

  Stockton on Tees

  90

  70

  90

  100

  130

  City of Kingston Upon Hull

  100

  90

  80

  130

  180

  East Riding of Yorkshire

  80

  90

  130

  110

  140

  North-East Lincolnshire

  80

  70

  60

  60

  80

  North Lincolnshire

  110

  90

  60

  50

  70

  North Yorkshire

  170

  130

  170

  190

  270

  York

  110

  80

  70

  140

  100

  Former Bedfordshire

  290

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Bedfordshire

  4—

  210

  80

  130

  130

  Luton

  4—

  80

  60

  50

  420

  Total former Bedfordshire area

  290

  290

  140

  190

  550

  Former Buckinghamshire

  40

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Buckinghamshire

  4—

  40

  30

  40

  120

  Milton Keynes

  4—

  40

  60

  80

  80

  Total former Buckinghamshire area

  40

  80

  90

  110

  200

  Former Derbyshire

  270

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Derbyshire

  4—

  190

  170

  240

  260

  Derby

  4—

  50

  40

  70

  3—

  Total former Derbyshire area

  270

  240

  210

  310

  260

  Former Dorset

  70

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Dorset

  4—

  3—

  90

  100

  100

  Poole

  4—

  30

  30

  30

  30

  Bournemouth

  4—

  40

  60

  40

  80

  Total former Dorset area

  70

  80

  180

  170

  200

  Former Durham

  230

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Durham

  4—

  220

  200

  280

  270

  Darlington

  4—

  10

  3—

  40

  50

  Total former Durham area

  230

  230

  200

  320

  330

  Former East Sussex

  100

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  East Sussex

  4—

  100

  150

  120

  150

  Brighton and Hove

  4—

  40

  40

  50

  60

  Total former East Sussex area

  100

  140

  190

  170

  210

  Former Hampshire

  420

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Hampshire

  4—

  290

  310

  420

  520

  Portsmouth

  4—

  40

  70

  60

  70

  Southampton

  4—

  50

  60

  80

  100

  Total former Hampshire area

  420

  380

  440

  570

  690

  Former Leicestershire

  270

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Leicestershire

  4—

  80

  120

  150

  180

  Leicester

  4—

  70

  70

  130

  150

  Rutland

  4—

  10

  10

  3—

  30

  Total former Leicestershire area

  270

  160

  190

  280

  360

  Former Staffordshire

  340

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Staffordshire

  4—

  250

  210

  290

  320

  Stoke on Trent

  4—

  70

  100

  150

  130

  Total former Staffordshire area

  340

  330

  310

  430

  440

  Former Wiltshire

  120

  4—

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Wiltshire

  4—

  70

  70

  130

  120

  Swindon

  4—

  40

  50

  60

  50

  Total former Wiltshire area

  120

  110

  120

  190

  170

  Former Berkshire

  120

  130

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Bracknell Forest

  4—

  4—

  30

  50

  40

  Windsor and Maidenhead

  4—

  4—

  20

  20

  20

  West Berkshire

  4—

  4—

  40

  30

  30

  Reading

  4—

  4—

  20

  20

  60

  Slough

  4—

  4—

  50

  50

  60

  Wokingham

  4—

  4—

  50

  3—

  40

  Total former Berkshire area

  120

  130

  200

  170

  230

  246W 247W

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  Former Cambridgeshire

  150

  120

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Cambridgeshire

  4—

  4—

  120

  60

  90

  Peterborough

  4—

  4—

  3—

  20

  90

  Total former Cambridgeshire area

  150

  120

  120

  80

  180

  Former Cheshire

  210

  150

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Cheshire

  4—

  4—

  150

  180

  170

  Halton

  4—

  4—

  30

  20

  60

  Warrington

  4—

  4—

  100

  40

  60

  Total former Cheshire area

  210

  150

  270

  240

  290

  Former Devon

  210

  250

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Devon

  4—

  4—

  170

  270

  270

  Plymouth

  4—

  4—

  70

  110

  170

  Torbay

  4—

  4—

  40

  40

  60

  Total former Devon area

  210

  250

  280

  410

  490

  Former Essex

  290

  240

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Essex

  4—

  4—

  180

  330

  480

  Southend on Sea

  4—

  4—

  30

  40

  60

  Thurrock

  4—

  4—

  20

  40

  60

  Total former Essex area

  290

  240

  230

  410

  590

  Former Hereford and Worcestershire

  110

  140

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Herefordshire

  4—

  4—

  50

  20

  60

  Worcestershire

  4—

  4—

  150

  180

  160

  Total former Hereford and Worcester area

  110

  140

  200

  200

  210

  Former Kent

  260

  130

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Kent

  4—

  4—

  330

  430

  470

  Medway

  4—

  4—

  20

  60

  130

  Total former Kent area

  260

  130

  350

  490

  600

  Former Lancashire

  560

  510

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Lancashire

  4—

  4—

  270

  370

  340

  Blackburn with Darwen

  4—

  4—

  90

  70

  80

  Blackpool

  4—

  4—

  50

  60

  100

  Total former Lancashire area

  560

  510

  400

  510

  520

  Former Nottinghamshire

  310

  450

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Nottinghamshire

  4—

  4—

  400

  360

  280

  Nottingham

  4—

  4—

  80

  130

  130

  Total former Nottinghamshire area

  310

  450

  470

  480

  400

  Former Shropshire

  110

  130

  4—

  4—

  4—

  Shropshire

  4—

  4—

  120

  110

  100

  Telford and Wrekin

  4—

  4—

  70

  80

  90

  Total former Shropshire area

  110

  130

  190

  180

  190

  Cornwall

  100

  130

  290

  260

  250

  Cumbria

  130

  130

  140

  170

  180

  Gloucestershire

  70

  80

  100

  150

  130

  Hertfordshire

  120

  90

  130

  170

  120

  Isle of Wight

  60

  40

  40

  40

  60

  Lincolnshire

  140

  140

  160

  230

  230

  Norfolk

  210

  160

  140

  260

  220

  Northamptonshire

  190

  240

  130

  160

  190

  Northumberland

  170

  140

  150

  130

  190

  Oxfordshire

  140

  110

  170

  120

  130

  Somerset

  150

  140

  160

  220

  330

  Suffolk

  220

  230

  210

  270

  240

  Surrey

  130

  130

  130

  180

  260

  Warwickshire

  110

  110

  130

  140

  130

  West Sussex

  170

  100

  130

  150

  210

  England

  13,610

  13,150

  14,120

  16,660

  19,590

  1 Local education authorities created by local government re-organisation in 1997 and 1998 are shown under their parent authority. Data have been aggregated to give totals for the former authority areas, in order to allow comparisons between years.

  2 All figures are rounded to the nearest 10. Totals may not appear to equal the sum of their component parts, due to rounding.

  3 Less than five.

  4 Not applicable.

  248W

  School Playing Fields
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many applications for permission to develop on school playing fields have been(a) submitted to her Department, (b) approved and (c) rejected since the new scrutiny arrangements were introduced in July 2001. [39555]

  John Healey
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: All applications to dispose, or change the use, of school playing fields received since 16 July 2001 have been scrutinised by an independent School Playing Fields Advisory Panel. The panel comprises representatives from the National Playing Fields Association, the Central Council of Physical Recreation, the education organisation Learning through Landscapes, the National Association of Head Teachers and the Local Government Association. The purpose of the panel is to advise on the extent to which applications meet the published criteria, and to recommend either acceptance or rejection.

  There have been 25 applications since 16 July 2001 to dispose of areas equal to, or larger than, a sports pitch. We are still assessing 17 of these applications and have approved the other eight, five of which are at school sites that are either closed or due for closure. Of the approved applications at the three operating schools, two will provide sports halls and a new all-weather pitch. The other approved application involves the granting of a lease as part of a Private Finance Initiative scheme to provide modern education facilities.

  Television Sets
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many(a) analogue and (b) integrated digital television sets her Department has purchased in each of the last 24 months; and if she will make a statement; [38172]

  (2) how many (a) integrated digital and (b) analogue television sets have been bought by her Department in each of the last 24 months; and if she will publish the guidance given to officials making decisions on television purchases. [33241]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 4 February 2002]: Information on the number of television sets purchased by my Department could be supplied only at disproportionate cost.

  My Department alongside other Government Departments has the ability to call off the contracts, which have been negotiated and set up by the Office of Government Commerce to purchase both analogue and integrated digital television sets.

  Science, Engineering and Mathematics Students
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what initiatives the Government have in place to increase the number of students taking mathematics and physics A-level. [39701]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: Mathematics and science are at the heart of our agenda to raise standards. Pupils have a statutory entitlement to study both subjects within the national curriculum. In recognition of their importance for adult and working life,
  250W
  we propose to keep them as 'core' subjects for 14 to 16-year-olds in the Green Paper: "14–19 extending opportunities, raising standards".

  Science Year is a key initiative to encourage young people to continue their study of science beyond the age of 16. We want young people to view science as relevant to the modern world and as the basis for rewarding careers. "Science and Engineering Ambassadors" is an initiative being developed through Science Year. Ambassadors—professionals in science, engineering, mathematics and technology—will act as role models and mentors for young people and will offer support to teachers.

  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will make a statement on the retention rate of students(a) on engineering-based GNVQ courses and (b) on non engineering-based GNVQ courses. [39705]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: The retention rate (whole length of the course) for students on engineering GNVQ courses is 78 per cent., compared with 76 per cent. for students on non-engineering GNVQ courses.

  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will make a statement on the effect the student funding system is having upon engineering and science graduates choosing to continue into postgraduate study. [39706]

  Margaret Hodge
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: The number of home postgraduate students in science, engineering and technology rose from 69,201 in 1994–95 to 87,747 in 2000–01, an increase of 27 per cent. Recent changes to the student funding system apply to undergraduate rather than postgraduate students. The Government have already taken steps to improve the competitiveness of PhD stipends to ensure that doctoral study remains an attractive option for graduates with the minimum level for research councils' PhD stipends rising to £9,000 per year by 2003–04. The Government have also commissioned Sir Gareth Roberts to review the supply of high-level engineering and science skills.

  National Training Organisations
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps she is taking to ensure that(a) National Training Organisations discharge their outstanding legal and professional obligations before winding-up and (b) adequate continuity of business is maintained in the interim before sector skills councils are established to replace them. [40331]

  John Healey
  Government are withdrawing National Training Organisation (NTO) recognition on 31 March 2002. A body with this status will be free to continue business after this date if its board decides. A board that decides to wind up its organisation will be subject to normal rules, usually discharged through liquidation procedures, to safeguard third party interests. Where public contracts are concerned alternative arrangements will be made for the delivery of this work by another competent body. We have agreed to provide contracts up to 31 August 2002 to ensure that essential work in the public interest will continue after NTO recognition ends
  251W
  and where specific funding has been requested. The Sector Skills Development Agency will be responsible for ensuring the delivery of this work from September 2002.

  Drug Abuse
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what recent representations her Department has received from(a) schools, (b) local education authorities and (c) the police regarding the prevention of drug abuse in schools, since June 2001. [40478]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  Successful drug education programmes convey both knowledge and skills, particularly social skills, with the aim of enabling pupils to make informed choices. The Department for Education and Skills works very closely with schools, local education authorities and the police to ensure they are involved in the policy making process. In the last eight months officials have received correspondence from schools and parents; have worked closely with local education authorities on a drug, alcohol and tobacco education training package for teachers and have discussed drug education with the Metropolitan police and the Home Office via correspondence and at several meetings.

  Literacy and Numeracy Hours
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if literacy and numeracy hours will be compulsory in schools with(a) earned autonomy and (b) exemptions related to innovation. [40485]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  There is no statutory duty on primary schools to teach the literacy hour or a daily mathematics lesson. The proposed exemptions available under(a) Earned Autonomy and (b) the Power to Innovate relate only to exemptions from statutory requirements on schools or LEAs. Therefore, the literacy hour and daily mathematics lesson cannot be subject to exemption under either of these provisions.

  School Exclusions (Drugs)
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what representations her Department has received regarding exclusions from school in connection with possession of, or dealing in, illegal drugs since June 2001. [40486]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The Department has received a number of representations on the subject of exclusion from schools in connection with possession of, or dealing in, illegal drugs since June 2001.

  The Department's guidance on exclusion in general is set out in Circular 10/99 as amended. The document "Revised Guidance on Exclusion from School—Draft for Consultation" published on 24 January also covers the subject. Copies of both documents are in the Library.

  Mobile Phone Thefts
  Mrs. Brooke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what criteria are used by school 252W
  authorities in determining whether to report offences involving the theft of mobile phones to the police. [40007]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The DfES is concerned for the safety and security of school pupils and staff, and in 1997 issued guidance on school security jointly with the Home Office. This guidance, "School Security: Dealing with Troublemakers", deals with incidents, including thefts, that occur on school premises, and advises schools and local education authorities that offences of theft need to be reported to the police. The guidance does not preclude a pupil or parent reporting any such offence independently.

  Where a school's insurer lays down terms and conditions for the reporting of theft, we expect a school to meet them.

  However, we recognise that school pupils are vulnerable to theft on the way to and from school. If a mobile phone is stolen in such circumstances, it is then a matter for the victim and their parents to report it to the police. They may also wish to inform the school so that the head teacher and local education authority may be able to see if any pattern of crime is arising, and to consider the need for advising pupils and their parents of any consequent action.

  Mrs. Brooke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many cases involving the theft of mobile phones were dealt with by school authorities, without the involvement of the police, in the last two years. [40011]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  We do not collect these figures, nor would it be economic to request them from schools or local education authorities.

  The reporting of criminal incidents to the police is the responsibility of the head teacher of a school. Guidance was issued to head teachers in 1997 by the then Department for Education and Employment, jointly with the Home Office. This guidance, "School Security: Dealing with Troublemakers", advised schools and local education authorities that offences of theft need to be reported to the police.

  The procedure by which such offences are reported should be determined by discussion between schools and the police. In the case of the schools which they maintain, local education authorities also have a key role in monitoring overall security policies. But the primary responsibility for planning a school's security arrangements rests with the governing body of the school.

  Timeplan
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if her Department is reviewing Timeplan's licence to operate. [36603]

  Alan Johnson
  I have been asked to reply.

  The requirement for employment agencies to be licensed was removed by the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. I shall shortly be putting forward proposals for revised employment agency regulations that will greatly strengthen the requirements on agencies supplying teachers and others who work with vulnerable people.
  253W

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

  Royal Commissions
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Solicitor-General if she will list the Royal Commissions undertaken since 1978, the terms of reference and the total costs for each one. [35962]

  Mr. Leslie
  I have been asked to reply.

  Four Royal Commissions have been established since 1978. These are as follows:
  Criminal Procedure [3 February 1978]
  Criminal Justice [14 March 1991]
  Long Term Care for the Elderly [17 December 1997]
  Reform of the House of Lords [18 February 1999].

  The terms of reference are set out in the published reports and can be found in the Library of the House.

  Details of costs are not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Public Appointments
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people from Warrington, North he has appointed to non-departmental public bodies since 1997. [39452]

  Mr. McCartney
  My right hon. Friend has appointed no one from the Warrington area to non-departmental public bodies since 1997.

  Pensions
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of public sector employees are in(a) funded occupational pension schemes, (b) non-funded schemes and (c) neither. [40113]

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

  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what recent representations he has received on the operation of section 67 of the Pensions Act 1995; and whether this will fall within the scope of the Pickering Review. [39999]

  Mr. McCartney
  The Pickering Simplification Review is a comprehensive re-evaluation of private pensions legislation, and section 67 of the Pensions Act 1995 is included in the report's remit. The review has held an extensive consultation exercise, which has generated a considerable number of submissions. These submissions have highlighted a number of areas of pensions law, including section 67 of the Pensions Act 1995.

  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many retirement pensioners are resident abroad, broken down separately for each country with more than five per cent. of the total, and for the remainder collectively; and if he will indicate for each country separately whether a reciprocal payment agreement is in place. [40689]
  254W
  Mr. McCartney
  The information requested is in the table. There are reciprocal agreements with Spain, Republic of Ireland and the USA, as well as some countries included in "Other" in the table.

  Number of people in receipt of retirement pension overseas in each country with more than five per cent. of the total at 30 September 2001

  thousand

  Country

  RP recipients

  Total

  874.0

  Australia

  223.0

  Canada

  142.5

  Republic of Ireland

  89.6

  Spain

  45.6

  USA

  113.8

  Other

  259.6

  Notes:

  1. Figures exclude Northern Ireland and Channel Islands cases.

  2. Figures have been rounded to the nearest 100 and are shown in thousands.

  3. Based on a 5 per cent. sample from the Pension Strategy Computer System at 30 September 2001.

  SERPS (Publicity)
  Mr. Miller
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what further plans he has to publicise the rule changes to inherited SERPS. [40938]

  Mr. McCartney
  We have taken a series of steps to ensure people are made aware of the remedial measures we have taken to rectify the problems created by the failure to publicise adequately the 1986 legislative changes to Inherited SERPS.

  These measures, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced to the House on 29 November 2000, and which subsequently became law on 20 March 2001, were: to postpone any change to the rules on inherited SERPS until October this year; ensure existing pensioners, and people due to reach state pension age before this October were not affected by the change; and phase the reduction for people within 10 years of state pension age—allowing them time to plan ahead.

  During the course of last year, the Department wrote to all existing pensioners, and those whose state pension age falls before 5 October 2002 to reassure them that, in the event of their death, the new rules on Inherited SERPS will not affect their spouses.

  We are now going further to ensure that people understand the changes. From 11 March, the Department will start writing to some 5 ½ million people within 10 years of state pension age—those who, under the new rules, can pass on between a maximum of 90 per cent. and 60 per cent. of their SERPS to a surviving spouse.

  The letter, and the accompanying leaflet, will not only explain how the changes may affect them, but will also give them the opportunity to request an estimate of the SERPS they can pass on, and impartial information on financial planning.

  In addition, from August this year, we will run a media campaign to further disseminate information on the changes to the public at large.
  255W
  We have taken action to ensure that the Department's staff are aware of the new rules, and the Department will also provide a dedicated helpline 0845 600 6116 or textphone 0845 602 1913 to answer further queries and provide information to members of the public.

  Fraud and Error
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the proportion of claims for the children's premium in income support and jobseeker's allowance which have been(a) fraudulent and (b) incorrect. [25988]

  Mr. McCartney
  [pursuant to his reply, 4 February 2002, c. 757W]: There is not a "children's premium" in income support or jobseeker's allowance. People claiming either benefit may claim for dependent members of their household. The latest information on the levels of fraud and error from claiming incorrectly for the number and type of dependents is in the report "Fraud and Error in Claims for Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance from April 2000 to March 2001" a copy of which is available in the Library. However, it is not possible to disaggregate the number of cases in which fraud and error is attributable solely to incorrect claims for dependent children.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Volunteers
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many members of his staff in each of the past two years have been granted a day's paid leave to work as a volunteer; and if he will make a statement. [39731]

  Mr. Leslie
  A survey of Cabinet Office staff in 2001 indicated that at least 4.7 per cent. of staff undertook a wide range of voluntary activities. Records of special paid leave are not held centrally, however, and it is therefore not possible to say how many applications for special paid leave were specifically for volunteering.

  Cabinet Office has always supported the civil service tradition of allowing both paid and unpaid leave for voluntary public duties, and the Department's provisions allow staff the opportunity to do voluntary work of any kind on at least one day a year without loss of pay.

  Fair

  Date (2001)

  Student visitors

  University of Central Lancashire Graduate Fair

  6 June

  800

  Gradunet Virtual Fair

  14 June

  200

  University of Newcastle Careers Fair

  18 June

  1,400

  University of Manchester and UMIST Graduate Fair

  21 June

  3,000

  University of Birmingham Graduate Fair

  22 and 23 June

  8,362

  University of London Careers Service Recruitment Fair

  27 and 28 June

  11,527

  Diversity UK—Ethnic Minority Fair, London

  31 July and 1 August

  1,500

  Manchester Diversity Fair

  17 October

  1,500

  Sheffield Universities Recruitment Fairs

  24 October

  4,500

  University of St. Andrews Graduate Fair, Fife

  24 October

  850

  University of Aberdeen Recruitment Fair

  1 November

  800

  University of Teesside's Careers Fair

  2 November

  950

  ACFF Diversity Fair, London

  13 November

  2,200

  University of Dundee Graduate Fair

  14 November

  900

  Napier University Recruitment Fair, Edinburgh

  14 November

  830

  University of Birmingham Graduate Fair

  6 and 7 November

  5,157

  University of Manchester and UMIST Graduate Fair

  13 and 14 November

  2,729

  University of London Careers Service Recruitment Fair

  5 and 6 December

  7,000

  Civil Servants
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister further to his answer of 7 February 2002,Official Report, column 1130W, on civil service entrants, what is being done to publicise the fast stream development programme to students at institutions of higher education other than Oxford and Cambridge. [38313]

  Mr. Leslie
  Action taken to publicise the fast stream development programme to students at universities other than Oxford and Cambridge has included the following:

  (i) the Cabinet Office Outreach Officer has given careers presentations to promote and raise awareness of the fast stream to ethnic, cultural and religious societies at the following universities: York, Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Birmingham, Leeds Metropolitan, University of Central England and Aston;

  (ii) serving fast streamers gave career presentations at 44 other universities throughout the UK in 2001;

  (iii) of 60 undergraduates participating in the 2001 summer development programme, which provides a six-eight week work placement, and training at the civil service college, 55 came from 27 other universities other than Oxford and Cambridge;

  (iv) 26 of the undergraduates who participated in the 2001–02 winter training course at the civil service college came from universities other than Oxford and Cambridge;

  (v) a group of 24 disabled undergraduates, none of them from Oxford and Cambridge universities, participated in "Dunchester's Millions", a civil service policy game organised with Workable in November 2001. In the last 12 months this training and awareness activity has also been facilitated at three other universities;

  (vi) 23 disabled undergraduates from other universities accepted work placements in the civil service over the summer vacation 2001. A similar programme in conjunction with the charity Workable will run again this summer.

  (vii) career advisers from 38 other universities are scheduled to attend the civil service selection board as observers of the fast stream recruitment process between February and May this year as part of our strategy for raising awareness.

  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister at which graduate fairs the fast stream development programme was publicised last year. [38314]

  Mr. Leslie
  The fast stream development programme was publicised last year at the following graduate recruitment careers fairs:
  257W
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what is being done to make the senior civil service more representative of the population; and how this is publicised across Government. [38316]

  Mr. Leslie
  Thelatest figures for October 2001 released on 21 February show that the civil service is making progress on tackling under-representation at senior levels:25.3 per cent. of the senior civil service are women, up from 17.8 per cent. in 1998. The target for 2004–05 is 35 per cent.
  21.2 per cent. of those in the top 600 posts are women, up from 12.7 per cent. in 1998. The target for 2004–05 is 25 per cent.
  12.3 per cent. of staff at senior civil service level are from a minority ethnic background, up from 1.6 per cent. in 1998. The target for 2004–05 is 3.2 per cent.
  1 1.8 per cent. of staff at senior civil service level have a disability, up from 1.5 per cent. in 1998. The target for 2004–05 is 3 per cent.
  1 These figures exclude data on ethnicity and disability in MOD.

  Individual Departments and agencies have specific initiatives in place to tackle under-representation at senior levels. These are supported by a number of central initiatives, all of which are publicised widely across Government.

  In June 2001, the Cabinet Office launched the Elevator Partnerships, as a pilot informal mentoring scheme for women. The aim of the scheme is partnership between 50 senior women and 50 junior women who appear to be static in career terms, with the aim of encouraging career confidence.

  All Departments were given the opportunity to participate in the pilot. An evaluation of the pilot in the summer will be used to encourage Departments to set up similar schemes.

  The Cabinet Office has launched "Pathways", a central development programme targeted at minority ethnic staff with the potential to rise to senior levels. There is an annual trawl across all Departments for participants and there is a page dedicated to the scheme on the civil service website.

  There is also an annual bursary scheme for disabled civil servants who have the potential to reach a senior management position (at least Grade 7) in the civil service. The scheme provides access and funding for training opportunities and personal development. Applications are invited annually through advertisements in Government publications.

  Working Conditions and Practices
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many people are employed in his Department on a job share contract; and what percentage of vacant positions was advertised on this basis in the last 12 months. [35355]

  Mr. Leslie
  The Cabinet Office currently employs 12 members of staff on a job share contract.

  The Cabinet Office is committed to supporting part-time working, job sharing and other forms of alternative working patterns. The flexibility of the pattern is decided in conjunction with local management to suit an individual's need and the needs of their work.
  258W
  Information on the percentage of vacant positions opened up to job shares is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, since September 2001 it has been my Department's policy that all vacant posts will normally be open to any alternative working pattern, including part-timers and job sharers. The majority of posts advertised in this period will, therefore, have been open to job sharers.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list those employees, executives and directors of(a) Tesco, (b) J Sainsbury, (c) Safeway, (d) Asda and (e) other food retailers who have been appointed to advisory and other roles on bodies in receipt of public funds since May 1997; and if he will list the terms of each such appointment. [39997]

  Mr. Leslie
  Information on the career history of people appointed to non-departmental public bodies, task forces, ad hoc advisory groups and reviews is not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  However, the names of the chairs of public bodies are listed in the annual Cabinet Office publication "Public Bodies".

  The names of the chairs of task forces, ad hoc advisory groups and reviews are listed in the "Report on Task Forces, Ad Hoc Advisory Groups and Reviews". Four of these reports have so far been published in January 2000, July 2000, December 2000 and October 2001. The report published in January 2000 provided information and details between May 1997 and October 1999.

  Copies of "Public Bodies" and of the "Reports on Task Forces, Ad Hoc Advisory Groups and Reviews" have been placed in the Libraries of the House.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Car Licences
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many cars there were with current licences in Northern Ireland in each year since 1997. [39850]

  Dr. John Reid
  Responsibility for this subject has been devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and is therefore no longer a matter for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

  Ministerial Boxes
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland by what means ministerial boxes are conveyed from private offices in his Department to(a) himself and (b) his fellow Ministers; how frequently and at what expense private courier firms are employed for such a task; and which courier firms have been used for such duties. [36277]

  Dr. John Reid
  Ministerial boxes originating from the NIO are transported to the Secretary of State's and Ministers' homes either by Government car or by a service provided by the Royal Mail.
  259W
  Occasionally, these boxes are transported to the Secretary of State and Ministers' constituencies by a private courier firm using competitive rates. For security reasons, it would not be appropriate to disclose the name of the private courier firm.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Sport England
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will publish the notes taken by her officials at the meeting on 14 June 2001 between the chairman of Sport England and the Minister for Sport. [39798]

  Tessa Jowell
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: It is not my Department's practice to publish internal records of meetings. In compiling its report on the Sport England accounts, the National Audit Office has had full access to my Department's papers on this matter.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) on what date the Minister for Sport was informed of Mr. Derek Casey's resignation as chief executive of Sport England; [39797]

  (2) on what dates she was informed (a) that Mr. Derek Casey had resigned as chief executive of Sport England and (b) of the value of the severance package. [39802]

  Tessa Jowell
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: My right hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and I were informed on 14 June that Derek Casey agreed to resign. We were informed of the value of the severance package agreed by Sport England on 3 August.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will publish the(a) date and (b) subject of (i) meetings and (ii) telephone calls between the Minister for Sport and (A) the chief executive of Sport England and (B) the chairman of Sport England, between 1 June and 14 June 2001. [39793]

  Tessa Jowell
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: The only meeting which the Minister for Sport held with either the chief executive of Sport England or the chairman was on 14 June. The Minister set out his draft plans for a new strategic body for sport. At that meeting, Mr. Casey

  Date

  Minister

  City

  Mode of transport

  Purpose

  25–26 January 2001

  Minister for the Arts

  Paris

  Rail

  Opening of John Soane exhibition "La Reve de L'Architecte"

  1–2 July 2001

  Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting

  Brussels

  Rail

  EU Presidency Tourism Summit

  30–31 October 2001

  Minister of State for the Arts

  Paris

  Air

  UNESCO World Heritage Committee elections

  5 November 2001

  Minister of State for the Arts

  Brussels

  Air-out Rail-return

  EU Council of Ministers meeting on Culture and Audiovisual matters

  12 November 2001

  Minister of State for Sport

  Brussels

  Air

  EU Ministerial Conference on Sport

  All travel is made in line with the guidance set out in Chapter 7 of the Ministerial Code and the accompanying guidance document "Travel by Ministers" using the most efficient and cost effective mode of transport and bearing in mind security considerations.

  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will list the official visits
  260W
  announced that he felt it important for a new person to take on the long-term task of building the new structures, and offered his resignation from his position as chief executive of Sport England.

  There is no record of any telephone calls between the Minister and the chairman or chief executive of Sport England between 1 June and 14 June 2001.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will publish the date of the events, other than meetings, at which the Minister for Sport and the chief executive of Sport England, were both in attendance, between 1 June and 14 June 2001. [39796]

  Tessa Jowell
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: There were none.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) if she will publish the correspondence between the Minister for Sport and the chairman of Sport England in which the resignation of Mr. Derek Casey as chief executive of Sport England was referred to; [39795]

  (2) if she will publish correspondence between the Minister for Sport and the chief executive of Sport England between 1 June and 14 June 2001; [39794]

  (3) if she will publish the correspondence between the Minister for Sport and (a) Mr. Derek Casey and (b) Mr. Trevor Brooking regarding the resignation of Mr. Casey from his position as chief executive of Sport England, including Mr. Casey's resignation letter. [39799]

  Tessa Jowell
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: There has been no correspondence between myself, the Minister of State, the chairman and the former chief executive of Sport England on the subject of Derek Casey's resignation.

  Official Visits
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will list the official visits to(a) Paris and (b) Brussels made by each Minister in her Department in 2001 and the mode of travel used; and what guidance is provided to Ministers in her Department on the choice of mode of travel for such visits. [38143]

  Mr. Caborn
  The information you requested is shown in the following table.

  within the UK outside London made by each Minister in her Department in 2001, giving for each (a) the origin and destination and (b) the mode of travel used; and what guidance is provided to Ministers in her Department on choice of mode of travel for official visits. [38179]

  Mr. Caborn
  This information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
  261W
  Ministers regularly travel throughout the UK in the course of their duties and all travel is made in line with the guidance set out in Chapter 7 of the Ministerial Code and the accompanying guidance document Travel by Ministers using the most efficient and cost effective mode of transport and bearing in mind security considerations.

  Museums
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what Government funding has been

  Table 1: Allocation of grant-in-aid to DCMS sponsored museums and galleries

  £ million

  Region

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  2003–04

  England

  206

  203

  219

  229

  246

  268

  275

  London

  184

  185

  197

  205

  218

  238

  243

  South East

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Birmingham

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  West Midlands

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  My Department does not provide core funding for other museums, but supports the wider museum sector in England through Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries.

  Following the creation of the Designated Museums Challenge Fund (DMCF) in 1999 Resource and its predecessor the Museums and Galleries Commission have made the following awards of non-core funding to museums with pre-eminent collections across England:

  Table 2: Non-core support for regional museums via Resource

  £ million

  Region

  1999–2002

  England

  15.0

  London

  2.4

  South East

  1.6

  Birmingham

  0.6

  West Midlands1

  0.9

  1 Excluding Birmingham

  In the Government Spending Review 2000 Resource was allocated an additional £10 million per year to support regional collections. This will now be used to implement the proposals set out in the report of the Regional Museums Task Force "Renaissance in the Regions".

  Royal Parks Police
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what progress has been made on the recommendations made on the Royal Parks Police by Tony Speed and Dan Foley; and when changes will be implemented; [39984]

  (2) if she will list the retirement ages and conditions of retirement of (a) former police officers serving in the Royal Parks Police and (b) officers of the Royal Parks Police who have not served in the police; [39986]

  (3) how many retired police officers receiving a police pension are fully employed by the Royal Parks Police; [39985]

  (4) when the pay rise, due in September, 2001, for the Royal Parks Police will be implemented; and if the pay will be backdated. [39983]
  262W
  made available in each of the last five years for museums in (a) London, (b) the South East, (c) Birmingham, (d) the West Midlands and (e) England; what her projections are for the next three years; and if she will make a statement. [38094]

  Dr. Howells
  My Department's grant funding to its 20 sponsored museums and galleries in England and their branch museums is shown in the table.

  Dr. Howells
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: Responsibility for the subject of these questions have been delegated to the Royal Parks Agency under its Chief Executive, William Weston. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Sandra Smith to Mrs. Cheryl Gillan, dated 4 March 2002:
  I have been asked by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to reply to Parliamentary Questions concerning the Royal Parks Constabulary because these are operational matters for which the Royal Parks Agency is responsible.
  Most of the recommendations of the Speed Report have been implemented. We are currently discussing with the Metropolitan Police Service the option that the Royal Parks Police should become a ring-fenced operational command unit of the Metropolitan Police Service.
  The normal retirement age for officers of the Royal Parks Constabulary, regardless of previous police service, is aged 60. The only exception is for staff in post before 1 January 1994 who have completed less than 20 years service at the age of 60: they have a right to stay on until they have either completed 20 years service or reached the age of 65, whichever is the sooner.
  The Agency is not required to hold records of how many serving RPC officers are retired from other police services and receiving a pension from them.
  The Department are considering the Agency's pay remit, and as soon as they have agreed it we will begin negotiating this year's pay settlement. Whatever is agreed will be backdated to 1 September 2001.

  New Millennium Experience Company
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to her answer of 14 February 2002,Official Report, column 592W, for what reason ownership of the sculpture did not accrue to NMEC. [39147]

  Tessa Jowell: In common with other sculptures at the dome site, NMEC paid only for construction and installation in order to keep the cost affordable. Ownership rights remain with Anthony Gormley, therefore. He has, however, made it clear that he wishes the sculpture to remain on the site. The necessary permissions are being pursued to make this happen.

  Ice Sports (Gloucestershire)
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans she has to site new ice sports facilities in Gloucestershire; and if she will make a statement. [40709]

  Mr. Caborn
  The provision of ice sports facilities is a matter for local authorities to consider. Local authorities are best placed to determine the level of provision required in the light of local needs and the appropriate mixture of public and private provision.

  The Government support the provision of sport and leisure facilities through various means including funding from the Sports Lottery Fund, administered by Sport England. It is for local authorities to apply for this funding. No applications have been received for any new ice sports facilities in Gloucestershire.

  Sport England have informed us there are no plans for the provision of an ice sports facility in Gloucestershire. Sport England's regional strategy report in 1995 recognised the need for new ice sport facilities in the south-west. As ice rinks are relatively expensive to build, any applications for lottery funding would be considered in the context of Sport England's priorities.

  Sports Training
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what recent representations she has received concerning funding for sports training for those aged 16 to 18 years; and if she will make a statement. [40379]

  Mr. Caborn
  Following a recommendation in the March 2001 Government's Plan for Sport, a review of the role that further and higher education can play in the delivery of sport was undertaken by a national advisory group. The group reported back to Ministers in December 2001, and funding issues were covered in its conclusions and recommendations. The Government are currently consulting on the report, and expects to respond to it in April this year.

  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what financial assistance is provided by the Government for sports training for those aged 16 to 18 years. [40378]

  Mr. Caborn
  The Learning and Skills Act 2000 imposes a duty on the Learning and Skills Council to secure provision of organised leisure time activities connected with the training and education of young people aged 16–18. Funds are allocated to learning providers for this purpose.

  Sports Clubs
  Mr. Swire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to her answer of 13 February 2002,Official Report, column 409W, on sports clubs, if she will list those sports representative bodies which provided evidence that the majority of local authorities grant 100 per cent. rate relief. [39973]

  Mr. Caborn
  In my answer of 17 January 2002,Official Report, column 472–73W, to the hon. Member, stated that the majority of local authorities grant rate relief of up to 100 per cent. to local amateur sports clubs.
  264W
  That was not intended to imply that the majority of such clubs receive rate relief at 100 per cent.—simply that the majority of local authorities grant some measure of discretionary relief, and that the majority of amateur clubs benefit from this in some degree.

  That statement was based on informal discussions with Sport England and the Central Council for Physical Recreation. As I informed the hon. Member in my answer of 13 February, no detailed figures exist.

  Press and Public Relations
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many people were employed in a press or public relations function in her Department on 1 January in(a) 1997, (b) 1998, (c) 1999, (d) 2000, (e) 2001 and (f) 2002. [39935]

  Dr. Howells: The number of press officers and publicity officers in my Department at 1 January in each of the last six years was as follows:

  Date

  Press officers

  Publicity officers

  1997

  8

  4

  1998

  19

  14

  1999

  8

  4

  2000

  9

  25

  2001

  8

  24

  2002

  8

  25

  Note:

  1. Includes two officers working part-time

  2. Includes one officer working part-time

  Listed Places of Worship Scheme
  Mr. Letwin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will make it her policy to include church organs as part of the fabric of the building for the purposes of the listed places of worship scheme. [39692]

  Dr. Howells
  [holding answer 1 March 2002]: There are no plans to include church organs in the list of eligible criteria for the listed places of worship scheme. In devising a scheme that is as simple and straightforward as possible to operate, the Government have kept as close as possible to the existing VAT law for listed building alterations, so that if and when a reduced rate is introduced, its scope will mirror as nearly as possible that of the grant scheme.

  Radio Licences (Religious Broadcasters)
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on what basis radio licences are allocated to religious broadcasters. [40358]

  Dr. Howells
  The Radio Authority, which licences all independent radio services in the UK, is given discretion under the Broadcasting Act 1990 to award local analogue, short-term restricted service, satellite and cable licences to religious bodies.

  Religious bodies may apply to the Radio Authority for any of these licences. The Radio Authority will assess such applications against its criteria, as set out in its Code on News and Current Affairs and Programming, and its guidelines on ownership, particularly in respect of

  265W
  compliance with the authority's religious broadcasting guidelines, and ensuring spectrum is available for the service before issuing a licence.

  United Christian Broadcasters
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many representations have been received in support of the removal of existing prohibitions on United Christian broadcasters. [39484]

  Dr. Howells
  We have received over a long period a large number of representations supporting the removal of all prohibitions on ownership of broadcasting licences by religious organisations, including those in support of United Christian Broadcasters. Following my Department's recent consultation on media ownership rules, we received over 8,000 responses from individuals supporting the lifting of the current restrictions. We will

  Outstanding commitments at 31 March each year

  £

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  New Opportunities Fund

  0

  221,126,000

  327,734,699

  560,355,483

  Heritage Lottery Fund

  767,635,904

  864,789,300

  725,425,525

  984,208,744

  Millennium Commission

  1,517,898,000

  1,195,673,000

  666,405,000

  375,100,000

  UK Sport

  0

  0

  2,154,241

  71,612,785

  Sport England

  464,228,095

  503,767,997

  549,508,000

  638,145,000

  Community Fund

  476,130,613

  510,198,796

  616,534,332

  649,184,443

  Arts Council of England

  456,527,849

  380,842,709

  307,865,661

  272,902,320

  Film Council

  0

  0

  9,361,266

  31,964,901

  Golden Jubilee
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what meetings have taken place to discuss sponsorship of events related to the Golden Jubilee celebrations; which(a) members of the Government, (b) companies, (c) organisations and (d) individuals took part; and what the date was of each meeting; [39404]

  (2) if she will list the (a) companies, (b) organisations and (c) individuals who have made donations to the Golden Jubilee project; and what (i) financial and (ii) other donations they each have made; [39385]

  (3) which (a) companies, (b) organisations and (c) individuals have been approached with a view to making donations to fund this year's Golden Jubilee celebrations. [39403]

  Tessa Jowell
  The national events in central London over Jubilee Weekend are being organised by The Queen's Golden Jubilee Weekend Trust which was set up independently of Government. The trust is chaired by Lord Sterling who has responsibility for private sector fundraising. He has approached a number of companies, organisations and individuals about the possibility of their making a contribution. No member of the Government has been involved in that process. Details of the companies that have made donations were released to the press by Lord Sterling on 22 February 2002.
  266W
  announce our decisions on this issue in the draft Communications Bill which we expect to publish in the spring.

  Lottery Projects
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will list for the end of each financial year from establishment of the fund to the latest date for which figures are available, the amounts of lottery money allocated to projects but not yet transferred by(a) the New Opportunities Fund, (b) the Heritage Lottery Fund, (c) the Millennium Commission, (d) UK Sport, (e) Sport England, (f) the Community Fund, (g) the Arts Council of England and (h) the Film Council. [30408]

  Mr. Caborn
  [holding answer 25 January 2002]: The following table show the amount committed, but not paid out, to project operators, by each of the lottery distributors mentioned in the hon. Gentleman's question at 31 March in each year from 1998 to 2001 inclusive. This information is not available prior to 1998.

  Television Licensing Authority
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) under what powers Television Licensing Authority officers visit households seeking permission to enter those premises; [39353]

  (2) whether it is the policy of the Television Licensing Authority to visit the homes of people who do not have television sets. [39352]

  Dr. Howells
  The BBC, as Television Licensing Authority, contracts the day to day administration and enforcement of the licensing system to its agent, TV Licensing (TVL). While there is clearly no benefit in visiting an address if it is known that there is no television receiver there, this information is not always available without a visit. I understand that, in the past, a declaration that no television was in use at an address was normally accepted by TV Licensing as proof of the matter, but that a significant proportion of such declarations turn out to be false. The BBC has indicated that its current policy is therefore that TV Licensing should visit all addresses in respect of which it has received a declaration that no television is in use.

  TV Licensing officials may enter a person's home only with their consent or if authorised to do so by a warrant issued by a magistrate. Under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 (as amended), in order to issue such a warrant a magistrate must be satisfied, by information provided on oath, that there is reasonable ground for suspecting that an offence under the Act has been or is being committed.

  Culture Online
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) how many users she expects the Culture Online project to have(a) from its launch and (b) in each year until 2010; [39391]

  (2) if she will give the full cost and a breakdown of the costs of setting up the Culture Online project; and what is the projected cost for future financial years for which figures are available; [39390]

  (3) when Culture Online will be launched; and if she will make a statement; [39388]

  (4) which organisations and companies have participated in the Culture Online project; and what their (a) financial and (b) other contributions have been. [39389]

  Dr. Howells
  £5 million was allocated to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as part of the 2000 spending review to allow initial development of the project, including the creation of a business case to support continued investment in Culture Online; the cost of developing our proposals for Culture Online so far is £1,833,555.

  Year

  Number

  Type

  Value (£)

  1997–98

  18

  Archives, paintings, musical clock, manuscript, silver wine set, chattels, Celtic miniature shields

  6,892,500

  1998–99

  29

  9th century stone cross, archives, drawings, Handel memorabilia, Phaeton carriage, needlework casket, illuminated manuscript, watercolours, Delft pottery, leather coffer, judicial robe, paintings

  25,992,104

  1999–2000

  13

  Military medals, sculpture, antiquities, archive, paintings, silverware, pastel portraits

  2,558,740

  2000–01

  24

  Paintings, drawings, furniture, silverware, Limoges enamels, archives, medieval books, sculptures, communion set, ivory mirror back, ceramics, land

  16,020,063

  1990–91

  15

  Paintings, drawings, musical instruments, furniture, stamps

  1,353,002

  1991–92

  13

  Porcelain, paintings, motor car, motorcycle, silverware, chattels, sporting memorabilia

  3,423,446

  1992–93

  16

  Marble busts, chattels paintings, sculpture, silver gilt cup and cover, archive, model gun ship, 17th and 18th century glass, land

  6,382,475

  1993–94

  18

  17th and 18th century glass, two surrealist hats, paintings, manuscript, race cup, furniture, sketchbooks, Joseph Hayden Autograph, land

  3,115,000

  Free Museum Entry
  David Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what impact free museum entry in London has had on admission numbers. [39751]

  Dr. Howells
  There has been a 76 per cent. increase in visitors on average at those museums and galleries in London which previously charged for admission, in the two months following the introduction of free entry compared with the same period in 2000–01. This is a tremendous endorsement of the Government's free access policy.

  David Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what proposals are being considered to expand the programme of free museum entry across the United Kingdom. [39750]

  Dr. Howells
  There are no plans to extend free entry to museums beyond free entry to the permanent collections of the main museums and galleries in England to which the Government are committed to ensure universal free access. Entry to the national museums in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is a matter for their devolved Administrations.
  268W
  We are currently considering a number of alternative options for Culture Online and we hope to make an announcement in the near future. This will include details of any further funding available for Culture Online and what user groups Culture Online will target.

  We have involved a large number of cultural educational and ICT organisations in the development of Culture Online. Details of those involved in the Culture Online steering group and Talent Bank are included in the Vision report, which was placed in the Libraries of the House. None of these organisations or companies has made financial contributions to Culture Online.

  Inland Revenue
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will list the(a) number, (b) type and (c) value of items that have been accepted by the Inland Revenue in lieu of tax (i) since May 1997 to the most recent date for which figures are available and (ii) between May 1990 and April 1997. [39392]

  Dr. Howells
  The information requested is in the following table:

  Digital Television
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport which television channels are subject to a must-carry requirement on(a) digital satellite, (b) digital terrestrial and (c) digital cable. [38956]

  Dr. Howells
  No television channels are, in practice, subject to a must-carry requirement.

  For satellite, access is a matter of commercial negotiation, and is regulated by Oftel under the Advanced Television Services Regulations 1996 (SI 1996/3151), as amended by SI 1996/3197.

  In the case of digital services carried by cable, the ITC can, under section 78A of the Broadcasting Act 1990 (as amended), require digital local delivery services to carry public service television channels; but has not considered it appropriate to do so.

  In the case of digital terrestrial television, provision exists in section 28 of the 1996 Act, and through the allocation of radio spectrum by the Secretary of State under section 65 of the 1990 Act and section 6 of the 1996 Act, by which sufficient space is reserved on multiplexes for the carriage of public service channels.
  269W
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what her Department's timetable is for the upgrading of digital television transmitters to widen the distribution of digital television services; [39405]

  (2) when the Government plan to allow the upgrading of transmitters in west Yorkshire. [39406]

  Dr. Howells
  The Digital Television Action Plan, issued on 20 December, sets out a series of actions, with intended completion dates, for Government and stakeholders collectively to determine and agree a target level of coverage for digital terrestrial television and to produce a plan to achieve this. We commenced a three-month consultation on 11 December to inform the spectrum planning process. It is for the digital broadcasters to determine proposals to develop the digital terrestrial transmission network, in consultation with the Independent Television Commission and the Radiocommunications Agency.

  English Tourism Council
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans she has to give the English Tourism Council a marketing budget in order to market England; and if she will make a statement. [39506]

  Dr. Howells
  We are considering how to provide stronger co-ordination of the promotion and marketing of England's tourism assets.

  Websites
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many(a) unique visitors and (b) page impressions have been received by (i) the DCMS website and (ii) the Golden Jubilee website. [39402]

  Dr. Howells
  From February 2001 to February 2002, the DCMS website received(a) 312,150 unique visitors, and (b) 4,351,594 page impressions.

  Since its launch in June 2001 up to February 2002, the Golden Jubilee website received (a) 155,653 unique visitors and (b) 6,131,517 page impressions.

  Job Advertisements
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will list the job advertisements placed by her Department in the last 12 months specifying where the advertisements were placed and the cost in each case. [39061]

  Dr. Howells
  Details and costs of the job advertisements placed by my Department in the last 12 months are shown in the table:

  Job Advertisements

  £

  March 2001

  Collection Assistant (Government Art Collection)

  Museums Association Journal

  1,760

  April 2000

  Assistant Librarian

  Library Association Journal

  806

  270W

  Job Advertisements

  £

  June 2001

  Head of News

  Guardian

  4,839

  October 2001

  Management Opportunities Recruitment Scheme

  Guardian

  Evening Standard

  Ethnic Media Group

  10,386

  November 2001

  Director of Strategy and Communications

  Times/Sunday Times

  Guardian

  Ethnic Media Group

  20,540

  January 2002

  Administration Opportunities Recruitment Scheme

  Evening Standard

  Metro

  4,413

  Publications
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many publications her Department has published in each of the past seven years; if she will list those publications; what the total cost of each publication was; what the total production run for each publication was; what the total distribution for each publication was; how many of those publications are available for download from her Department's website; and if she will make a statement. [38134]

  Dr. Howells
  The publications issued by my Department in the last seven years are listed and those published since 1999 are available electronically on the Department's website.

  Information on the total cost, the production run and the total distribution run of each document could be supplied only at disproportionate cost. I have, however, included the overall yearly figures spent on publications since 1998 to 1999—the period for which information is available electronically.

  £

  1998–99

  288,100

  1999–2000

  448,238

  2000–01

  448,140

  2001–02

  1182,993

  1 To date

  1995–96

  A Candidate's Guide booklet

  A Board Member's Guide

  Library and Information Matters 1994

  Sports White Paper

  Film policy document

  Heritage Green Paper

  Building the Audience

  Digital TV consultation document

  Draft BBC Charter and Agreement

  Press Privacy White Paper

  GAC Catalogue

  Reviewing Committee annual report 1995–96

  271W

  Sport Raising the Game reprint

  Treasure Trove annual report 1994–95

  Public Lending Right annual report

  DNH annual report 1995

  Conservation Unit annual report

  What Listing Means

  Portable Antiquities Booklet

  Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds

  Benchmarking for the Small Hotel sector

  Whitehall Urban Design Guidelines

  Caring for Historic Buildings booklet

  1996–97

  The Bannister report

  BBC Charter booklet

  Sport: Raising the Game Part 2

  Museums Review

  Museum Education report

  Public Libraries Review

  Competing with the Best booklet

  Export of Works of Art 1995–96

  Supporting the Voluntary Sector

  People Taking Part

  National Lottery report

  Public Lending Right report 1995–96

  Legal Deposit consultation paper

  The Deakin report

  Treasure Trove annual report 1995–96

  DNH annual report 1996

  Setting the Level of the TV Licence Fee

  Hotels: The Consumer View—reprint

  Export Licensing Notice Youth Volunteering Development Grants, Application Forms and Guidelines

  Tourism Strategy document

  It Could Be Your Good Cause

  Youth Volunteering Development Grants Scheme

  Youth Challenge document

  Health and Safety Guide

  Artsmark

  ICT document

  The First Five Years

  National Lottery leaflet

  1997–98

  National Lottery White Paper and popular version

  Export of Works of Art 1996–97

  A Guide to the Department

  Government response to Select Committee Report on BBC and Future of Broadcasting

  Interfaith millennium leaflet

  What Listing Means

  GAC leaflet

  Government response to Library and Information Commission

  DCMS annual report 1998

  Response to millennium dome select committee

  272W

  Sustainable Tourism report

  Focus on Change report

  Tourism Forum Bulletin

  Treasure Trove annual report 1996–97

  Children's Play leaflet

  Library and Information Matters 1997–98

  DCMS/Wolfson annual report

  Lottery leaflet 1998

  NOF consultation paper

  Museum Education report

  Treasure Act Code of Practice

  Underwater Archaeology poster and leaflet

  Government Art Collection: Tel Aviv catalogue

  National Lottery White Paper

  Film Policy Review Group report

  UK presidency leaflet and booklet

  Poetry and the presidency booklet

  1998–99

  The Eyre Review

  Export of Works of Art 1997–98

  Response to the select committee on the multimedia revolution

  Creative Industries mapping document

  DCMS annual report 1998

  Commonwealth and Museums report

  Digital Convergence Green Paper

  Portable Antiquities annual report

  Building a Global Audience

  Government response to the LIC report

  DCMS/Wolfson fund annual report 1997–98

  Children's Play leaflet

  National lottery information leaflet

  New Opportunities Fund consultation document

  Interfaith millennium leaflet reprint

  Museums in the Learning Age Sustainable

  Tourism document

  Tomorrow's Tourism strategy report

  1999–2000

  Government Art Collection leaflet

  Export of Works of Art 1998–99

  Government Art Collection Conditions of Loan booklet

  Portable Antiquities annual report

  World Heritage Sites

  Treasure annual report

  Finding Our Past leaflet

  Building a Global Audience

  The Future Funding of the BBC

  Review of the BBC's financial projections

  Creative Industries—report on the creative industries finance conference

  273W

  Creative Industries—Exports: Our Hidden Potential

  Creative Industries—Internet inquiry: Snapshot of a rolling wave

  Creative Industries—Your Creative Future

  Creative Industries—UK Television Exports inquiry

  DCMS annual report 1999

  Local Cultural Strategies

  PAT 10—Policy Action Team 10: report to the social exclusion unit

  A Sporting Future For All

  Libraries for All: Social Inclusion in Public Libraries

  The White Book—Option Appraisal of Expenditure Decision: A Guide for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and its Sponsored Bodies

  Consumers Call the Tune—The Impact of New Technologies on the Music Industry

  Report on the DCMS/Wolfson Fund 1998–99

  Libraries and the Regions—A discussion paper

  Appraisal of annual library plans 1999

  British Library review

  Regional Consortium leaflet

  Efficiency and Effectiveness of Government-sponsored Museums and Galleries

  Report of the Tourism Consumer Group

  Guidance on Disposals of Historic Buildings

  2000–01

  Treasure annual report

  Vacant Plinth Advisory Panel report

  Broadcasting Command Paper

  Review of the Transparency of the BBC

  Creative Industries Finance booklet

  DCMS annual report 2000

  Learning Power of Museums

  Government Art Collection—Conditions of Loan Booklet

  Public Appointments Guidance

  Tax Relief for Charities Booklet

  Music Industry report

  Library Standard report

  Coalfields and the lottery report

  Museums Education report

  Museums Social Inclusion report

  New Opportunities Fund consultation paper

  Better Public Buildings

  A Sporting Future for All

  Tourism Summit leaflet

  Creative Industries mapping document 2001

  DCMS Recruitment booklet

  The Government's Plan for Sport

  Culture and Creativity

  Local Cultural Strategies

  Music Industries Document: Consumers Call the Tune

  Marching into the Millennium

  274W
  2001/02

  Portable Antiquities annual report

  A Vision for Culture online

  London Open House leaflet

  Banking on a Hit report

  Cricket Disorder report

  Operation of the National Lottery—select committee response

  Staging International Sports Events—select committee response

  Tourism—the Hidden Giant and Foot and Mouth—select committee response

  Summer Supplementary Estimates

  Lottery Achievements—The first seven years

  A Force for our Future—The Government Statement on the Historic Environment

  Library and Information Matters—report

  DCMS Publicity Guidelines

  DCMS Event Guidelines

  Report of the Gambling Review Body

  Digital TV—Information for Landlords

  CIEPAG—Achievements leaflet

  Media Ownership Rules consultation paper

  Winter Supplementary Estimates

  Viewers Panel report

  English National Stadium Review

  Public Appointments registration form

  Reappointments declarations form

  PublicReappointments booklet

  DCMS Recruitment literature reprint

  Audio Visual Industries Training Group Report

  Honours Guidance Binder

  Equal Opportunities document reprint

  DCMS Identity Guidelines

  Communications White Paper—select committee response

  Biennial Conservation report

  Creative Industries Finance Conference report

  Export of Works of Art 2000–01.

  Tobacco Sponsorship (Darts)
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what the outcome has been of the Government Task Force set up to help sports find alternative sources of revenue to replace tobacco sponsorship, with particular reference to darts; and if she will make a statement. [40481]

  Mr. Caborn
  The Tobacco Task Force last met in October 1999. Following that meeting it was agreed that the task force had completed its initial work of identifying the needs of sports affected by the ban on tobacco sponsorship. Those sports included in the task force confirmed that it was too soon to be looking to replace existing contracts, and that the situation should be reviewed before the expiry of current contracts. We have been in contact with the member sports since 1999 and will consider the case for reconvening the task force if requested to.

  I have recently been contacted by the British Darts Association. I have confirmed that I am happy to assist the association in discussions with alternative sponsors as and when interested companies are identified.

HEALTH

  Parliamentary Questions
  Ms Stuart
  To ask the Secretary of Health when he will reply to the question from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston to which he gave holding replies in July. [9705]

  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will reply to WPQ numbers(a) 9416, (b) 9403, (c) 8710, (d) 10282, (e) 10262, (f) 11000, (g) 10998,(h) 11957, (i) 12914, (j) 12918 and (k) 13108. [17827]

  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will list, in real terms, for each year since 1979(a) the total sums of money spent directly by his Department in Scotland and (b) the total sums of money allocated by his Department for spending in Scotland through (i) the Scottish Office, (ii) the Scotland Office and (iii) the Scottish Executive; [16184]

  (2) when he will reply to the question from the hon. Member for Beckenham of 14 November (ref. 16184); [21660]

  (3) when he will answer questions no 16189 of 14 November and no 21660 of 4 December. [27405]

  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham can expect answers to his Questions Ref.(a) 7597 (holding answer 15.10.01), (b) 7600 (holding answer 15.10.01), (c) 7606 (holding answer 15.10.01), (d) 24676 (holding answer 15.10.01), (e) 24341 (holding answer 15.10.01), (f) 12606 (holding answer 5.11.01), (g) 19224 (holding answer 29.11.01), (h) 26497 (holding answer 11.1.02), (i) 26496 (holding answer 11.1.02), (j) 26496 (holding answer 11.1.02), (k) 24681 (tabled 17.12.01), (l) 24310 (tabled 17.12.01) and (m) 24326 (holding answer 8.1.02). [37144]

  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will reply to Questions 24600, 24601, 24606 and 24576 tabled on 19 December 2001 and Questions 16847, 16848 and 16853 tabled on 21 November 2001. [39955]

  Mr. Milburn
  I have today replied to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) about delays which have come to light in handling parliamentary questions tabled for this Department.

  I apologise for the delay in replying to these questions. A substantive reply will now be given as soon as possible.

  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health(1) how many named day parliamentary written questions were tabled to his Department between 15 October and 5 November; and what proportion of these have received holding answers; [13308]

  (2) what proportion of those named day parliamentary written questions to his Department that received a holding answer between 15 October and 5 November received the substantive answer (a) within three parliamentary days, (b) within seven parliamentary days, (c) within 10 parliamentary days, (d) within 15 parliamentary days and (e) over 15 parliamentary days after the holding answer was issued. [13327]
  276W
  Jacqui Smith
  [pursuant to her reply, 16 November 2001, c. 950W]: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has today replied to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) about delays which have come to light in handling parliamentary questions tabled for this Department.

  In the light of the events described in my right hon. Friend's answer to my hon. Friend, I will let the hon. Member have a revised reply as soon as possible.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many(a) named day written questions and (b) ordinary written questions to his Department tabled before 30 November 2001 have yet to receive a substantive reply; [33708]

  (2) what the tabling date was of the earliest written question to his Department which is still awaiting a substantive reply. [33709]

  Ms Blears
  [pursuant to her reply, 5 February 2002, c. 923W]: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has today replied to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) about delays which have come to light in handling parliamentary questions tabled for this Department.

  In the light of the events described in my right hon. Friend's answer to my hon. Friend, I will let the hon. Member have a revised reply as soon as possible.

  General Practitioners
  Derek Twigg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of UK medical graduates entered general practice in the last five years. [23893]

  Mr. Hutton
  We do not hold information centrally on the percentage of UK medical graduates who enter general practice.

  The numbers entering general practice registrar posts during the last five years is:

  Number

  1997

  1,343

  1998

  1,446

  1999

  1,520

  2000

  1,659

  2001

  1,883

  Tobacco Policy Team
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when(a) he and (b) other Ministers in his Department met the smoking czar, Nikki Wade. [27361]

  Yvette Cooper
  As a member of the Department of Health's Tobacco Policy Team, Nikki Wade (now Griffiths) is responsible for the co-ordination of the local Alliance Network. Mrs. Griffiths is not and has never been given the title "smoking czar" by the Department of Health. This title was incorrectly attributed to Mrs. Griffiths in an article concerning the launch of the Alliance Network published by the Health Service Journal in November 2000.

  Body-building Drugs
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people have been treated in the NHS for illnesses caused by the overuse of body building drugs in each year since 1997. [28578]

  Yvette Cooper
  Data on the number of drug users presenting to services for the treatment of anabolic steroids are not held centrally.

  Needle exchange schemes that distribute clean needles and syringes have reported they attract steroid users that attend for a supply of clean needles. However, there are no quantitative data available on this across England.

  Health Authority Expenditure
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was(a) the total bill for salaries and expenses for board members, (b) the administrative operating costs and (c) the total annual budget in the latest year for which figures are available for each regional health authority in England. [30199]

  Mr. Hutton
  Regional health authorities were dissolved in 1996. The answer shown in the table provides expenditure by health authority area for(a) authority members' remuneration, (b) authority administration expenditure and (c) total expenditure for 2000–01.

  £000

  Health authority

  Authority members' remuneration

  Administration expenditure

  Total expenditure

  Avon

  441

  19,620

  808,107

  Barking and Havering

  456

  4,912

  313,841

  Barnet

  396

  5,698

  317,222

  Barnsley

  338

  3,830

  196,582

  Bedfordshire

  390

  12,247

  405,606

  Berkshire

  454

  13,619

  585,486

  Bexley and Greenwich

  551

  6,216

  386,555

  Birmingham

  741

  25,335

  891,730

  Bradford

  1,013

  8,615

  387,767

  Brent and Harrow

  286

  6,663

  400,214

  Bromley

  432

  5,797

  284,221

  Buckinghamshire

  555

  11,202

  460,821

  Bury and Rochdale

  449

  3,964

  310,554

  Calderdale and Kirklees

  365

  7,671

  448,263

  Cambridgeshire

  1,341

  14,862

  518,689

  Camden and Islington

  374

  6,094

  537,478

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

  639

  6,351

  392,751

  County Durham and Darlington

  496

  6,302

  495,693

  Coventry

  390

  9,752

  265,956

  Croydon

  543

  4,125

  303,260

  Doncaster

  489

  7,127

  271,638

  Dorset

  1,168

  14,706

  711,560

  Dudley

  365

  3,629

  245,172

  Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow

  570

  16,225

  630,055

  East and North Hertfordshire

  341

  22,112

  377,290

  East Kent

  440

  10,729

  495,988

  East Lancashire

  583

  9,881

  416,671

  East London and the City

  439

  46,738

  715,153

  East Riding and Hull

  476

  5,498

  4151,486

  East Surrey

  488

  8,695

  365,566

  East Sussex, Brighton and Hove

  456

  9,054

  647,275

  Enfield and Haringey

  457

  6,275

  421,984

  Gateshead and South Tyneside

  409

  3,849

  319,730

  Gloucestershire

  392

  5,451

  411,598

  Herefordshire

  629

  4,337

  120,606

  Hillingdon

  747

  6,256

  186,751

  278W
  In many health authorities there are factors which distort expenditure figures for comparison purposes. These affect the answers given for part (c) and include:
  the health authority acting in a lead capacity to commission health care or fund training on behalf of other health bodies;
  asset revaluations in national health service trusts being funded through health authorities; and
  some double counting of expenditure between health authorities and primary care trusts within the health authority area.

  Expenditure cannot therefore be reliably compared between health authorities.

  Allocations per weighted head of population provide a much more reliable measure to identify differences between funding of health authorities.

  Source:

  Health authority audited summarisation forms 2000–01

  Primary care trust audited summarisation schedules 2000–01.

  Expenditure is taken from health authority and primary care trusts within each health authority area. The majority of General Dental Services expenditure is not included in the health authority or primary care trust accounts and is separately accounted for by the Dental Practice Board.

  Health authorities and primary care trusts should account for their expenditure on a gross basis. This results in an element of double counting where one body acts as the main commissioner and is then reimbursed by other bodies. The effect of this double counting within the answer cannot be identified.
  279W

  £000

  Health authority

  Authority members' remuneration

  Administration expenditure

  Total expenditure

  Isle of Wight

  470

  2,284

  118,677

  Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster

  486

  5,975

  509,929

  Kingston and Richmond

  799

  6,411

  278,725

  Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham

  502

  11,575

  803,339

  Leeds

  654

  8,860

  647,260

  Leicestershire

  667

  10,387

  664,488

  Lincolnshire

  413

  7,027

  510,114

  Liverpool

  514

  5,757

  479,438

  Manchester

  825

  10,468

  469,117

  Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth

  923

  14,876

  574,703

  Morecambe Bay

  415

  5,046

  424,583

  Newcastle and North Tyneside

  407

  5,803

  425,973

  Norfolk

  606

  8,925

  598,090

  North and East Devon

  415

  7,172

  377,902

  North and Mid Hampshire

  362

  6,289

  386,281

  North Cheshire

  441

  3,558

  254,458

  North Cumbria

  439

  9,368

  250,278

  North Derbyshire

  414

  4,415

  271,232

  North Essex

  1,225

  20,191

  679,568

  North Nottinghamshire

  951

  9,002

  294,850

  North Staffordshire

  529

  9,141

  375,815

  North West Lancashire

  438

  11,011

  394,099

  North Yorkshire

  503

  8,365

  564,991

  Northamptonshire

  988

  7,729

  427,464

  Northumberland

  369

  3,320

  273,023

  Nottingham

  471

  6,873

  536,389

  Oxfordshire

  371

  7,760

  446,085

  Portsmouth and South East Hampshire

  430

  10,418

  404,181

  Redbridge and Waltham Forest

  377

  4,239

  408,558

  Rotherham

  396

  3,306

  197,645

  Salford and Trafford

  482

  7,600

  407,129

  Sandwell

  518

  6,443

  255,198

  Sefton

  460

  5,746

  310,887

  Sheffield

  489

  10,407

  547,408

  Shropshire

  515

  4,451

  304,921

  Solihull

  315

  3,059

  146,558

  Somerset

  419

  6,973

  380,621

  South and West Devon

  706

  6,751

  481,570

  South Cheshire

  470

  7,253

  513,076

  South Essex

  748

  15,421

  552,193

  South Humber

  787

  5,969

  247,890

  South Lancashire

  374

  3,186

  229,058

  South Staffordshire

  434

  9,609

  406,554

  Southampton and South West Hampshire

  698

  6,798

  407,875

  Southern Derbyshire

  705

  15,432

  421,492

  St. Helens and Knowsley

  397

  4,084

  282,894

  Stockport

  356

  3,696

  212,670

  Suffolk

  392

  7,479

  487,269

  Sunderland

  375

  5,549

  251,410

  Tees

  254

  13,547

  490,027

  Wakefield

  491

  10,390

  286,738

  Walsall

  309

  5,998

  205,300

  Warwickshire

  396

  4,043

  366,166

  West Hertfordshire

  471

  10,271

  401,807

  West Kent

  641

  20,371

  700,901

  West Pennine

  484

  14,989

  359,807

  West Surrey

  436

  6,843

  477,760

  West Sussex

  269

  8,946

  588,497

  Wigan and Bolton

  476

  8,974

  450,150

  Wiltshire

  478

  5,867

  448,801

  Wirral

  438

  3,981

  279,106

  Wolverhampton

  384

  4,392

  198,476

  Worcestershire

  357

  5,534

  394,445

  England total

  51,523

  859,040

  41,041,228

  Private Finance Initiative Contracts
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the total external spend by his Department was on
  280W
  private finance initiative consultants in each of the last four years; how many full-time equivalent consultants were employed over this period; how many billed consultancy days there were per year; what the implied

  281W
  average cost of each PFI consultant was; how many consultancy firms were used by his Department over this period; and if he will make a statement. [31042]

  Mr. Hutton
  The total external spend by the Department on private finance initiative consultancy work from 1998 to date is £607,701.02; broken down and is shown in the table.

  Private finance initiative consultancy work 1998 to date

  Year

  Cost (£)

  Number of firms

  1998

  270,219.50

  2

  1999

  108,824.29

  2

  2000

  60,379.66

  4

  2001

  168,277.57

  6

  The fees charged in the majority of cases was for specific work at an agreed cost with the company. It is therefore not possible to calculate how many consultants were employed, nor how many consultancy days there were per year.

  NHS Operations (Private Sector)
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many operations were carried out under the NHS and performed in the private sector in the last 12 months. [33759]

  Mr. Hutton
  Since November 2000 the Independent Healthcare Association has collected monthly data from independent health care providers about the number of NHS patients treated by them. According to data made available to the Department by the IHA, in the calendar year 2001 at least 71,750 procedures were carried out in the independent sector in England, paid for by the NHS. This includes out-patient appointments, day cases and in-patient treatment.

  Public Appointments
  Mr. Forth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the appointments made by his Department since 1 May 1997 of chairmen of(a) non-departmental public bodies, (b) commissions, (c) inquiries, (d) agencies and (e) task forces; and if he will list their (i) term of office, (ii) salary and (iii) known political affiliation (A) past and (B) present. [33888]

  Ms Blears
  Information relating to non-departmental public bodies and special health authorities (both of which includes commissions) and public inquiries has been placed in the Library. This does not include information

  Region

  Trust

  Project description

  Northern and Yorkshire

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust

  Completion of Reconfiguration of Acute Hospital Services in Newcastle

  Northern and Yorkshire

  Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust

  Implementation of Leeds Acute Services Reconfiguration Strategy

  Northern and Yorkshire

  North Durham Health Care NHS Trust

  Chester-le-Street Community Hospital

  Northern and Yorkshire

  Huddersfield and Calderdale NHS Trusts

  EPR (Electronic Patient Record) scheme

  Northern and Yorkshire

  Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  Northern and Yorkshire

  Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

  Redevelopment of Wharfdale General Hospital

  Northern and Yorkshire

  Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust and Airdale NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  Trent

  Southern Derbyshire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust2, 3

  Acute Reconfiguration

  Trent

  Nottingham Healthcare NHS Trust

  Elderly Mental Health

  Trent

  Doncaster and South Humber NHS Trust

  Mental Health services

  Trent

  Nottingham City Hospital NHS Trust

  Staff residences

  Eastern

  East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust

  Ambulatory Care Centre

  Eastern

  Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust

  Staff accommodation

  282W
  on the political affiliation of chairs of the bodies listed as this is not collected. None of the agencies for which the Department is responsible have chairs. Information on the number, remit and membership of task forces, ad hoc advisory groups and reviews has been published by the Cabinet Office on a regular basis. The first report was published on 11 January 2000 and gives information for the period between 1 May 1997 to 31 October 1999. A second report was published on 27 July 2000, and covered the period 1 November 1999 to 30 April 2000. A third report was published on 27 December 2000 covering the period 1 May 2000 to 31 October 2000. The most recent report: "Task forces, Ad Hoc Advisory Groups and Reviews", which was issued in October 2001, covers the period of the financial year 2000–01. Copies of these reports are available in the Library.

  Wanless Report
  Dr. Evan Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the impact of the recommendations for future health care in the interim report by Derek Wanless and the medicine reclassification initiatives upon plans for the future training of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals; and if he will make a statement on the plans for such training. [36296]

  Mr. Hutton
  HM Treasury commissioned a report by Derek Wanless, "Securing our Future Health: Taking a Long-Term View" to review the technological, demographic and medical trends over the next two decades that will affect the national health service. An interim report has been issued for consultation. A final report is expected later this year.

  The Government are committed to making more medicines more widely available where it is safe to do so and the training and information needs of health care professionals and patients is an integral part in this process.

  Public-Private Partnerships
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which public-private partnerships with a capital value in excess of £1 million are under negotiation by his Department; and if he will make a statement. [36368]

  Mr. Hutton
  The table lists the private finance initiative schemes with a capital value of £1 million or greater which are currently under negotiation. All these schemes have placed an Official Journal of the European Communities notice and have yet to reach final close.
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  Region

  Trust

  Project description

  Eastern

  Hinchingbrooke NHS Trust

  DTC

  London

  Havering Hospitals NHS Trust

  Redevelopment of Hospital facilities

  London

  Newham Healthcare NHS Trust

  Rationalisation

  London

  The Whittington Hospital NHS Trust

  Redevelopment of Acute Hospital Services

  London

  Parkside Health NHS Trust

  Willesden

  London

  West London Pathology Consortium

  Pathology Systems

  London

  Havering Hospital NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  London

  King's Healthcare NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  London

  Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  London

  Lewisham Hospital NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  London

  Barts and The London NHS Trust

  Acute rationalisation

  London

  South West London Community Trust

  Reconfiguration of Queen Mary's Roehampton

  South East

  Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust

  Acute rationalisation

  South East

  Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust

  Radcliffe infirmary relocation to John Radcliffe Hospital site

  South East

  Stoke Mandeville Hospital NHS Trust

  Partial Redevelopment

  South East

  Newbury Primary Care NHS Trust

  Consolidation of sites in Newbury

  South East

  Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS Trust

  Orthopaedic/Medicines redevelopment

  South East

  Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Trust

  Mental Health Acute Hospital reprovision

  South East

  East Kent Community NHS Trust

  West View Reprovision Joint NHS/Local Authority

  South East

  Brighton Health Care NHS Trust

  Renal Unit Reprovision

  South East

  Northampton Community Healthcare NHS Trust

  Danetre Community Health Centre Joint NHS/Local Authority

  South East

  Invicta Community Care NHS Trust

  Mental Health Reprovision

  South East

  Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Trust

  Acute Mental Health Ward reprovision

  South East

  Brighton Health Care NHS Trust

  Brighton Education Centre

  South East

  Bournewood Community and Mental Health NHS Trust

  Walton and Chertsey Health Centres

  South East

  Ashford and St. Peter's NHS Trust

  Energy Management Scheme

  South East

  Mid-Sussex NHS Trust

  Low Secure Unit

  South East

  Royal Berkshire and Battle Hospitals NHS Trust

  RBBH EPR

  South East

  Royal Surrey County Hospital

  EPR scheme

  South East

  Heatherwood and Wexham Park NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  South East

  Milton Keynes General NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  South East

  South Buckinghamshire NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  South East

  Stoke Mandeville NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  South West

  Gloucestershire Royal NHS Trust

  Site redevelopment

  South West

  Exeter and District Community Health Services NHS Trust

  Tiverton Hospital

  South West

  Cornwall Healthcare NHS Trust

  Western Mental Health, Cambourne and Redruth

  South West

  South West Regional Procurement

  EPR systems

  South West

  Swindon and Marlborough

  EPR scheme

  South West

  Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnerships NHS Trust

  Reprovision of mental health services

  West Midlands

  North Staffordshire Hospital NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  West Midlands

  University Hospitals Warwickshire and Coventry NHS Trust

  New DGH

  West Midlands

  Mid-Staffordshire General Hospitals NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  West Midlands

  Birmingham City Hospital NHS Trust

  DTC

  North West

  Central Manchester Healthcare NHS Trust

  Service Reconfiguration

  North West

  Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Healthcare NHS Trust

  Site Rationalisation

  North West

  Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Trust

  Staff Residential Accommodation

  North West

  Christie NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  North West

  Blackburn NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  North West

  Burnley NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  North West

  North Manchester NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  North West

  Chorley and Preston NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  North West

  Salford Mental Health NHS Trust

  EPR scheme

  Speech Therapy
  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many students(a) successfully completed speech and language therapy courses and (b) were recruited to courses in speech and language therapy in 2001. [36773]

  Mr. Hutton
  The Department does not record the number of students who successfully complete training courses.

  558 students started speech and language training courses during 2000–01.

  NHS Staff
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what qualifications short of professional training are available to health care assistants and unqualified nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff. [37379]

  Mr. Hutton
  Extending the skills, potential and careers of NHS staff is a fundamental part of the NHS Plan and "Working Together—Learning Together, a Framework for Lifelong Learning for the NHS". Copies of these are available in the House of Commons Library. Decisions on training are taken by individual staff and local NHS organisations in the light of local, national service frameworks and NHS Plan priorities.
  285W
  The Learning and Skills Council (LSC), established in April 2001, is responsible for overseeing, planning and funding post-16 education and training in England. The NHS in England is increasingly taking advantage of the full range of national education and training frameworks, particularly national vocational qualifications (NVQs). Healthcare assistants and unqualified nursing and midwifery staff generally undertake NVQ levels 2 and 3 in Care.

  Mixed Sex Mental Health Wards
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what targets he has set as regards the ending of mixed sex mental health wards; what progress has been made; and if he will make a statement. [37388]

  Ms Blears
  We have set a target of December 2002 for the provision of single sex accommodation in 95 per cent. of trusts. Information on mental health accommodation is not kept separately.

  On-going monitoring of the progress of the project continues and indicates that progress towards the targets in being maintained. Work is continuing to ensure that this remains the case.

  Additional professional and technical support is being made available to those who are finding meeting the targets particularly challenging.

  Cancer
  Mr. Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much was spent on chemotherapy in the UK per head of the population in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement. [38076]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Department does not collect figures on the cost of national health service services in a way that enables an accurate figure to be calculated for expenditure on chemotherapy.

  Mr. Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list each NHS health authority in England and Wales that(a) does and (b) does not (i) conduct non-emergency operations relating to cancer on Saturdays and Sundays and (ii) administer non-emergency radiotherapy treatment on Saturdays and Sundays. [38075]

  Yvette Cooper
  The information requested is not available centrally.

  Mr. Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of cancer patients have developed neutropenia while receiving chemotherapy in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [38084]

  Yvette Cooper
  There are 220,000 new cases of cancer registered each year.

  Analysis on the hospital episode statistics database shows that in 2000–01 there were 6,600 in-patient admissions for neutropenia. Of these, 2,470 admissions had a cause related to chemotherapy.

  Mr. Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many women in each NHS health authority in England and Wales were screened for breast cancer in(a) the year prior the implementation of the NHS Breast Cancer Screening Programme and (b) during the first year
  286W
  of the programme; and what the average waiting times for radiotherapy were in each NHS health authority for those years. [38078]

  Yvette Cooper
  The national health service breast screening programme began in 1988 following a successful trial, the United Kingdom trial of the early detection of breast cancer and the publication of the Forrest report in 1986'. Before 1988, the only unit undertaking breast screening by mammography in England was the Guildford centre, which was the English site for the trial. In 1987–88, the year before the programme began, it is estimated that 5,000 women were screened at the Guildford centre.

  In 1988–89, the first year of roll-out of the national programme, 110,000 women were screened in the UK. These data are not available by health authority.

  Data on the average waiting times for radiotherapy in each health authority for 1987–88 and 1988–89 are not held centrally.
  1 Screening: Report to the Health Ministers of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland 1986
  Mr. Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the NHS health authorities in England and Wales that(a) are and (b) are not meeting the target in the NHS cancer plan of a maximum one month wait from diagnosis to treatment for patients referred for breast cancer treatment. [38077]

  Yvette Cooper
  The NHS Cancer Plan targets are only applicable to England. The maximum target wait of one month from diagnosis to first definitive treatment for breast cancer came into effect on 31 December 2001. Central monitoring began on 1 January 2002 and data will be published later in the year.

  Mr. Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to introduce a system of therapy and counselling for(a) patients and (b) families of patients who have been diagnosed as having cancer; and if he will make a statement. [38083]

  Yvette Cooper
  As part of the NHS Cancer Plan we are developing a supportive care strategy. The strategy includes ensuring that people affected by cancer are able to access the right professional support, treatment and help, from when cancer is first suspected through to death and bereavement. As part of the strategy, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has been asked to develop and publish evidence-based guidance on supportive and palliative care. The initial NICE findings will be available from summer 2002 and will include guidance on psychological and social support for patients and carers.

  Mr. Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of(a) lung, (b) breast, (c) prostate, (d) ovarian and (e) leukaemia cancer patients who have been initially diagnosed as suffering from curable cancer have been considered incurable by the time treatment began in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [38074]

  Yvette Cooper
  The information requested is not available centrally.
  287W
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average population served by each UK hospital offering specialised cancer care was in the last 12 months for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement on the variations by(a) nation and (b) region. [38239]

  Yvette Cooper
  Information is not available in the form requested. Although efforts have been made to quantify catchment populations at a trust level, all calculations are based on ward-resident populations. Therefore cancer network populations are more appropriate. Cancer services are provided by cancer networks which bring together primary and community care and secondary care services. Data on cancer network populations for England are shown in the table. Further information is available at http://www.canceruk.net/catchment/catchment.htm

  Cancer services catchment populations by network—England March 2000

  Number

  Greater Manchester and Cheshire

  3,031,185

  Mount Vernon (Herts, Beds, NW London)

  2,844,717

  Four Counties (Berks, Bucks, Northants, Oxford, Wiltshire)

  2,760,312

  Pan Birmingham

  2,578,723

  Yorkshire

  2,492,752

  Avon, Somerset and Wiltshire

  2,053,076

  Merseyside and Cheshire

  2,031,650

  Mid Trent

  1,837,472

  Central South Coast

  1,811,372

  West London

  1,807,752

  Northern

  1,792,520

  Kent

  1,706,833

  North Trent

  1,662,291

  Black Country

  1,637,248

  West Anglia

  1,610,806

  North West Midlands

  1,512,214

  Devon and Cornwall

  1,473,707

  North East London

  1,468,266

  South West London

  1,445,978

  Lancashire and South Cumbria

  1,428,763

  South East London

  1,388,034

  Arden

  1,286,123

  North London

  1,238,966

  Surrey, West Sussex and Hampshire

  1,224,704

  3 Counties (Gloucs, Hereford, Worcs)

  1,198,068

  Humber and Yorkshire Coast

  994,309

  Sussex

  983,718

  Mid Anglia

  909,756

  Leicestershire

  804,200

  Norfolk and Waveney

  682,461

  Teeside, South Durham and North Yorkshire

  660,891

  Derby, Burton

  640,798

  South Essex

  617,359

  Dorset

  613,958

  No Network

  510,105

  Grand Total

  52,741,084

  NHS Treatment Costs
  Barbara Follett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average cost of each NHS treatment with a patient by(a) a GP, (b) a nurse, (c) a consultant and (d) a chiropodist or podiatrist was in the last three years. [38223]

  Mr. Hutton
  The cost information that we hold centrally is not based on the individual staff categories that perform given treatments and procedures, but is linked to the procedures/treatments themselves. We hold annual information on unit costs and activity for services provided by NHS Trusts, Primary Care Trusts and Personal Medical Services plus element.
  288W
  For chiropody/podiatry the majority of services are provided through clinics in various settings. For example in Reference Costs 2001, which was recently published, the national average cost of a chiropody/podiatry attendance was £18 in a NHS Trust. Chiropody/podiatry attendances in Primary Care Trusts and Personal Medical Service Pilots have an average cost per attendance of £18 and £10 respectively.

  This information on chiropody/podiatry services has been collected for the first time for the 2000–01 publication and therefore historic information for these services is not available. The cost of a range of inpatient and day case procedures undertaken by consultants is also available.

  £

  Foot procedures

  Category 1

  Category 2

  Elective inpatient

  913

  1,104

  Non-elective inpatient

  1,163

  1,443

  Day case

  527

  534

  The full range of reference cost information 2001 can be found on the Department's website at www.doh.gov.uk/nhsexec/refcosts.htm. The site holds reference cost information from 1998 onwards. Details in hard copy are also held in the Library.

  HIV/AIDS
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of the HIV prevention moneys allocated to health authorities for 1999–2000 was used for targeted prevention work with(a) people with family links to sub-Sarahan Africa, (b) injecting drug users, (c) women having sex with people in at-risk groups and (d) gay and bisexual men based on AIDS Control Act reports submitted to the Department. [38476]

  Yvette Cooper
  £53.4 million was allocated to health authorities in 1999–2000 for HIV prevention. Approximately 6 per cent. was targeted at people with links to sub-Saharan Africa, 14 per cent. at injecting drug users, 3 per cent. at women partners of men in high risk groups, and 21 per cent. at gay and bisexual men.

  General Practitioner
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what measures he has taken to reduce the prevalence of HIV infections in heterosexual males; and if he will make a statement. [37801]

  Yvette Cooper
  The national strategy for sexual health and HIV prioritises the HIV prevention needs of groups most affected by HIV, including people from, or with links to, high prevalence countries (currently in Africa), injecting drug misusers and men who have sex with men. The strategy also proposes a target to reduce by 50 per cent. the number of previously undiagnosed HIV infected people attending genito-urinary clinics who remain unaware of their infection by the end of 2007.

  Latest estimates of the number of adults living in the United Kingdom with HIV infection indicate that nearly half of all infections in male heterosexuals are

  289W
  undiagnosed. These men are therefore unable to benefit from HIV treatment services and health promotion to reduce the likelihood of infecting their partners.

  Figures from the Public Health Laboratory Service show that, to date, a total of 5,813 men and 7,630 women diagnosed in the UK are presumed to have acquired HIV through heterosexual sex. This compares to almost 27,000 diagnoses in gay and bisexual men. The majority of heterosexuals with HIV are of African origin and acquired their infection abroad.

  In line with the strategy, the Department will launch later this year a new information campaign for the general population on safer-sex, which will cover the prevention of sexually transmitted infections including HIV.

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what appeal procedures will be open to general practitioners who disagree with the conclusions of the proposed annual appraisals. [38435]

  Mr. Hutton
  Primary care trusts will be responsible locally for organising and supporting the appraisal of each of their general practitioners (GPs). The GP appraisal framework, issued by the Department, makes clear that in discharging this function, each PCT will be expected to establish effective procedures to deal with worries or concerns from individual GPs about the process or outcomes of appraisal.

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the estimated cost is of the proposed annual appraisal of general practitioners. [38436]

  Mr. Hutton
  Research commissioned by the Department suggests that the average time commitment for the appraisee will be between 4; to 6; hours. However this will vary between different GPs. In addition, the appraisal process will in some cases systemise existing arrangements in GP practices or Personal Medical Services pilots for monitoring and reviewing professional development. The GP appraisal framework makes clear that primary care trusts (PCTs) are responsible locally for organising and resourcing the new appraisal system. The 2002–03 health authority revenue resource limits circular (HSC 2001/024) made clear that PCTs should identify resources to support the new system and that they should have a funded policy on the provision of locum cover.

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what opportunity there will be for patients to make representations about their general practitioners for use in annual appraisals. [38434]

  Mr. Hutton
  The appraisal documentation requires the general practitioner being appraised to include consideration of his or her relationships with patients. Examples of documentation which may be used to inform this aspect of the appraisal includes patient survey data; significant event reports; any complaints or other representations received from patients, including any appreciative feedback.

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what standards will be used against which GPs can be measured in making annual appraisals. [38433]

  Mr. Hutton
  The general practitioner appraisal framework issued by the Department explains that the annual appraisal of a GP will be based on the core 290W
  headings set out in the "Good Medical Practice" document, published by the General Medical Council. These comprise:

  Good clinical care

  Maintaining good medical practice Relationships with patients

  Working with colleagues

  Teaching and training

  Probity

  Health.

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what sanctions will be available for use against general practitioners who fail the proposed annual appraisal. [38442]

  Ms Abbott
  The primary aim of appraisal is to help general practitioners consolidate and improve on good performance. Appraisal will support the continuing personal and professional development of GPs.

  The appraisal will not result in a pass or fail. It should conclude by setting down, as an action plan, the agreements that have been reached about what each party is committed to doing. This should include the essentials of the personal development plan (PDP). The appraisal should identify individual needs that will be addressed through the PDP. The appraiser and appraisee should review progress against the PDP and these actions during the course of the year and at the next appraisal discussion.

  It should be exceptional for serious concerns about performance to be first raised in an appraisal. However, where it becomes apparent, during the appraisal process, that there is a potentially serious performance issue, which requires further discussion, the appraiser must refer the matter immediately to the PCT clinical governance lead or PCT Chief Executive to take appropriate action. This may for example include referral to any support arrangements that may be in place.

  Public Health (Municipal Incinerators)
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what evidence he has evaluated concerning the impact on children's health of the proximity of municipal incinerators. [38830]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: The Department is aware of relevant epidemiological studies of childhood cancers, birth defects, and respiratory health, chromosomal aberrations, thyroid hormone levels, and pollutant levels in children, in relation to incinerators. Nearly all of these studies were conducted in countries other than the United Kingdom and are of an older generation of incinerators which would fail to meet current requirements for pollution control and emission standards for municipal incinerators in this country. The studies fail to provide convincing evidence that municipal incinerators affect children's health.

  A report on "Health Effects of Waste Combustion Products", published in 1997 by the Medical Research Council Institute for Environment and Health, concluded that
  "Epidemiological studies of people who work at or live near incinerators have shown no consistent excess incidence of any specific disease."
  291W
  Similarly, a report on "Waste Incineration and Public Health", published in 1999 from the US National Research Council, concluded that "Few epidemiological studies have attempted to assess whether adverse health effects have actually occurred near individual incinerators, and most of them have been unable to detect any effects. The studies of which the committee is aware that did report finding health effects had shortcomings and failed to provide convincing evidence."

  A 1997 study by Knox and Gilman EA on "Hazard proximities of childhood cancers in Great Britain from 1953–80" claimed that childhood cancers were associated with industrial atmospheric effluents. It was considered by independent expert advisory Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment, which
  "noted a number of major limitations in the methodology used which we believe prevent any conclusions being drawn from these data",
  and advised that
  "we do not consider that any further work is warranted".

  £

  Health authority area

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Avon

  638.16

  683.57

  747.51

  810.53

  Barking and Havering

  625.42

  640.62

  700.84

  748.55

  Barnett

  673.35

  673.84

  768.20

  939.62

  Barnsley

  563.45

  572.70

  679.59

  739.66

  Bedfordshire

  597.57

  638.42

  696.69

  739.78

  Berkshire

  612.07

  655.71

  718.34

  757.49

  Bexley and Greenwich

  647.29

  683.24

  793.77

  828.82

  Birmingham

  670.17

  691.96

  749.03

  764.32

  Bradford

  627.22

  620.53

  724.17

  692.45

  Brent and Harrow

  676.69

  718.59

  823.35

  804.74

  Bromley

  594.78

  623.30

  793.39

  791.35

  Buckinghamshire

  622.91

  652.66

  685.31

  730.37

  Bury and Rochdale

  625.40

  616.49

  707.36

  740.61

  Calderdale and Kirklees

  585.69

  597.34

  691.84

  742.27

  Cambridge and Huntingdon

  628.29

  682.69

  N/A

  N/A

  Cambridgeshire

  N/A

  N/A

  702.68

  727.68

  Camden and Islington

  670.94

  745.05

  834.92

  974.71

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

  621.90

  638.13

  751.33

  766.48

  County Durham

  588.54

  608.76

  675.16

  707.44

  Coventry

  594.35

  599.78

  676.64

  733.34

  Croydon

  602.78

  653.25

  712.27

  896.26

  Doncaster

  616.50

  620.15

  711.02

  710.42

  Dorset

  608.70

  649.09

  743.89

  932.50

  Dudley

  593.34

  625.00

  684.70

  728.03

  Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow

  660.69

  676.78

  747.62

  801.92

  East and North Hertfordshire

  660.28

  704.91

  707.99

  755.61

  East Kent

  593.74

  637.27

  703.87

  766.12

  East Lancashire

  625.16

  631.03

  720.19

  706.83

  East London and The City

  642.21

  637.79

  789.78

  812.98

  East Norfolk

  639.37

  665.87

  N/A

  N/A

  East Riding

  620.29

  637.16

  716.52

  770.24

  East Surrey

  716.22

  770.47

  837.92

  872.74

  East Sussex, Brighton and Hove

  605.10

  622.72

  780.63

  778.73

  Enfield and Haringey

  596.63

  626.60

  717.28

  791.72

  Gateshead and South Tyneside

  614.85

  613.17

  677.22

  727.09

  Gloucestershire

  647.04

  659.61

  745.23

  778.71

  Herefordshire

  687.03

  675.53

  825.52

  671.61

  Hillingdon

  612.52

  649.09

  719.40

  614.53

  Isle of Wight

  680.61

  708.73

  773.74

  836.61

  Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster

  691.53

  706.81

  795.92

  878.86

  Kingston and Richmond

  700.65

  739.04

  769.12

  795.64

  Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham

  640.25

  668.31

  804.71

  852.49

  Leeds

  650.93

  646.72

  755.50

  785.61

  Leicestershire

  642.73

  646.99

  739.63

  762.11

  Lincolnshire

  683.05

  657.34

  725.73

  746.46

  Liverpool

  628.60

  640.29

  749.48

  808.94

  292W
  A later paper by Knox published in 2000 developed the same methodology and claimed an increased incidence of childhood cancer in children born near incinerators, but was based on the same methodology, and related to exposures from over two decades ago.

  Health Expenditure
  Dr. Evan Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list for(a) Great Britain and (b) each health authority area, the expenditure on health by weighted head of population, expressed in real terms, for each year since 1997 for which figures are available. [39544]

  Mr. Hutton
  Information relating to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is a matter for the devolved Administrations.

  The expenditure on health by weighted head of population in real terms for each health authority area in England for each year since 1997 is shown in the table.

  Expenditure by health authorities and primary care trusts.
  293W

  Health authority area

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Manchester

  659.87

  693.00

  787.86

  761.45

  Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth

  660.03

  699.38

  839.01

  796.03

  Morecambe Bay

  680.79

  701.70

  786.62

  794.67

  Newcastle and North Tyneside

  634.64

  664.58

  787.25

  787.58

  Norfolk

  N/A

  N/A

  740.53

  760.50

  North and East Devon

  650.65

  664.15

  724.43

  769.90

  North and Mid Hampshire

  653.09

  686.32

  735.98

  813.99

  North Cheshire

  625.46

  641.18

  721.36

  756.15

  North Cumbria

  625.51

  654.38

  704.01

  757.42

  North Derbyshire

  638.91

  665.18

  684.19

  719.00

  North Essex

  623.82

  647.87

  740.78

  777.34

  North Nottinghamshire

  604.53

  612.79

  715.05

  679.24

  North Staffordshire

  606.03

  610.27

  687.60

  725.72

  North West Anglia

  607.39

  629.74

  N/A

  N/A

  North West Lancashire

  599.01

  601.87

  721.61

  746.26

  North Yorkshire

  657.16

  703.80

  722.87

  763.24

  Northamptonshire

  603.11

  635.16

  713.85

  734.29

  Northumberland

  664.02

  677.71

  752.58

  751.21

  Nottingham

  598.29

  693.34

  723.95

  780.25

  Oxfordshire

  614.25

  639.92

  733.57

  779.26

  Portsmouth and South East Hampshire

  567.61

  631.87

  682.05

  733.14

  Redbridge and Waltham Forest

  651.23

  699.27

  748.03

  812.97

  Rotherham

  573.85

  588.40

  702.11

  742.99

  Salford and Trafford

  608.17

  630.56

  740.20

  784.35

  Sandwell

  625.16

  651.68

  709.97

  744.36

  Sefton

  620.06

  639.29

  719.10

  1,023.16

  Sheffield

  639.35

  645.20

  771.96

  769.93

  Shropshire

  616.71

  636.59

  729.71

  740.94

  Solihull

  679.92

  704.23

  700.29

  736.55

  Somerset

  633.21

  662.55

  709.49

  754.86

  South and West Devon

  619.25

  634.98

  726.34

  735.69

  South Cheshire

  632.95

  673.90

  709.08

  743.64

  South Derbyshire

  643.24

  648.31

  688.78

  717.08

  South Essex

  591.61

  614.43

  673.43

  721.20

  South Humber

  675.04

  713.20

  784.66

  765.98

  South Lancashire

  644.54

  683.94

  748.52

  735.88

  South Staffordshire

  622.63

  632.70

  699.52

  758.07

  Southampton and South West Hampshire

  632.49

  674.77

  738.44

  706.49

  St. Helens and Knowsley

  605.61

  620.49

  670.55

  722.31

  Stockport

  605.20

  626.59

  728.46

  746.47

  Suffolk

  628.39

  667.78

  717.21

  757.91

  Sunderland

  597.41

  591.13

  688.21

  760.22

  Tees

  579.50

  608.08

  735.18

  768.50

  Wakefield

  711.04

  715.51

  713.77

  801.36

  Walsall

  596.74

  633.92

  726.59

  739.30

  Warwickshire

  689.05

  691.18

  741.27

  771.73

  West Hertfordshire

  659.88

  686.68

  725.94

  765.17

  West Kent

  624.15

  656.07

  771.41

  744.60

  West Pennine

  567.85

  578.28

  674.21

  712.85

  West Surrey

  663.18

  698.46

  781.74

  809.35

  West Sussex

  605.96

  653.17

  694.99

  742.11

  Wigan and Bolton

  571.93

  587.38

  660.84

  717.35

  Wiltshire

  652.32

  691.15

  776.22

  807.29

  Wirral

  582.48

  639.63

  717.31

  758.47

  Wolverhampton

  595.73

  617.13

  698.10

  739.83

  Worcestershire

  687.86

  707.86

  731.92

  801.38

  Notes:

  1. Expenditure is taken from health authority and primary care trust summarisation forms which are prepared on a resource basis and therefore differ from cash allocations in the year.

  2. Allocations per weighted head of population provide a much more reliable measure to identify differences between funding of health authorities.

  3. The expenditure is the total spent on commissioning health care by the health authority and by the primary care trusts within each health authority area. The majority of General Dental Services expenditure is not included in the health authority or primary care trust accounts and is separately accounted for by the Dental Practice Board. The majority of drugs expenditure in 1997–98 and 1998–99 and a smaller element in 1999–2000 and 2000–01 is accounted for by the Prescription Pricing Authority and not by health authorities.

  4. Health authorities and primary care trusts should account for their expenditure on a gross basis. This results in an element of double counting in 2000–01 where one body acts as the main commissioner and is then reimbursed by other bodies. The effect of this double counting within the answer cannot be identified.
  294W 295W
  5. Some health authorities act as lead commissioners for particular specialties which inflates their figures when compared with others and also causes differences between years. Other factors may also distort the figures so the results are therefore not all directly comparable with each other and with answers to similar questions for previous years.

  Source:

  Health authority audited accounts 1997–98 and 1998–99

  Health authority audited summarisation forms 1999–2000 and 2000–01

  Primary care trust audited summarisation schedules 2000–01

  Weighted population estimates for 1997–98 to 2000–01

  GDP deflator at market prices with 2000–01 as the base year

  European Health Care Integration
  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on his policy towards the impact of European integration on member states' health care systems with reference to paragraph 30 of the Laeken conclusions. [39634]

  Jacqui Smith
  The organisation, funding and delivery of care should be a matter for member states to reflect the specific care needs of our population. However, we have much to learn from each other and it is important that we share common experience and best practice to promote a high level of health care and care for all EU citizens in view of the challenges presented by an aging population. This is best achieved by co-operation on a bilateral and multi-lateral level.

  The EU Social Protection Committee and the Economic Policy Committee will present an initial report on orientations in the field of health care for the elderly to Heads of Government at the Barcelona Council on 14–15 March.

  Salt
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if stakeholders were(a) contacted by the SACN and (b) asked to submit evidence to the review on salt. [40301]

  Yvette Cooper
  Interested parties were alerted to the review through information placed on the SACN website, which included a call for submissions on evidence. Four key stakeholders—the Food and Drink Federation, the British Retail Consortium, the Salt Manufacturers Association and Consensus Action on Salt and Health—were alerted to the intended review so that they could submit evidence if they so wished.

  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the remit is of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition's review of the evidence on salt since 1994. [40300]

  Yvette Cooper
  At the first meeting of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) sub-group on salt (25 January 2002), the group agreed that its purpose was to review the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy's 1994 recommendation (for a "reduction in the average intake of sodium by reducing salt intake by a third, from 9g to 6g per day") in the light of any new evidence, taking into account the submissions that had been received from interested parties; and to consider making recommendations for children.

  Distances from target (percentage)

  Distances form targets (£000)

  Health authority

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Avon

  -1.87

  0.40

  -1.17

  -1.13

  -1.25

  -0.36

  -7,805

  1,720

  -6,924

  -7,351

  -8,757

  -2,992

  Barking and Havering

  2.43

  0.88

  -0.75

  0.92

  1.45

  -0.01

  4,299

  1,660

  -1,934

  2,573

  4,332

  -19

  296W
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition will publish the evidence received from the stakeholders(a) during and (b) after the outcome of the dietary sodium review. [40302]

  Yvette Cooper
  The minutes of the sub group's first meeting will be placed on the SACN website?www.sacn.gov.uk—once they have been agreed by the Chair and members. The agenda of the meeting and a list of papers and submissions submitted to SACN have already been placed on the website. Interested parties can request copies of papers through the SACN secretariat.

  Hospital Discharges
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance his Department issues to health authorities on handling situations where patients released after delayed discharge refuse to leave the hospital. [39312]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: A patient's discharge is only regarded as delayed when the hospital team's assessment is that the patient no longer needs treatment in a hospital bed and that they can safely be cared for elsewhere. When this assessment has been made the patient does not have a right indefinitely to occupy a hospital bed. A patient can, however, refuse to be discharged to a care home. In this case, social services staff, together with the hospital, community health services, the patient and any family and carers, will need to explore alternatives. Ultimately a package of health and social care to support the patient in their own home (or alternative accommodation, if their own home is now unsuitable), should be put together to allow the patient to be discharged.

  Health Authority Funding
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list in(a) percentage and (b) cash terms the amount by which the funding allocation of each health authority exceeded or fell short of the allocation to which they would have been entitled under the strict application of the weighted capitation formula, in the last year for which figures are available and the preceding five years. [39789]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 4 March 2002]: Health authority distances from targets determined by the weighted capitation formula for 2002–03 and the preceding five years are shown in the table.
  297W

  Distances from target (percentage)

  Distances form targets (£000)

  Health authority

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Barnet

  3.90

  5.66

  2.25

  0.20

  -2.82

  n/a

  5,596

  8,333

  4,594

  447

  -7,131

  n/a

  Barnet, Enfield and Haringey

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  -1.63

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  -12,734

  Barnsley

  -2.63

  -5.24

  -2.98

  -3.05

  -2.95

  -2.92

  -2,827

  -6,088

  -4,786

  -5,379

  -5,616

  -6,471

  Bedfordshire

  -3.83

  -3.61

  -3.82

  -3.90

  -4.40

  -4.02

  -8,492

  -8,397

  -12,427

  -13,980

  -16,969

  -18,577

  Berkshire

  -6.23

  -3.83

  -3.50

  -3.17

  -3.36

  -3.55

  -19,561

  -12,355

  -15,619

  -15,847

  -18,213

  -23,164

  Bexley and Greenwich

  6.21

  6.30

  5.31

  6.03

  7.27

  n/a

  12,488

  13,209

  14,573

  18,097

  23,230

  n/a

  Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  5.22

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  33,251

  Birmingham

  1.75

  -0.03

  0.39

  0.59

  1.18

  0.61

  8,295

  -165

  2,656

  4,390

  9,395

  5,734

  Bradford

  -0.62

  -3.18

  -1.77

  -1.11

  -0.96

  -1.41

  -1,365

  -7,528

  -5,542

  -3,853

  -3,604

  -6,270

  Brent and Harrow

  4.75

  7.02

  3.09

  2.11

  -0.06

  3.59

  10,390

  15,686

  9,296

  7,051

  -230

  15,871

  Bromley

  0.13

  1.55

  -0.27

  0.11

  1.63

  n/a

  164

  2,062

  -498

  214

  3,488

  n/a

  Buckinghamshire

  -3.17

  -0.86

  -2.48

  -2.86

  -2.83

  -2.25

  -8,221

  -2,276

  -9,343

  -11,999

  -12,845

  -12,201

  Bury and Rochdale

  -0.92

  -3.07

  -1.29

  -0.38

  -0.49

  -1.02

  -1,632

  -5,816

  -3,241

  -1,049

  -1,455

  -3,587

  Calderdale and Kirklees

  0.67

  -0.95

  0.44

  -0.17

  0.51

  -1.35

  1,728

  -2,621

  1,619

  -671

  2,205

  -6,939

  Cambridgeshire

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  -2.36

  -3.10

  -1.61

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  -10,687

  -14,973

  -9,168

  Cambridge and Huntingdon

  -4.01

  -2.08

  -1.13

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  -6,745

  -3,614

  -2,663

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  Camden and Islington

  7.17

  6.56

  2.22

  1.92

  0.21

  3.89

  16,120

  15,494

  6,949

  6,701

  820

  18,368

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

  0.42

  0.18

  2.08

  1.62

  1.12

  0.91

  901

  410

  6,454

  5,506

  4,094

  3,955

  County Durham

  -1.67

  -3.36

  -2.31

  -1.89

  -1.20

  -2.53

  -4,803

  -10,393

  -9,737

  -8,724

  -5,971

  -14,722

  Coventry

  -1.18

  -3.36

  -3.45

  -2.71

  -0.79

  -1.06

  -1,613

  -4,955

  -7,182

  -6,172

  -1,910

  -3,013

  Croydon

  -2.05

  0.01

  -1.25

  -1.12

  -1.33

  -2.26

  -3,051

  17

  -2,556

  -2,517

  -3,237

  -6,696

  Doncaster

  -1.89

  -3.50

  -0.14

  -0.20

  1.14

  -0.24

  -2,535

  -5,037

  -276

  -427

  2,623

  -653

  Dorset

  1.01

  2.66

  2.24

  1.89

  2.86

  2.13

  3,143

  8,501

  9,771

  9,035

  14,599

  12,861

  Dudley

  -1.13

  -1.12

  -1.00

  -1.50

  -0.53

  -1.01

  -1,462

  -1,521

  -1,840

  -3,044

  -1,157

  -2,584

  Ealing, Hammersmith andHounslow

  2.49

  3.24

  -0.59

  -0.03

  -1.77

  -0.01

  8,392

  11,284

  -2,835

  -133

  -10,384

  -58

  East and North Hertfordshire

  -1.27

  1.58

  -0.73

  -1.26

  -0.98

  n/a

  -2,516

  3,186

  -2,118

  -4,059

  -3,432

  n/a

  East Kent

  -2.48

  -0.24

  1.83

  2.62

  2.69

  1.63

  -7,011

  -693

  7,108

  11,031

  12,225

  8,756

  East Lancashire

  -0.09

  -2.77

  -0.68

  -0.73

  0.29

  -0.01

  -227

  -7,207

  -2,389

  -2,822

  1,194

  -26

  East London and The City

  -2.32

  -4.20

  -4.69

  -3.69

  -7.15

  -3.09

  -8,266

  -16,068

  -24,117

  -20,945

  -45,631

  -23,515

  East Norfolk

  -0.60

  -0.60

  0.85

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  -1,562

  -1,639

  3,198

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  East Riding

  -0.80

  -2.04

  -0.66

  -0.04

  1.46

  0.37

  -2,013

  -5,446

  -2,397

  -159

  6,087

  1,838

  East Surrey

  1.33

  4.09

  2.10

  2.20

  2.15

  4.44

  2,299

  7,197

  5,013

  5,777

  6,074

  14,713

  East Sussex, Brighton and Hove

  0.72

  1.07

  2.15

  2.43

  3.01

  1.55

  2,535

  3,958

  10,634

  13,072

  17,372

  10,745

  Enfield and Haringey

  1.13

  1.55

  0.54

  0.41

  -1.03

  n/a

  2,659

  3,803

  1,731

  1,464

  -4,000

  n/a

  Gateshead and South Tyneside

  1.35

  -0.79

  -0.76

  -1.03

  0.32

  -1.04

  2,369

  -1,497

  -1,954

  -2,889

  953

  -3,624

  Gloucestershire

  1.67

  3.28

  3.85

  2.99

  3.71

  2.99

  3,825

  7,708

  12,408

  10,564

  14,047

  13,401

  Herefordshire

  1.92

  0.55

  0.06

  -0.29

  0.23

  -0.36

  1,290

  393

  61

  -319

  272

  -495

  Hertfordshire

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  0.96

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  8,191

  Hillingdon

  -0.63

  0.15

  0.43

  -0.56

  -0.88

  0.91

  -716

  179

  658

  -963

  -1,626

  1,929

  Isle of Wight

  8.16

  8.64

  7.35

  7.02

  7.70

  n/a

  4,911

  5,407

  6,326

  6,603

  7,725

  n/a

  Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and South East

  Hampshire

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1.15

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  6,743

  Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster

  -3.93

  -5.13

  -8.88

  -7.99

  -10.90

  -8.20

  -8,220

  -11,480

  -27,917

  -27,876

  -43,475

  -40,429

  Kingston and Richmond

  5.86

  6.81

  2.25

  2.50

  0.68

  -0.50

  8,291

  9,988

  4,593

  5,795

  1,724

  -1,504

  Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham

  0.39

  0.34

  -0.62

  1.96

  -0.58

  3.93

  1,626

  1,499

  -3,567

  12,253

  -3,981

  32,813

  Leeds

  0.25

  -1.52

  0.26

  0.61

  1.27

  1.19

  816

  -5,231

  1,203

  3,114

  6,984

  7,672

  Leicestershire

  -2.38

  -3.42

  -2.54

  -2.78

  -2.44

  -2.54

  -8,783

  -13,432

  -13,466

  -16,280

  -15,334

  -19,005

  Lincolnshire

  1.23

  -0.13

  0.64

  -0.86

  -0.33

  -0.75

  3,231

  -360

  2,528

  -3,733

  -1,533

  -4,173

  Liverpool

  1.11

  0.24

  2.09

  1.78

  3.13

  1.54

  2,667

  612

  7,149

  6,603

  12,371

  7,124

  Manchester

  5.93

  2.04

  2.28

  2.02

  2.89

  1.45

  13,395

  5,013

  7,758

  7,498

  11,467

  6,839

  Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth

  3.27

  4.96

  2.31

  1.84

  3.60

  1.40

  9,804

  15,223

  9,553

  8,245

  17,155

  8,133

  Morecambe Bay

  5.22

  4.60

  4.40

  3.36

  4.37

  3.63

  7,211

  6,669

  8,671

  7,291

  10,103

  9,884

  Newcastle and North Tyneside

  2.19

  -0.42

  0.53

  0.89

  2.25

  0.66

  5,041

  -1,059

  1,752

  3,206

  8,631

  2,970

  Norfolk

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  0.04

  -0.46

  -0.54

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  186

  -2,514

  -3,498

  North and East Devon

  2.60

  2.30

  1.84

  1.36

  1.27

  1.21

  5,363

  4,970

  5,434

  4,395

  4,456

  5,005

  North and Mid Hampshire

  1.96

  3.17

  1.36

  0.51

  -0.18

  -0.24

  4,006

  6,626

  3,913

  1,612

  -630

  -962

  North Cheshire

  6.33

  4.00

  1.80

  1.02

  2.22

  2.21

  8,643

  5,838

  3,561

  2,200

  5,093

  5,954

  North Cumbria

  0.05

  -0.17

  0.06

  0.20

  -0.07

  -0.02

  73

  -249

  111

  434

  -168

  -52

  North Derbyshire

  0.61

  0.20

  -0.25

  -0.44

  0.58

  0.83

  972

  329

  -575

  -1,090

  1,561

  2,608

  North Essex

  -3.77

  -2.27

  -0.69

  -0.08

  -1.04

  -1.52

  -13,786

  -8,593

  -3,480

  -436

  -6,246

  -10,966

  North Nottinghamshire

  -0.75

  -2.61

  -1.19

  -2.16

  -0.65

  -0.71

  -1,247

  -4,691

  -2,849

  -5,763

  -1,843

  -2,346

  North Staffordshire

  -0.89

  -2.70

  -2.62

  -1.70

  -1.10

  -1.61

  -1,884

  -6,157

  -8,156

  -5,796

  -4,010

  -6,907

  North West Anglia

  -2.38

  -2.73

  -1.86

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  -4,157

  -5,046

  -4,748

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  North West Lancashire

  -2.03

  -3.81

  -0.42

  0.02

  1.52

  0.70

  -4,612

  -9,296

  -1,356

  54

  5,671

  3,098

  North Yorkshire

  -0.53

  0.01

  -0.40

  -0.52

  -0.74

  -0.85

  -1,625

  40

  -1,736

  -2,462

  -3,795

  -5,205

  Northamptonshire

  -1.07

  0.43

  1.51

  0.87

  0.30

  -0.55

  -2,610

  1,085

  4,847

  3,079

  1,149

  -2,520

  298W 299W

  Distances from target (percentage)

  Distances form targets (£000)

  Health authority

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Northumberland

  0.18

  -0.64

  -0.17

  -0.31

  0.75

  0.21

  245

  -915

  -325

  -661

  1,712

  562

  Nottingham

  -2.44

  -3.53

  -2.53

  -2.34

  -1.55

  -2.04

  -6,807

  -10,487

  -10,151

  -10,245

  -7,280

  -11,386

  Oxfordshire

  -4.14

  -2.02

  -2.84

  -2.19

  -3.14

  -1.83

  -9,622

  -4,833

  -9,569

  -8,166

  -12,752

  -8,880

  Portsmouth and South East Hampshire

  -0.65

  0.85

  -0.28

  0.02

  0.49

  n/a

  -1,506

  2,037

  -917

  60

  1,942

  n/a

  Redbridge and Waltham Forest

  3.40

  4.43

  4.72

  3.82

  3.39

  3.46

  7,293

  9,808

  13,384

  11,902

  11,435

  14,091

  Rotherham

  -0.86

  -3.03

  -0.67

  -1.12

  -0.47

  -0.86

  -991

  -3,746

  -1,079

  -1,970

  -883

  -1,910

  Salford and Trafford

  0.32

  -0.93

  2.13

  1.72

  2.48

  1.40

  676

  -2,105

  6,440

  5,725

  8,831

  5,859

  Sandwell

  0.44

  -0.87

  -1.34

  -0.91

  -0.09

  -0.62

  617

  -1,285

  -2,795

  -2,060

  -222

  -1,759

  Sefton

  -0.46

  0.94

  1.05

  2.77

  4.18

  3.50

  -640

  1,361

  1,987

  5,688

  9,162

  8,949

  Sheffield

  3.33

  1.57

  1.50

  1.19

  2.81

  1.50

  8,285

  4,190

  5,419

  4,686

  11,732

  7,364

  Shropshire

  -1.08

  -1.19

  -0.36

  -1.32

  -1.39

  -1.75

  -1,850

  -2,145

  -905

  -3,616

  -4,118

  -6,173

  Solihull

  1.95

  1.89

  1.32

  0.37

  0.92

  0.79

  1,535

  1,553

  1,598

  496

  1,310

  1,331

  Somerset

  0.03

  0.70

  1.00

  0.58

  0.85

  0.34

  52

  1,476

  2,866

  1,843

  2,894

  1,388

  South and West Devon

  1.20

  1.09

  1.86

  1.45

  2.80

  1.99

  3,169

  3,033

  6,989

  5,998

  12,310

  10,350

  South Cheshire

  0.22

  0.32

  0.54

  0.91

  1.58

  1.51

  603

  948

  2,168

  4,007

  7,467

  8,378

  South Derbyshire

  0.50

  -1.01

  -2.03

  -1.56

  -1.91

  -1.98

  1,164

  -2,514

  -7,068

  -5,958

  -7,919

  -9,620

  South Essex

  -4.41

  -2.97

  -3.42

  -1.54

  -1.26

  -3.03

  -13,305

  -9,292

  -14,809

  -7,240

  -6,372

  -18,325

  South Humber

  3.20

  2.96

  3.44

  1.97

  2.52

  2.50

  4,303

  4,178

  6,625

  4,180

  5,721

  6,675

  South Lancashire

  4.29

  3.22

  2.38

  2.10

  0.92

  0.85

  5,451

  4,314

  4,328

  4,249

  2,013

  2,196

  South Staffordshire

  1.71

  0.57

  0.85

  -0.14

  -1.24

  -1.15

  3,848

  1,362

  2,721

  -508

  -4,755

  -5,237

  Southampton and South West Hampshire

  -2.65

  -0.09

  0.10

  0.05

  0.35

  -0.02

  -6,067

  -209

  312

  178

  1,342

  -79

  St. Helen's and Knowsley

  -2.49

  -2.68

  -0.43

  -0.84

  -0.49

  -0.95

  -3,925

  -4,463

  -1,013

  -2,173

  -1,381

  -3,115

  Stockport

  -3.91

  -3.68

  0.46

  0.48

  -0.43

  -0.47

  -4,861

  -4,820

  802

  926

  -895

  -1,166

  Suffolk

  0.37

  2.68

  1.65

  0.92

  1.06

  0.52

  985

  7,332

  6,452

  3,950

  4,916

  2,882

  Sunderland

  -0.44

  -3.02

  -0.76

  -1.02

  -0.34

  0.07

  -619

  -4,597

  -1,530

  -2,255

  -809

  194

  Tees

  -2.32

  -2.82

  -0.99

  -1.13

  -0.57

  -2.18

  -6,062

  -7,819

  -3,681

  -4,624

  -2,522

  -11,297

  Wakefield

  3.34

  1.66

  0.37

  0.45

  0.04

  -0.22

  4,684

  2,485

  771

  1,031

  96

  -650

  Walsall

  -2.22

  -3.87

  -1.27

  -1.55

  -2.35

  -1.83

  -2,593

  -4,844

  -2,093

  -2,826

  -4,653

  -4,256

  Warwickshire

  4.92

  3.76

  2.66

  1.64

  1.14

  0.97

  9,824

  7,918

  7,616

  5,177

  3,909

  3,925

  West Hertfordshire

  1.02

  2.67

  1.59

  0.52

  -0.11

  n/a

  2,283

  6,118

  4,980

  1,788

  -414

  n/a

  West Kent

  -0.84

  1.70

  0.65

  0.97

  0.76

  0.97

  -3,278

  6,779

  3,636

  5,974

  4,998

  7,577

  West Pennine

  -1.86

  -3.81

  -1.62

  -1.69

  -1.73

  -1.92

  -4,076

  -8,940

  -4,898

  -5,594

  -6,170

  -8,068

  West Surrey

  1.71

  5.49

  2.35

  2.60

  1.74

  3.63

  4,428

  14,279

  8,531

  10,150

  7,354

  18,065

  West Sussex

  -3.65

  -0.24

  -0.76

  -0.51

  -0.34

  0.92

  -12,353

  -812

  -3,555

  -2,609

  -1,893

  5,940

  Wigan and Bolton

  -3.40

  -4.85

  -3.13

  -2.92

  -2.84

  -3.22

  -9,094

  -13,922

  -12,069

  -12,351

  -12,959

  -17,240

  Wiltshire

  1.54

  3.65

  1.68

  2.07

  0.46

  0.39

  3,665

  8,856

  5,699

  7,725

  1,873

  1,900

  Wirral

  -2.09

  -1.50

  1.97

  3.08

  3.65

  3.51

  -3,308

  -2,500

  4,365

  7,386

  9,398

  10,556

  Wolverhampton

  -0.51

  -1.74

  -1.45

  -1.85

  -0.82

  -1.38

  -576

  -2,095

  -2,351

  -3,311

  -1,570

  -3,126

  Worcestershire

  2.51

  2.36

  1.75

  0.60

  0.20

  0.17

  5,226

  5,129

  5,228

  1,981

  724

  726

  A negative distance from target denotes an under target health authority. A positive distance from target denotes an over target health authority.

  Cancelled Operations (Mid-Essex)
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many operations were cancelled in the Mid-Essex Hospital Trust area in(a) each of the last five years and (b) each of the last nine months for which figures are available; and what proportion they were of the total number of operations carried out. [36821]

  Mr. Hutton
  The information requested is in the table.

  Number of cancelled operations in North Essex health authority—1997–98 to 2001–02

  Last minute cancellations for non-clinical reasons in the quarter

  Year

  Quarter

  Number

  Percentage

  2001–02

  Q2

  307

  1.3

  2001–02

  QI

  170

  1.2

  2000–01

  Year

  1,246

  1.7

  2000–01

  Q4

  534

  3.0

  2000–01

  Q3

  158

  0.8

  2000–01

  Q2

  277

  1.6

  300W

  Number of cancelled operations in North Essex health authority— 1997–98 to 2001–02

  Last minute cancellations for non-clinical reasons in the quarter

  Year

  Quarter

  Number

  Percentage

  2000–01

  Q I

  277

  1.5

  1999–2000

  Year

  1,266

  1.7

  1999–2000

  Q4

  411

  2.4

  1999–2000

  Q3

  336

  1.9

  1999–2000

  Q2

  282

  1.5

  1999–2000

  Q1

  237

  1.2

  1998–99

  Year

  1,000

  1.3

  1998–99

  Q4

  511

  2.5

  1998–99

  Q3

  193

  1.0

  1998–99

  Q2

  109

  0.6

  1998–99

  QI

  187

  1.0

  1997–98

  Year

  700

  1.0

  1997–98

  Q4

  297

  1.8

  1997–98

  Q3

  112

  0.7

  1997–98

  Q2

  113

  0.6

  1997–98

  QI

  178

  1.0

  Note:

  Elective admissions are first finished consultant episodes in general and acute specialties.

  Source:

  Your Guide to the NHS returns, Patient Charter returns, Common Information Core

  NHS Dentists
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of(a) adults and (b) children living in the Greater London area are registered with an NHS dentist; and what the figures were in May 1997. [37482]

  Ms Blears
  The numbers of adults registered with General Dental Services (GDS) dentist as a percentage of the population in Greater London at 30 April 1997 and 31 December 2001 were 48 per cent. and 37 per cent respectively.

  The number of children registered with General Dental Services (GDS) dentist as a percentage of the population in Greater London at 30 April 1997 and 31 December 2001 were 49 per cent. on both dates.

  The registration rates for 30 April 1997 and 31 December 2001 are not comparable. The registration period for adults was changed from 24 months to 15 months for new registrations in September 1996. For children, registrations used to lapse at the end of the calendar year after attendance at the dentist; since September 1996 the registration period is 15 months. These changes began to affect registration numbers in December 1997.

  Some patients who are not registered with a GDS dentist choose to attend occasionally. Patients may attend a dentist in a different area from the area in which they live.

  Greater London is the area covered by the health authorities in the London health region.

  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many dentists were practising in the NHS in Greater London(a) in May 1997 and (b) at the latest available date. [37483]

  Ms Blears
  The numbers of General Dental Service (GDS) dentists carrying out the majority of their work in Greater London at 31 March 1997 and 30 September 2001 were 2,877 and 3,190 respectively.

  The total number of GDS dentists covers principals on a health authority list, their assistants and vocational dental practitioners.

  Also 41 dentists were working in the Personal Dental Service (PDS) in the London HAs at 30 September 2001 who were not working in the GDS. The PDS began in October 1998.

  Greater London is the area covered by the HAs in the London Health Region.

  Care Homes
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if his Department's statistics on care home beds in England include beds in individual domestic dwellings. [37730]

  Jacqui Smith
  Statistics published by the Department on care home beds relates to beds in care homes registered with the local registration and inspection units. This will include beds in small homes (less than four beds) registered under the Registered Homes (Amendment) Act 1991.
  302W
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many beds in care homes have been lost and how many new beds there have been in care homes in England since May 1997. [37731]

  Jacqui Smith
  The information requested on the number of care beds closed or created is not available centrally in the form requested.

  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list, by each health authority in England, the number of(a) beds lost in care homes and (b) care homes that have closed since November 2001. [37990]

  Jacqui Smith
  The information requested on care beds and homes closures since November 2001 is not available centrally.

  Hospital Waiting Times (Mid-Essex)
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people were waiting(a) over six months, (b) over nine months, (c) over 12 months, (d) over 15 months and (e) over 18 months for in-patient treatment in the Mid-Essex Hospital Trust area, for (i) the latest available month, and (ii) the previous month. [38349]

  Mr. Hutton
  The information requested is shown in the table.

  Patients waiting for elective admission, Mid-Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust. All specialties

  November 2001

  December 2001

  Total waiting

  8,787

  9,228

  Of which, number waiting:

  Over 6 months

  2,426

  2,605

  Over 9 months

  1,232

  1,209

  Over 12 months

  452

  370

  Over 15 months

  61

  58

  Over 18 months

  0

  0

  Source:

  Department of Health form KHO7 and Monthly Monitoring

  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people in the Mid-Essex Hospital Trust area are waiting for treatment; and how many people have been waiting 13 weeks or more for out-patient treatment. [38350]

  Mr. Hutton
  The information is shown in the table.

  Waiting times for first outpatient appointment, Mid-Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust—all specialties

  Quarter

  September 2001

  December 2001

  Number of GP written referral requests seen

  11,179

  11,656

  Of those GP written referrals seen, the number who waited (in weeks)

  0 to 3

  3,248

  3,295

  4 to 12

  4,796

  4,907

  13 to 25

  2,564

  2,832

  26 plus

  571

  622

  Patients still waiting

  Over 13 weeks

  2,439

  2,238

  Over 26 weeks

  394

  456

  Source:

  Department of Health form QM08

  Chlamydia
  Mrs. Helen Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) men and (b) women have been diagnosed with chlamydia in each of the last 20 years. [40584]

  Yvette Cooper
  Genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics provide the best available data on sexually transmitted infections and reported cases of uncomplicated genital chlamydial infection from 1990 are shown in the table. There are no data for chlamydial infection before 1990 as cases were included in the category "non specific urethritis".

  Number of cases of uncomplicated chlamydial genital infection: England 1990 to 20001

  Year

  Male cases

  Female cases

  1990

  13,507

  16,677

  1991

  13,694

  16,630

  1992

  13,089

  15,309

  1993

  12,168

  14,053

  1994

  12,449

  15,125

  1995

  12,761

  16,525

  1996

  13,970

  18,551

  1997

  16,255

  22,742

  1998

  18,997

  25,092

  1999

  21,858

  29,378

  2000

  26,234

  34,415

  1 These data are collected from GUM clinics and do not include cases diagnosed in other health care settings. These are aggregate not patient based data and so they are the number of reported cases not the actual numbers of males and females who have been diagnosed with uncomplicated genital chlamydial infection.

  Source:

  GUM clinic returns (KC60) PHLS.

  Mrs. Helen Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many partners of those diagnosed with chlamydia have been traced in each of the last 20 years. [40585]

  Yvette Cooper
  The best available data are from genito?urinary medicine (GUM) clinics, which provide data on the number of cases categorised as"epidemiological treatment of suspected genital chlamydial infection".

  These are cases who have been given prophylactic antibiotic therapy because they have been exposed sexually to genital chlamydia, whether or not they have become infected. There are no data for chlamydial infection before 1990 as cases were included in the category "non specific urethritis".

  Number of cases receiving epidemiological treatment of suspected chlamydial genital infection: England: 1990 to 20001

  Year

  Male cases

  Female cases

  1990

  3,031

  3,088

  1991

  3,060

  3,108

  1992

  3,374

  3,205

  1993

  3,408

  3,231

  1994

  4,333

  3,803

  1995

  4,984

  4,047

  1996

  6,366

  4,924

  1997

  7,991

  6,221

  1998

  9,041

  6,880

  1999

  11,318

  8,253

  2000

  14,002

  10,027

  1 These data are collected from GUM clinics and do not include
  304W
  cases diagnosed in other health care settings. These are aggregate not patient-based data and so they are the number of reported cases not the actual numbers of males and females who have been identified as partners. Those cases found to be infected will also be included in the figures for uncomplicated chlamydial infection.

  Source:

  GUM clinic returns (KC60) PHLS

  NHS Procurement Initiative
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the NHS pilot procurement initiative ProCure21 in the north-west and the midlands; and what the time-frame is for the initiative to be taken up by all regions of the UK. [38689]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: NHS ProCure 21 aims to deliver better capital procurement in the national health service, through programmes on better design, enabling the NHS to be a better client, performance management and partnering. The first three elements apply to all capital schemes in the NHS. Partnering is currently being piloted in the north-west and west midlands regions. The selection of Principal Supply Chain Partners is currently in progress, and an evaluation will be made once the partnering programme is under way and a decision taken on how quickly we will be able to roll it out nationally.

  Vaccines
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health who the unsuccessful bidders were and what the size of their bids were for the contract to provide anti-TB vaccines. [38679]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: This information is commercially confidential and is not disclosed.

  General Practitioners (Vocational Training)
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what measures have been put in place to ensure an increase in the number of vocational training places for general practice; how many places have been available in each of the last 10 years; and what estimate he has made of the number of places available in each of the next three years. The Minister of State, Department of Health, [38460]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: We do not have data available centrally on the number of vocational training scheme places. Doctors on vocational training schemes represent only a proportion of those training for general practice, as there are other training routes.

  All doctors training for a career in general practice must undertake a period training as a General Practice Registrar. We have a target to increase General Practice Registrar numbers by 550 by 2004. To accommodate these increases, we are investing significant resources in the general practice training infrastructure (£9 million over three years) and in developing training practice premises (£30 million over the same period). We also removed, last November, the outdated restrictions that had previously prevented overseas doctors receiving NHS funding when undertaking General Practice Registrar training.
  305W
  Recruitment to General Practice Registrar training is healthy. Numbers have risen, year on year, for the last five years. The attached table shows the figures for the last 10 years. Last year numbers increased by 224 on the previous year, exceeding our target increase of 150. As a result of the measures we have put in place, we expect growth to continue.

  GP Registrars in England as at 1 October 1991 to 1999 and 30 September 2000 and 2001

  GP Registrars

  1991

  1,639

  1992

  1,613

  1993

  1,529

  1994

  1,445

  1995

  1,404

  1996

  1,305

  1997

  1,343

  1998

  1,446

  1999

  1,520

  2000

  1,659

  2001

  1,883

  Source:

  Department of Health Personal Medical Services Statistics

  Powderject
  Dr. Fox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which NHS contracts are held by Powderject; and what their value is. [38680]
  306W
  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: The NHS contracts held by Powerject are for the supply of BCG vaccines, Tuberculin PPD solutions and influenza vaccine.

  Information surrounding the value of individual contracts is commercially confidential and is not disclosed.

  Overseas Treatment
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the secretary of state for Health how many patients have travelled to EU countries specifically for NHS funded treatment in each of the last four months.

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Under the pilot scheme to send national health service patients abroad currently under way in south-east England 18 patients travelled in January and 41 in February. 12 patient are due to travel on Friday 1 March. We expect up to 200 patients to travel overseas for treatment as part of the pilot.

  The Department has authorised a total of 327 E112 applications since the beginning of November 2001, permitting patient to receive treatment, maternity care or continuing care in other countries of the European Economic Area, funded by the NHS. 85 applications were authorised in November, 72 in December, 94 in January and 76 have so far been authorised in February. (These figures are GB figures, as the Department administers this scheme on behalf of Scotland and Wales.) However, the fact that a given period does not actually received treatment overseas in that period.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Lichfield.

Buildings: Access for Disabled People
Baroness Trumpingtonasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the legal position regarding access for disabled people to buildings not constructed to modern standards.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): My Lords, the Disability Discrimination Act—the DDA—requires employers and providers of services to the public to make reasonable adjustments to improve access for disabled people. The duties apply irrespective of the age of the buildings occupied.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the brilliant performances by her and others in the recent Palace of Varieties Show in St John's Church, Smith Square, could not be seen by anyone in a wheelchair owing to lack of access? Further, does she agree that access is not the only issue in such buildings? The lack of availability of suitable lavatories presents a further difficulty. Are any funds available to overcome such problems in that type of building?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I agree that not only disabled people but all people were severely deprived when they were not able to hear the smoke-soaked, gravelly voice of the noble Baroness at the performance. This is a serious issue, and I am grateful that the noble Baroness told me that she was concerned, in particular, about St John's, Smith Square. It is one of the most superb baroque buildings, dating back to 1728. As she rightly says, it is inaccessible from the outside stairs, although inside there is a fair degree of physical accessibility, but not yet to loos.
As I understand it, in 1997 St John's applied for money from the Heritage Lottery Fund in order to make the building physically accessible. The application was refused on the grounds of shortage of funds, although subsequently additional money was made available for repairs and maintenance. However, I am pleased to say that the noble Baroness's Question has generated a flurry of activity. English Heritage inspected the building this morning and is working with St John's in order, we hope, to put in a further bid, which I hope will be attractive. Not only is the audience affected; performers and musicians, too, are
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denied access to a very important venue. Therefore, I express my congratulations to the noble Baroness, and I hope that St John's will be successful in its bid.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, many of the difficulties referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, could have been avoided had the Government not delayed the implementation of Section 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Instead of making heavy weather over the consultations, as the Government are doing—they could have been carried out in a couple of weeks; after all, landlords have known about the proposals for over six years, since 1995—why cannot the Government get on with implementing the Act in full?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the DDA, as it applies to access to buildings for services, will come into force in 2004. Far be it from me to challenge my noble friend's information on this point because he knows more about the subject than perhaps most of the rest of us put together. But his statement certainly does not tie in with my understanding of the law, which is that all such adaptations for listed or non-listed buildings must be reasonable in terms of cost. Therefore, in relation to St John's it would not necessarily be reasonable in terms of cost to install an outside lift and it might not be appropriate in terms of listed planning consent to install other forms of adaptation. The DDA does not override existing requirements under the law, as I suspect my noble friend knows perfectly well.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that access does not imply simply provision of a ramp? Some disabled people are not in wheelchairs and find ramps not only difficult but dangerous. What they need instead are shallow steps and sturdy handrails.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, it is perfectly true that when one thinks of a disabled person, one tends to think of the wheelchair and the white stick. The noble Lord is absolutely right: wheelchair users account for possibly fewer than 5 per cent of disabled people, and white stick users account for an even smaller percentage. Of course, what may be helpful to a wheelchair user—that is, a ramp, a smooth surface or a dropped kerb—may be counter-effective for someone who has a visual impairment and who needs to use a white stick. Therefore, problems do arise in relation to this matter.
I emphasise that at present the law states that buildings must be made fully accessible to employees who work in them, provided that it can be done at reasonable expense. In relation to services, it is the services which must be accessible rather than the building in which they occur. If the building can be altered, it should be; if a secondary access can be found, that should be made available; and if ramps are appropriate, they should be installed. But if none of those is appropriate, then providing the service—for

123
example, by bringing goods to a disabled person or adjusting the height of a door bell—may be a more appropriate way in which to proceed.
Baroness Wilkins: My Lords, does the Minister agree that much resistance to making historical buildings accessible lies in the notion that the adaptations will be ugly? Will she join me in refuting that notion and in issuing a challenge to architects by arguing that it is perfectly possible to provide disability access with historically sensitive and graceful solutions? Will she say whether the Government intend to extend Part M of the building regulations to alterations to existing buildings?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I certainly agree with my noble friend. The English Heritage guide to easy access to historic buildings gives the example of Liverpool Town Hall. In my own city, major adaptations have recently been carried out, courtesy of the Heritage Lottery Fund, to a 900 year-old building—the Castle Museum. Some 15 years ago I was involved in making adaptations to the finest Unitarian chapel in the country—the Octagon Chapel. In all cases, the adaptations not only enhance the building for disabled people; they do so for many other people, too, including women with children in prams and buggies, people carrying baggage and elderly people. The result is certainly an enhancement for us all. Part M of the building regulations has applied since 1999 to domestic and non-domestic buildings alike.
Lord Addington: My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the major problems has been that the run-in period has taken so long? Can she assure the House that in future we shall not speak of such matters in terms of half a dozen or so years but will have a realistic timescale which will concentrate the minds of those involved?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Yes, my Lords. However, some of the issues to which we refer, for example the possibility of increasing access to underground stations, are hugely expensive projects, which take time. In other cases, employers and service providers need time to make reasonable adjustments to their premises. I am sure that the House will accept that it is important to work with consent as far as possible. To do that, we need to ensure—this goes back to a point made by my noble friend—that both employers and service providers recognise that disabled people collectively have around £45 billion of expenditure at their disposal. If we can get employers and service providers to recognise that such measures are in their interests, I am sure that we shall reach solutions which are satisfactory to all concerned.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, would the noble Baroness care to accept an invitation to lunch with me at the Royal Air Force Club? There, she will find that the difficulty of access is not about available funds, nor the
124
willingness of the club authorities to provide access; it is about the difficulty of persuading the authorities, such as English Heritage, to allow the facility to be erected at the front steps of 128 Piccadilly. Perhaps she could come along and tell them how they would be able to encompass that desirable objective.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I do not know whether a ramp would be the right solution in that case. However, I am happy to do for the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, that which I have done for his noble friend Lady Trumpington: that is, to ask English Heritage to let me know what proposals, if any, are possible for that building.

"Open Skies" Agreements
2.45 p.m.
Lord Berkeleyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Following the decision by the European Court of Justice that "open skies" agreements negotiated between individual member states and the United States are illegal, whether they will support moves for the European Commission to negotiate all such future agreements on a Europe-wide basis.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): My Lords, a final ruling from the European Court of Justice is probably some months away. According to the opinion of the Advocate-General, which comprises his advice to the court, it remains open to member states to negotiate and conclude open skies agreements with the United States subject to meeting their obligations under Community law. We are currently reflecting on the options best to advance the interests of UK consumers, airlines and the wider economy.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble and learned friend for that reply. Does he agree that there is much more likelihood of the whole of Europe acting en bloc and being able to negotiate properly with the United States for a balanced open skies policy, which would include the fifth freedom opportunities within the United States, if Europe acted altogether rather than individually, with the United States playing off one member state against another?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, our purpose in the negotiations with the United States of America is best to advance the interests of UK consumers, airlines and the wider economy. We shall make judgments in relation to how best to negotiate with the United States of America with that as our touchstone.
Lord Bowness: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the interests of consumers and airlines, whether best served by the present arrangements or open skies, need a functioning air traffic control system? Can he

125
tell the House whether the Government have now finally agreed to make funds available to secure NATS' financial position; and if so, how much?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, that is fairly wide of the Question. However, I agree with the principle that obviously a properly functioning air traffic control system is vital; and that is what we have provided.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be better to negotiate the open skies agreements, particularly with the United States, on a wider European basis rather than rely on individual airlines to make arrangements with American airlines, which could cut across all our ideas of what is right in terms of company structure, monopolies, and so forth?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, that is a similar question to the one asked by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The answer I gave is that our touchstone in deciding how best to negotiate is what will he in the best interests of UK consumers, airlines and the wider economy. There is no single answer to that. We shall make our judgment in relation to that touchstone.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I speak on behalf of the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), of which I am president. Does my noble and learned friend agree—I am sure that he does—that the attitude of the Government is right? It is no good anticipating the views of the court at this time. All that has happened is that the Advocate-General has given his opinion. That being the case, I do not believe that the Government should act on that.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that the attitude of the Government is right. What we have at present is simply the opinion of the Advocate-General, which does not lay down the judgment of the court. The right thing for the Government to do is to ensure that they look all the time to see what is in the best interests of UK consumers, airlines and the wider economy.
Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, what is the outcome of the Government's negotiations in liberalising the UK and US aviation markets? I understand that the Minister's right honourable friend Mr Spellar flew in Concorde to Washington in November last year to commence those negotiations. What is the outcome of the negotiations, or have they failed?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, as the noble Lord must know, those negotiations have been going on for 10 years. They were started by the previous government and no conclusion has yet been reached in relation to them.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, further to the Minister's reply to his noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, can he give many examples where the court has
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not agreed with the Advocate-General? Secondly, can the noble Lord give the House any reason for confidence that the European Union will be better at running these open skies agreements than it is at running anything else?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, yes, I can give examples of where the court has not followed the Advocate-General. But not now. So far as concerns the best way of conducting these negotiations, I return to the point that we must make judgments about how they are conducted, having regard to the interests of the aviation industry, the UK consumer and the wider economy.

Al-Jazeera Broadcasts in the UK
2.50 p.m.
Lord Campbell-Savoursasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their view on the broadcasting on Channel 674 digital television of Al-Jazeera in the United Kingdom.
The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone): My Lords, we value the increasing choice available on digital satellite platforms. In particular, we value the contribution made by Al-Jazeera and other Arab satellite channels to the encouragement of debate about political and social issues affecting the Middle East. Ministers and officials have been able, through the Arab satellite media, to convey messages about British policy to a wide audience.
Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that Al-Jazeera is available throughout the United Kingdom on Channel 674 on Sky digital television. Would my noble friend be prepared to approach the authorities in Qatar who are responsible for transmitting this service and ask them whether they would be prepared to provide an English subtitled news broadcast or news bulletins so that people within the United Kingdom who are interested in these matters can follow Al-Jazeera, and, in particular, the Islamic interpretation of world events and affairs?
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am aware that Al-Jazeera can be watched on Sky digital channels in the UK. Al-Jazeera is licensed to broadcast in Europe by the CSA in Paris. It is the equivalent of the ITC in the UK. A large proportion of its potential European audience are French rather than English speakers. It would be for the CSA as the licensing authority to address the issue of either non-Arabic bulletins or subtitling with the board of Al-Jazeera and not the UK Government or even the ITC.

Growth and Stability Pact
2.52 p.m.
Lord Willoughby de Brokeasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they consider themselves bound by the growth and stability pact.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, under Article 116(4) of the EU treaty, the UK shall,
"endeavour to avoid excessive [government] deficits".
We are not obliged to avoid "excessive deficits" unless we move to the third stage of EMU.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he saying that we need not take the growth and stability pact terribly seriously unless we are foolish enough to join the euro-zone? If that happens, is it right that we will be much more tightly bound by the growth and stability pact and by the fines to which we are not currently liable as we are not in the euro-zone? If we join the euro-zone and are bound by the rules of the growth and stability pact, will that not severely limit any ability of this or any future Chancellor of this country to use his spending plans as he sees fit in the best interests of this country?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, without being thought to accept the language used by the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby, in his question, let me make it clear, as the Chancellor did only last week, that we support the growth and stability pact subject to prudent reforms to ensure that it takes account of the economic cycle, of sustainability of debt and of public investment. We have been in conformity with the growth and stability pact since its inception in 1998.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, did the Minister's original Answer to the Question mean "yes" or "no"?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, as we are now in stage 2 of economic and monetary union we shall endeavour to avoid excessive government deficit. That is one part of the answer. If and when we move to the third stage of EMU we shall be bound by it. The answer to the Question was precise, accurate and much better than "yes" or "no".
Lord Peston: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that all contemporary thinking on fiscal policy comes to the conclusion that it should be conducted according to a set of rules and should not be ad hoc or gratuitous, as it used to be? The growth and stability pact is a very good example of conducting fiscal policy according to a set of rules. The one thing that this country does not need is to abandon rules in which to engage in fiscal policy. Therefore, the question seems to me at least—and I hope that my noble friend will agree with me; he usually does—to be completely misplaced in its understanding of modern thinking.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I thought that the question was a purely factual one; to which I
128
gave a factual answer. I agree with the thinking behind my noble friend's question. Yes, of course it is important that fiscal policy is conducted in accordance with rules. Our fiscal policy is conducted in accordance with fiscal rules which are those most suited to our needs. The European fiscal policy is conducted in conformity with the growth and stability pact which is, we believe—subject to the reservations which the Chancellor has made clear—appropriate for its purposes.
Lord Blackwell: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the need for the growth and stability pact for countries within the euro area encapsulates the fact that one cannot have a common currency without a common economic policy? The corollary from that is that one cannot have a common economic policy without a common political intent to set the rules. Therefore, the growth and stability pact is an illustration of the fact that membership of the euro is inevitably linked with political union.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not think that I agree with any part of that complicated argument. We think that multilateral surveillance, which is what the growth and stability pact is, is a valuable discipline for all governments in considering their fiscal policy. It is valuable for the European economy that there should be agreed multilateral surveillance, whether it be the less formal version for those in stage 2 or the more formal version for those in stage 3.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is it right that multilateral surveillance should mean interference in the affairs of this country and, for that matter, any other country of the European Union, since our taxation and public expenditure policy is a matter for the electorate of this country and not for any country or any group of foreign potentates? Is it not a fact that multilateral surveillance has encroached upon matters which are for the House of Commons and for the elected Government of this country and for no one else?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have made clear the extent to which we think that multilateral surveillance is valuable, both for us and for other members of the European Union. I do not believe that rules which, as my noble friend Lord Peston has made clear, are helpful in the conduct of fiscal policy, both here and in Europe, are an infringement of the rights of the House of Commons in any way. We think that a coherent economic and fiscal policy in Europe is to our advantage.
Lord Newby: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the growth and stability pact has already served an extremely useful purpose in encouraging a number of EU member states—Italy and Greece spring to mind—to adopt the kind of fiscal rules which I am sure that all members of this House would want them to have whatever our formal relationship with them? Can

129
he further confirm that the Chancellor is currently excluded from discussions on the interpretation of the growth and stability pact by virtue of the fact that we are not members of the euro-zone?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I certainly agree that multilateral surveillance of the kind set up in 1998 has been valuable. On occasion, countries have for their benefit and that of the European economy as a whole changed their policies as a result of that surveillance. We welcome that. As my right honourable friend the Chancellor has made clear, there is a need for a degree of flexibility, reinterpretation and reform. But to the extent that it has strengthened the European economy, which is so important to our economy, it is certainly valuable.
As to the role of the Chancellor in determining policy, of course the decisions about implementing the convergence programmes of those outside and inside the euro-zone are a matter for ECOFIN, of which this country is a member.
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, if the situation in relation to the pact is as relaxed as the Minister suggests, why did the Commission's statement on 30th January say that the United Kingdom's budgetary projections,
"would not be in line with the requirements",
of the pact?
Why was it that, shortly afterwards, the Chancellor issued a scare story about the EU forcing a £10 billion cut in our hospital programme in order to comply with the pact? Why did the Chancellor, as did the Minister today, last week open his remarks on the EU White Paper with a list of excuses why Britain does not corn ply with the rules of the pact?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, first, I did not use the word "relaxed" and, secondly, the noble Lord protests too much. When we submitted our convergence programme last December, the projected government deficit was 1 per cent of gross domestic product at the end of the forecast period in 2006. That is very close to "at or near in balance or in surplus"— I cannot remember the exact wording. ECOFIN recognised that by in its comments only noting the UK's position. In the light of the fact that our gross debt at 60 per cent of GDP and our net government borrowing at 3 per cent of GDP are so far within the range of the growth and stability pact, a difference of 1 per cent in four years' time is relatively minimal.
Lord Tanlaw: My Lords, as the Question is about fiscal matters, does the Minister agree that time is money? Is he therefore able to say that when we reach stage 3 of European monetary union the Government will consider harmonising our timescale with that of Europe?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I was going to answer the first part of the noble Lord's question by saying, "Which time is money?", but he answered that himself. I do not think that there is collective
130
responsibility on this matter, so I can say personally that I strongly agree with what he says and has always said about European time.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, in his reply to my noble friend Lord Newby, the Minister stated firmly that the growth and stability pact was a matter for ECOFIN all together. Would he therefore confirm that the story in the Financial Times that discussion of the letter to the German Government about the growth and stability pact took place within a group that did not include the Chancellor of the Exchequer is inaccurate?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I rather think that the content of a letter that might have gone to Germany but did not go in the terms originally intended was discussed in many contexts, including and excluding this country.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, I did not think that anyone thought that that was the question. Perhaps I may pursue the matter. The Minister is trying to take the growth and stability pact seriously, but that does not really chime with what a Treasury spokesman was quoted as saying on 30th January, which was:
"The UK has no intention of reducing public spending by £10 billion as the Commission seems to imply …As we are outside the single currency we are not subject to its sanctions".
Does the noble Lord agree with that? Is that the present position?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord is actually quoting a Treasury spokesman. My point is that the Chancellor has for some time now been arguing for a sensible and prudent reform of the growth and stability pact. That is valuable whether or not we have joined European monetary union.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, if the Minister agrees with his noble friend Lord Peston that healthy fiscal policy requires adherence to a clear set of rules, can he explain to the House why the Government recently supported the Germans in driving a coach and horses through the pact in question?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, again, that is an interesting question but I do not accept the terms in which it is asked of driving a coach and horses. What in effect was the judgment of the European Union about the German economy was, I believe, quite right: the German deficit resulted from cyclical factors which, in our view, ought to be taken into account in making the judgments called for.

Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Police Reform Bill [H.L.]
3.6 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Rooker): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 5 [Directions to chief officers]:
Lord Eltonmoved Amendment No. 35:
Page 4, line 10, at beginning insert "Subject to section (Limitation of powers of Secretary of State) of the Police Reform Act 2002,"
The noble Lord said: At this stage of proceedings, I always feel rather like someone on the promenade of a rather overpopulated holiday resort, leaning on the rail and waiting to see what will be left on the beach when the tide has gone out. I hope that what we find will be adequate to our needs.
In moving Amendment No. 35, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 52 and 61. I give notice that I shall not speak to Amendment No. 65, which is superfluous. While we wait for the Chamber to clear, I remind the Committee and the Minister in particular that what renders some of us not just worried but seriously anxious about the Bill is not primarily how the present Government will use the powers that they seek under it—although of course we are concerned about that—but how those same powers might be used by a different and less politically responsible government formed by a party either far further to the Left or far further to the Right than at present. The possibility of such a government taking power is usually remote but always present. The less we recognise the danger, the more real it is.
We also need to guard against dangers that are more immediate and less dramatic in nature. The less that we provide against the abuse of legislation, the more likely it is to be abused. Such provision is the purpose behind this group of amendments. What one means by abuse of legislation of course depends on what one thinks the legislation is for. Fortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has been most helpful in defining the purposes for which the Government seek our approval of the Bill and in providing that definition early in the Committee stage.
Last Thursday, we were discussing the first group of amendments and the not unreasonable proposal that the Home Secretary should be required to consult various persons before drawing up his national policing plan rather than afterwards, as is currently proposed—a point on which I hope that we shall persuade either him or your Lordships collectively on Report. In that debate, the Minister acknowledged that a general concern had been expressed that the Home Secretary should not use the Bill as a means to intervene in the proper running of a police force and to
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substitute his own judgment for that of either the police authority or the chief constable. He made it clear that that was not the intention of Her Majesty's Government. Helpfully, he went further:
"I remind noble Lords that in the White Paper we made it absolutely clear that the purpose of the national policing plan, as set out in the new clause introduced by Clause I of the Bill, is to consider strategic policing priorities. That hits it on the head: this does not concern micro-managing the police force. That is not its function. If a matter moves away from the area of strategy, then it will be thrown out. We are not interested in it and it would not form part of the action".
Later in the same intervention, he returned to the point:
"Again, I should like to make this absolutely clear: this is not about micro-managing the police. It concerns only general strategic policing priorities for the police forces. It is crucial that Members of the Committee keep that in mind".—[Official Report. 28/2/02; col. 1552.]
I can assure him that I, for one, will do so.
According to that definition, any non-strategic use of the powers proposed in this clause—and, I presume, the clauses included in furtherance of it, including Clause 5—would be outwith the purposes and intention of the Government and would, therefore, by definition be an abuse of the proposed legislation. We must see that that does not happen.
Of course, what was said was said in the context of Clause 1, which relates to the national policing plan, and this group of amendments relates to Clause 5, which creates a power for the Home Secretary to give directions not to a police authority but directly to a chief constable, who is inescapably bound to obey them. If noble Lords have any doubt about that, they might turn to subsection (11) of the new Section 41 A, where they will find that doubt dispelled:
"A chief officer of police of any police force shall comply with any direction given to him under this section".
First, I take it that the powers of direction for the Secretary of State proposed in Clause 5 are to be given to him in furtherance of the purposes of Clause 1—a means of carrying out the national policing plan—in which case, they fall squarely within what the noble Lord said on Thursday. Even if that is not the case, we must know whether the words that I quoted apply to this clause and to the intended use of the proposed powers for the Home Secretary. I shall repeat what the Minister said:
"this is not about micro-managing the police. It concerns only general strategic policing priorities for the police forces. It is crucial that Members of the Committee keep that in mind".
The Minister had earlier said that anything else would be thrown out.
Before the Minister answers, I should make it clear that our anxieties about the uses to which such powers might be put are not limited to those that I mentioned to fill in time while the Chamber was emptying. There is another danger, much closer to home, that we must address. We will be asked to agree to the creation, elsewhere in the Bill, of a new sort of policeperson; not a fully trained police officer, not a fully empowered constable nor yet a straightforward civilian assistant. It will be something in between.

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We shall discuss the presentational and operational pros and cons of that later, but two things are clear. First, they will cost a good deal less to pay and a great deal less to train than fully trained policemen. Secondly, because of their lesser training, they will be able to accomplish a great deal less than fully trained policemen. Whatever view the Home Office takes of their lesser effectiveness, the reduced cost will be evident and attractive to the Treasury and to all other departments competing for scarce resources. Even a reluctant Home Secretary may therefore find himself under extreme pressure to secure an increasing proportion of that sort of cheaper policeman in police forces. It is important that the Bill should not make it easy to yield to such pressure.
Members are aware of the constant public clamour for more policemen on the heat, a clamour that any government anxious to be rewarded for being tough on crime, as well as tough on the causes of crime, must want to satisfy. The problem is making more policemen visible to the electorate without having to pay for them with the money that the Treasury refuses to cough up. The answer is cheaper policemen. We also know that, outside the Met, there is no great enthusiasm for the new, cheaper quasi-policeman. There may even be resistance to the idea of employing him at all. How convenient for the Home Secretary to be able to give directions to a reluctant chief constable—directions with which, as subsection (11) says, he must comply—that a proportion of his force must be made up only of such assistant policemen.
The powers that could be used for that purpose are in subsection (2) —to direct a chief officer of police to prepare and submit to the Home Office an action plan—and in subsection (7)(a), which relates to the taking of specific steps and the meeting of specific performance targets. Amendments Nos. 35 and 52 would make both provisions subject to the prohibition in the modest new clause proposed in Amendment No. 61. A single application to the whole clause might be better. There should also be provision in Clause 1, but we can discuss the principle now and get the detail right on Report. The prohibition is on using those powers to impose on any chief officer of police a requirement to ensure that any particular proportion of his force should be made up of the new sort of assistant policeman, as defined elsewhere in the Bill.
I am confident that, if we have no such provision, some Home Secretary quite soon—possibly even the present Home Secretary—will use those powers for the purpose of securing those levels within police forces. If the Minister argues, as he may, that the proper place for the restriction is elsewhere or that the drafting is wrong, I shall be happy to accommodate him on Report. I see that he wishes to say something before I sit down.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Rooker: I was not sure whether the noble Lord was coming to a conclusion. I was waiting for him to acknowledge the fact—it will be dealt with later—that we currently have record numbers of police officers. He has not deployed a shred of evidence—not a
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scintilla—that we intend to reduce those record numbers simply to add to their support. I could not see how that aspect of the facts of life fitted in with his speech.
Lord Elton: I am obliged to the Minister for enabling me to amend my speech before I finish making it. I had thought that he would say that to demolish me at the end of the argument.
I do not, in any way, minimise the importance of the numbers of policemen now being fully trained. The numbers are not yet sufficient, but there has been an extremely welcome change of direction. However, the economic facts of running the country remain the same, and the difference between the economic costs of producing the two different sorts of personnel remains the same. There will be a temptation, when the tide of recruitment of fully trained officers turns, as, I regret to say, it certainly will. It will be too late to do anything about it then; we must do something about it now. I beg to move.
Lord Waddington: The Minister will remember that I had the opportunity of raising some of these matters when we were last in Committee. He will forgive me if, to some extent, I repeat myself. I shall state the argument swiftly.
As my noble friend Lord Elton said a moment ago, there is little enthusiasm, apart from in the Metropolitan Police, for the idea of community support officers. The Minister has been at pains to point out that chief constables in the provinces have nothing to worry about; they have no need to recruit community support officers, unless they really think that that is desirable for their force. I accept that from the Minister, but he will recognise that we are legislating not just for this Government and this Home Secretary but for anybody who may become Home Secretary in the future.
I am worried that it will be all too easy for the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to ask the Home Secretary of the day, "Why are you asking for more money for the police when there is a simple way of making better use of the resources that you already have? Why should you come to us for more money when there are available to you powers to recruit community support officers who will cost you very much less?". That is the simple argument.
We are not challenging the probity of the Minister or the Home Secretary. Not for one moment did I doubt the word of the Home Secretary when he said that it was not his intention that these powers should be used to make chief officers of police recruit community support officers. However, we must legislate to protect future Home Secretaries against pressure being put on them of the kind I have mentioned.
We must find a formula that will enable a future Home Secretary to say to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, "I cannot do it. It's no use you telling me that money can be saved by recruiting community support officers. I cannot do it because of Section 61, or whatever it is, of the Act".

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I am not saying that my noble friend's wording in the amendment is right, but before the Bill leaves this House there must be something in it which says that the Home Secretary cannot in any circumstances require a chief officer of police to recruit community support officers. That is the point and I humbly suggest that it is a good one.
Lord Dholakia: The key amendment is Amendment No. 61. Part 4 of the Bill contains provisions which enable chief officers to decide whether to have designated community support officers or accredited persons operating in a force's area. The Government have made much of the fact that these are enabling and not mandatory provisions.
The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, seeks to ensure that the Government do not use their powers to give directions to chief officers under Clause 4 or use power to regulate for operational practices and procedures under Clause 7 as a backdoor way of forcing chief officers down that route. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord therefore receives our support. It is obviously right that one should support it.
The debate on Part 4 is still ahead of us, but we have been assured by the Government—I hope that the Minister will confirm it—that decisions about whether to have new-style police auxiliaries or to give police powers to the staff of private security firms will be entirely for the chief constable. None of that will be mandatory.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has pointed out, what is there to stop the Home Secretary, whether now or in the future, using powers contained in Part 1 to force a chief officer down that route? I shall be interested to hear the Minister's answer. He may tell us that any direction or regulation under this part could not override the discretion given to chief officers in Part 4. That may be true in strict legal terms, but a great deal of informal pressure could be brought to bear on a chief officer to include such provision in the action plan he will have to produce under Clause 5. We hope to discuss that matter later.
Those who are even more cynical and suspicious might envisage the Home Secretary exerting pressure in a less overt but equally forceful way. Therefore, it is right that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is supported.
Lord Tebbit: Perhaps when the Minister responds to my noble friend he will be kind enough to say whether the Bill as presently drafted gives power to a Home Secretary, either directly or indirectly, to require a chief officer to behave in the way which my noble friend fears he might be asked to behave in relation to the recruitment of police and what are, in effect, auxiliaries.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The wording of new Section 41A, which is set out in Clause 5 of the Bill, is at best, on the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord
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Elton, ambiguous—at best. I want to draw the Minister's attention to the general wording of new Section 41A.
First, the direction of the Secretary of State does not have to follow on an adverse report. Secondly, subsection (2) provides that the remedial measures which the Secretary of State may direct the chief officer of police to address can be in relation,
"to anything that the Secretary of State considers relevant to the matters".
That is very wide.
Secondly, subsection (7) provides that the direction by the Secretary of State may be,
"for the taking of such steps…as may be specified for the purposes of the plan by the Secretary of State".
Finally—the noble Lord, Lord Elton, made the point but it is worth emphasizing—unlike Clause 2where a code imposed by the Secretary of State is one to which the chief officer of police "shall have to have regard", in new Section 41A it is a question of complying—the word used is "comply"—with any such directions.
Unless there is a complete misreading of the breadth of the new section, we believe that the noble Lord's point must be accommodated—apart from the fact that we want Clause 5 taken out of the Bill altogether.
Lord Hylton: I support this group of amendments. I notice that the new Section 41A(1) provides that the Secretary of State must be satisfied,
"that the whole or any part of the [police] force is…not efficient or not effective".
Presumably, that indicates a very bad state of affairs indeed; one in which policing is not being carried out effectively. Can the Minister say what can be done to improve the situation before that point is reached? Does the Home Secretary have a right to draw attention to such a situation? If so, how?
Lord Rooker: When the noble Lord. Lord Phillips, rose, I was about to answer the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, because I can do so without advice. The answer to his specific question is no. I shall take advice on the matter but I covered it in part on Thursday. In fact, I have a minor adjustment to place on the record in relation to a comment I made on Thursday about this part of the Bill.
I want to make the matter clear so that there is no misunderstanding. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, hit the nail on the head in that the issue is pre-judged because the police force in question is clearly in trouble. If not, there would be no such action. It is clear that there is a major problem which locally no one has been able to solve; not the police authority, the chief constable, the inspectorate or anyone else.
It is clear to me and my colleagues that a majority of Members of this House do not want Clause 5 as currently drafted in the Bill. However, the codes of practice which we discussed last week are intended to spread good practice throughout the police service. They are not binding on the chief constable. The directions for chief officers are for use where remedial

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action is required to address under-performance. Regulations on operational procedures are for use where it is in the national interest that all forces adopt the same procedure or practice; for instance, as regards equipment.
I hope that as a result of that brief summary Members of the Committee will see in a flash that the setting of quotas for particular types of officers in each force does not fall into any of those categories. Therefore the issue does not arise.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am sorry to interrupt the Minister so early in his response and I am most grateful to him for giving way. I think that what he has said so far is not consistent with new Section 41(1)(b). I should remind the Committee that that provision allows the Secretary of State to impose a direction not where at this point in time there is any inefficiency or lack of effectiveness, but rather it looks towards the future; that is, where the Secretary of State considers that in the future a force may lack effectiveness or efficiency.
I put it to the Minister that, set against his protestations at the start of his remarks—that this could arise only where there was a serious lack of effectiveness and efficiency—this does not square with those comments. I believe that that is why a great deal of concern has been expressed.
Lord Rooker: While there might be concern about that, the concern does not spill over to the quotas for particular types of officers. I say to the Committee that that is because it is outwith whatever interpretation is put on the clause.
The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton—
Lord Waddington: Perhaps I may take the Minister up on that point. Surely a Home Secretary—not this particular Home Secretary—could come to the conclusion that more people were needed on the ground; that the money would not allow for the recruitment of 20 further fully trained police officers, but that it would cover 20 community support officers. He could conclude that a part of the force will cease to be able to carry out its duties correctly unless there is that increase in manpower. In those circumstances, surely he could say that the way in which the matter should be corrected is for the chief officer of police to recruit 20 community support officers to help in that part of the force. I cannot see how that would be outwith the wording of new Section 41(1)(a).
Lord Rooker: The Home Secretary can say what he likes, but the chief officer can say no. That is the fact of this Bill. There is no requirement—I respect the wish of noble Lords to intervene and I shall give way as often as any noble Lord wants, but so far I have not been able to speak for more than two sentences.
Lord Elton: I have been advised to let this go, but the Minister said that the chief officer of police could say
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no and that would be the end of the story. But I remind the Minister of the wording of new Section 41A(11):
"A chief officer of police of any police force shall comply with any direction given to him under this section".
How does that provision square with what the Minister has just said?
Lord Rooker: Earlier on I said that the supply of quotas for different types of officers in the forces does not fall into the categories of codes of practice, directions or regulations. It is as simple as that. It remains for someone to show me that it does, at which point I shall go away and have the Bill redrafted. At the present time, the setting of quotas in relation to officers does not come under any of those headings.
Last week, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, remarked on this. Many Aunt Sallies and red herrings and so forth are being raised about this point to the effect that in the future we are going to have a nasty Home Secretary and a nasty government. If I were back in the another place, I would add other descriptions to that, but as I do not wish to wind up noble Lords and bring party politics to the Floor of this Chamber, I shall refrain from doing so.
I repeat, at the present time we have record numbers of police officers. We expect to reach a figure of 130,000 by spring 2003. When that point is reached, the Home Secretary will set new targets which will not be lower; they will be higher. I hope that that instils confidence that we are not seeking to reduce police numbers or "police" in the way that we all understand the term by the use of civilian support staff in any way, shape or form.
It is for those reasons that I have stated that, basically, the amendments are unnecessary. I appreciate that when later in the week we come to Part 4 of the Bill, we shall have more substantive debates on this matter, although I make no criticism of the fact that noble Lords are raising it today. The Home Secretary could not specify proportions of staff who would fall into particular categories even supposing that he wanted to do so. Under the terms of the Bill, and whatever reading is made of those terms, it is not possible for him to do that. The chief officer is the responsible person for the direction and control of his officers and support staff. It will be the chief officer who decides on the balance between regular forces, special constables and support staff and, indeed, on how they should be deployed.
It is true that we want to see as many support staff aiding police officers as are necessary to provide a good quality service. Over the years, under both governments there has been increasing "civilianisation" of the police force. That point was made clear during our discussions on the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill. For example, the use of new technology has radically changed the nature of civilian staff in the police through the use of experts to support officers in their duties.
As I have said, we are committed and on track, with present rates of recruitment and retirement, to have 130,000 officers in post by the spring of next year. That will be a record.

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The provisions in Part 4 relating to community support officers and the wider police family will enable the best use to be made of those officers. When we achieve a force of 130,000, we then want to be able to allow chief officers to make better use of their skills. I shall certainly be happy to debate in full those issues when we come to them.
I would humbly submit that there is no case for the amendments. Indeed, I would challenge noble Lords on this because the issues relating to Clauses 4 and 5, as well as the issues relating to Clauses 2 and 3, but in particular to Clause 2 covering codes of practice for chief officers, are not suitable vehicles for the setting of quotas, even if the Home Secretary wanted to do that, which he does not.
I should now like to put on the record a small adjustment to a speech that I made last week relating to this very issue. Perhaps I was a little more positive than I should have been, but that does not undermine what I have just said; there is no plan and there are no powers for the Home Secretary. It would not work under the codes of practice, regulations or directions. However, when last week I referred to the scope of the Secretary of State to give directions to police authorities under the provisions of the Bill in response to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, as regards whether this could require a certain number or proportion of community support officers, I said that it would not be used to specify what a force should have in terms of community support officers.
That is indeed the case. The words I used then were, I believe, officers by gender, ethnicity or whatever. It is correct to say that the power could not be used in that way, but I wish to make it clear, and to remind Members of the Committee, that in July 1999 the Home Secretary set for each force employment targets for the recruitment, retention and progression of people from the minority communities. That was done because there was a positive public policy argument which had transcended both governments to the effect that the police force should be made more representative. Indeed, I believe that special constables are more representative of the minorities than is the regular force. Police forces were required to adopt a 10-year target to reflect the size of the minority ethnic communities in their area with an objective of making each force more representative of its community.
That policy does not in any way undermine my remarks, but when last week I was responding to the noble Lord, I may have given a rather black and white impression by the use of words such as "gender", "ethnicity" and so forth. The point is that no order has been made; we want targets because we want to see proactive action taken by chief officers of police, although I do not think that many of them have had to be pushed. Achieving representative forces has been extremely difficult. I know for myself, having been an elected Member of Parliament, that trying to persuade people that the police force is a good and worthy cause working on behalf of fellow citizens is not easy. Sometimes those comments have been met with quite
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negative views. As I have said, it is not easy to make the case. Nevertheless, that case has to be made and some small progress is being achieved.
That does not alter the fact that the setting of quotas according to types of officers, whether it be special constables, community support officers or regular police officers, is not a function of the Home Secretary. For this Bill, the codes of practice, the directions and the regulations cannot be used for that function. For that reason, I hope that Members of the Committee will feel able to leave it at that. We shall be able to come back to the matter and deal with it in greater detail when we come to Part 4. At that point we can consider the examples that no doubt noble Lords will wish to cite.
Lord Elton: I am grateful to the Minister for that very full reply and for the gloss on what he said in reply to my noble friend about when the Home Secretary set something very like a quota but using powers not in the Bill.
I have listened closely to everything the Minister said. He has repeatedly said, in one form or another, that none of the clauses we have covered so far is a suitable vehicle for the laying down of quotas, but I cannot see that anywhere in the Bill. It may be that he can be held to this under the case of Pepper v Hart. The Minister's statement may be a fragile defence against abuse by that means.
I shall have to look with my friends at this issue again before the next stage and to consider whether or not the proper way of doing this is to provide a general prohibition rather than linking it to two little parts of the Bill which, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, pointed out, will be brought in only in certain circumstances. With that said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 36 to 40 not moved.]
Lord Dixon-Smithmoved Amendment No. 41:
Page 4, line 19, leave out "chief officer of police of the"
The noble Lord said: The purpose of Amendment No. 41 is quite straightforward. The amendment seeks to restore traditional lines of communication. For the convenience of the Committee, I should say that I shall not be moving Amendments Nos. 48, 50 and 57, which are grouped with this amendment.
Amendment No. 41 is tabled for the simple reason that it would require the Home Secretary to issue his directions to prepare a plan to the police authority rather than to the chief constable direct. I know that there is a requirement later in the clause for the chief constable to inform the police authority and to consult it on anything that he does subsequently, but that is the wrong way round. The proper lines of communication should be from the Home Secretary to the police authority. The police authority would then, of course, immediately pass on the directions to the chief constable because he is the man who will have to take

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whatever action is required. It is a simple amendment which seeks to leave out a few words in order to restore the original situation.
I hope that the Minister will find it in his heart to be as amenable as he was so many times last week when we discussed the Bill. Perhaps he will accept the principle of the amendment even if he does not like the wording. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: As to the noble Lord's last point, I should say at this early part of our considerations that the Committee has, as yet, no idea of how emollient and amenable we will be in today's proceedings. There will be occasions when my noble friend Lord Bassam will have good news for the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, but he will have to wait and be patient. That is not designed to suck up to him when I ask him to withdraw his amendment.
I accept that the noble Lord makes a seductive case, but his amendment would have no real effect. I shall briefly explain why. The purpose of Clause 5 is to establish why a force or a part of a force is underperforming and to draw up plans to address the issue. The production of an action plan must be an on-going process if it is to address the underlying causes of under-performance. It will not work if the Secretary of State is presented with a finished action plan to which no amendments can be made. Therefore, removing some of the Secretary of State's powers to influence resubmitted plans would seriously dilute the effectiveness of the provisions.
It is in no one's interest not to take the remedial action required. Obviously, if the action plan did not address the under-performance and correct the issues, there would be no point in having it. But, having reached that stage, there is no point in not taking the action required—least of all for the local community which, by definition, is not receiving the policing it is entitled to expect.
Amendment No. 41 seeks to remove the reference to the chief officer in proposed new Section 41A(4) so that the force would be required to amend and resubmit the action plan. However, the duty would still fall on the chief officer as he is responsible for the direction and control of the force. To that extent, the amendment would have no discernible effect. As I said, the amendment is seductive, but I hope that for those reasons the noble Lord will think again and not pursue his amendment.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I do not want to stray on to later amendments in the way that the Minister did, but there are reasons why the proprieties of the lines of communication should be maintained. Amendment No. 41 is directed towards restoring the more normal way of dealing with matters. I have never yet found it satisfactory to move away from the normal lines of communication towards a situation whereby senior officers—or, in this case, the Government—are able to give orders lo people down the line.
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I accept that we are dealing with a situation where there is a lot of mutual feed-back of information. It is highly unlikely that a force would receive an adverse inspector's report just like that. Any force which received such a report would probably know about it before the Minister. That kind of situation makes some of this legislation incomprehensible to me. By the time the directions come down from the Secretary of State, someone will already be taking action to put things right. If not, then the police would not be acting in the way I would expect them to act. That is the way I would expect them to behave.
I heard what the Minister said and, at this stage, I shall withdraw the amendment, but I cannot say that I am satisfied with the answers I have received.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 42 to 50 not moved.]
Lord Dixon-Smithmoved Amendment No. 51:
Page 4, leave out lines 34 to 38.
The noble Lord said: We now come to the Secretary of State's power to, quite literally, micro-manage the police. We are not talking only about action plans to rectify the consequences of an adverse report but, if I have read the Bill correctly, about the fact that those action plans can be bounced backwards and forwards between the Government and the police force until they are worded in precisely the way required by the Home Secretary. If he does not like what he sees, the Home Secretary can require that the plan be resubmitted and that the resubmission be resubmitted. We could go on and on with submission and resubmission for so long that, if we were not careful, the original fault would be lost sight of by the time the argument ended. This is micro-management run wild. We need to think very seriously about whether this is an appropriate way to go forward.
I accept that if an adverse report is received the Home Secretary has every right to call for a plan to rectify the situation. There is no difficulty with that. But I do not understand why the Home Secretary would have so little confidence in senior officers—with an immense amount of experience and local knowledge—doing the serious job that they had to do and submitting a report to put matters right. The idea in the Bill is that the Home Secretary, if he (lid not like particular parts of the report, or if it did not alter the emphasis in quite the way that he believed it should be altered, could say as a consequence that Answer A was not the answer and that the Home Office wanted something else.
It seems to me that this provision is in danger of being an immense vote of no confidence in the senior officers who are employed to do the work. I do not believe that it is wise to legislate for this kind of detailed interference—even if I thought that the interference could be explained on any rational basis.
It is extremely unfortunate that the Bill is drafted in this way. I should prefer to see the capacity to "micro-manage" removed from it. We may not have wholly succeeded in achieving that in our amendment and I should be the first to admit that. However, if the

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Minister is prepared to accept the principle that I have enunciated, he could help us to make sure that the Bill was consistently drafted. He has the experts, and we just do our little best. I beg to move.
Lord Bradshaw: I support the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. I declare an interest as a member of the Thames Valley Police Authority.
I ask the Minister at the outset: has he any idea about the way in which police authorities are managed? First, they are inspected by inspectors of constabulary, who are employees of the Secretary of State and presumably do his bidding. They carry out their inspections at several levels. There are also the community partnerships. We have an audit and performance review committee and a strategy, finance and planning committee. I can assure the Minister that if any weakness is indicated, either in the best-value performance indicators or in the indicators of various crimes, that is the work of the committees and of the police authorities. In no way would an authority be found to be inefficient or ineffective without there having been very clear signals for some time in advance of that happening. Plenty of time exists for the Home Secretary to draw people's attention to that and to order a special inspection.
I know that the Minister is not listening to what I am saying, but he has not made a case for the powers set out in the Bill. There are all kinds of means by which authorities are managed—properly, thoroughly and in respect of legislation and audits which we have previously been given. It is incumbent on the Minister to indicate the degree of inefficiency which would require the powers that are now being sought. There is little evidence of that at present. We strongly support the amendment.
Lord Borrie: The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has emphasised that this clause—like the previous one, which deals with authorities as distinct from chief officers of police—provides powers for the Home Secretary based on findings of inefficiency or ineffectiveness in the whole or in a part of a police force, or at the very least findings that the force will be inefficient or ineffective unless remedial measures are taken.
I listened to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I bear in mind his experience in these matters, but that strikes me as very much something to be done as a last resort. A most unfortunate and undesirable occasion will have arisen. But the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, did not mention—or certainly did not stress—the basic requirements set out in both clauses before the Home Secretary can act. He mentioned the fact that senior officers will have great experience. There will be officers of great experience, but, sadly, we are talking about a position where those officers, albeit of great experience, have failed—where they have been ineffective or inefficient in the running of their force—or about the fact that that will be the outcome unless remedial measures are taken in a last
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resort. Given those circumstances. I do not see the strength in the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, that the provisions to which the amendment refers are overblown or unnecessary.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, has provoked me into a short riposte. He lumps Clauses 4 and 5 together. There is a major difference between them. Under the terms of Clause 4, the Home Secretary can act only where there is an independent report of malfunctioning. Under the terms of Clause 5, his action need not follow any such report. We on these Benches are worried about an over-zealous, over-dogmatic or misguided Home Secretary—particularly having regard to future trends in policing—where there is no present inefficiency or ineffectiveness, having the strong and misplaced view in his or her head that to maintain future effectiveness the chief constable must do this, or must do that. That is our worry.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: The noble Lord on the Front Bench is known for his lively imagination and his lack of inhibition. I nevertheless fear that his masters do not always have the same elasticity and flexibility of mind.
Lord Rooker: The noble Lord is absolutely right!
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I am much obliged to the noble Lord.
The amendment raises the question: has the Home Secretary thought about the likely reaction of a force— often under-strength and facing complex and often dangerous tasks—to constant doses of advice and instruction? Most of the time, a force will he doing its best but simply does not have the men on the ground to do what is required.
This modest amendment deserves consideration. Were it to be accepted, it would go some of the way towards reassuring chief officers of police and members of the force generally that their worries were at least understood. As it is, I fear that they are not. This House would do well, either now or at some future stage, to send this kind of amendment back for consideration by another place, which has probably not even considered the matter. I very much hope that the noble Lord will take it seriously. I hope that he will at least put the point to his noble friends. I repeat my question: has he appreciated the likely reactions of a modern police force to constant doses of advice and instruction given in public?
4 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I realise that the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, was addressing his comments about imagination and flexibility not to me, but to my noble friend Lord Rooker. I shall try to be as imaginative and flexible as my noble friend, who has such an enviable reputation in that regard.
We have listened carefully to the thoughts that have been expressed on the issue, as part of a subset of very similar issues. We are prepared to keep an open mind,

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but noble Lords need to focus on what we are trying to achieve. The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, got it pretty much spot on. We are talking about police forces in which there is a failure in whole or in part and looking at those forces' efficiency and effectiveness—words that are drawn from the historic Police Act 1964, which was all about the relationship between the police authority, the officers of the service and the public. That Act gave the police authorities specific responsibility for ensuring that we had efficient and effective police forces. Taking out the paragraphs specified in the amendment would deprive the Secretary of State of the important ability to address precisely that part of the police force in which there was an element of inadequacy.
One issue that has come up during the debate about which I feel most strongly is the assumption behind some of the arguments that have been brought forward by all noble Lords, but particularly those on the Benches opposite, that we are seeking to impose detailed action plans on all police forces at all times. That is not the case. They will apply only when there is demonstrable evidence of specific and particular elements of failure.
Noble Lords need to think carefully about the matter, because removing the ability to issue directions in the way that we suggest would undermine the effectiveness of the power, which is designed to address underperformance. All of your Lordships are very concerned about underperformance in the public services, particularly in the police service, because we know that we need to get good value for money. We have been impressed by the effects of best value reviews in the police service, which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentioned. They have served us well over the past few years in bringing up performance. That is what we are seeking to do. If HMIC or the Police Standards Unit have identified an area of underperformance, it is right that they should be able to make recommendations and that those recommendations can be addressed in an action plan.
This is an iterative process. It will he ongoing. The noble Lord, Lord Peyton, referred to interference. The provisions are not about interference; they are about setting the parameters of the action that needs to be taken and having a process of dialogue with the officers to ensure that we—and more particularly they—get it right, so that underperformance and bad performance can be properly addressed.
We shall listen to the points that have been made and reflect on them, but that is why we argue that the Secretary of State must be able to require chief officers to pay detailed attention to those recommendations so that that iterative process continues and the action plan and targets can be perfected to ensure that they address specifically the issues concerned. That will enable the police authority, the Home Office, the Secretary of State and, more importantly, the local communities to which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, referred—I presume that he was talking about the crime prevention partnerships that are in place—to be properly engaged in ensuring that those targets and performance measures are delivered. We
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are all committed to ensuring performance at the highest level and to getting booms for our bucks in public expenditure by raising standards in the police service. It is not about the overbearing centre always getting it right; it is about the centre helping the police service to ensure that it can deliver on the ground, where it really matters.
I hope that noble Lords feel that that explanation will enable them not to press their amendments and that we can all reflect on the central importance of raising standards and quality in the localities. The issue for us in government is finding ways in which the centre can seek to help in that process.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I am sure that the noble Lord is aware that one of the three biggest lies in the world is when a representative of government calls on somebody and says, "I am here to help you". The noble Lord has just talked about help coming from the centre. That is a very unusual situation. If one were to ask many of the policemen who receive that constant flow of advice and instruction, they might well say that it was not always helpful. Neither the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, nor the Minister has even referred to the problem of under-resourcing. There may be inefficiency—
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My noble friend Lord Rooker made it plain in an earlier exchange that by March 2002 we shall have record numbers of serving police officers in the United Kingdom. The figures are clear and uncontested. There is an ongoing process that looks again at improving the level and standard of resourcing. That is the Government not just being helpful, but putting the resources where it matters—on the streets and in the communities, making sure that the police service is there on the ground to do the job that we all want it to do. Surely that is an incontestable fact.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: The basic fact remains that in London, the capital city, and in many areas of the countryside, the police are hopelessly under-resourced. That is a major cause of inefficiency and failure. Ministers refuse to acknowledge the existence of such problems and merely say complacently that we shall soon have a record number of policemen. Later in the Bill we shall deal with one suggestion as to how the Government are going to increase numbers, which not all of us find acceptable. Ministers seem unimpressed by any evidence that the police are grossly under-resourced for dealing with modern crime and the behaviour of modern society.
Lord Dholakia: Why are such draconian measures necessary? Clause 4 says:
"the Secretary of State may direct the police authority responsible for maintaining that force to take such measures as may be specified in the direction"

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Why is it necessary for the Secretary of State to interfere directly with the chief constable when he can direct the police authority to take the necessary action?
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I hope that the Minister will not think that I am perpetrating another well-known lie when I say that I have a certain sympathy for him. As he frequently reminds us, he is anxious to remedy proven failure. The problem addressed by the amendment is that the power that he is taking is not limited to cases of proven failure. As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has pointed out, subsection (1)(b) extends the power to a case in which the Secretary of State believes,
"that the whole or a part of the force will cease to be efficient or effective, whether generally or in particular respects, unless remedial measures are taken".
The Minister is well fair enough in mind to understand our anxiety that the Government may be paying lip service to the doctrine of operational independence by legislating to call for a plan, whereas in fact, in certain circumstances, they are taking power to themselves to require measures to be taken. That is where the resubmission comes in: "Resubmit and resubmit until you do exactly what L the Home Secretary, want". I know that the Minister is fair enough to realise that that is a genuine and a proper anxiety on our part. Perhaps he could give an indication that the Government will think again about it. We are anxious that this power may be applied to a future situation which has not yet arisen and in which there is not yet proven failure. It might be sensible, before Report, to think again about subsection (1)(b) and to remove the possibility of applying the power in such situations.
Lord Fowler: I had not intended to intervene, but the Minister has made a number of statements that—although he tried to pretend otherwise—are distinctly challengeable. It is absurd to say that the police service will be fully resourced if we reach the level of 130,000 policemen. When the Minister bandies about words such as "record", he should think about what has occurred. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, police service strength increased by about 15,000 net. In the rest of the 1990s, and the period in which this Government have been in office, police service numbers have decreased. It is perfectly true that police numbers will eventually be greater than ever before, but that simply begs the question. The fact is that increases should have been made year by year.
We are under-policed in this country. On Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Condon, made that point very well. London cannot compare with New York. New York is adequately policed, which is why it has been able to adopt such successful policies. That point goes to the heart of this debate. We are talking about trying to make the police as effective as we
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conceivably can, but one of the reasons why the police are not as effective as possible is that they are under-resourced, as they have been for the past few years.
Lord Bradshaw: Noble Lords should remember that, on recruitment, a police constable is effectively 0.3 of a man because he has to undergo a great deal of training. Some 57 per cent of policemen in the Slough division are constables on probation. Although we can fill the establishment, we cannot fill it with effective policemen. Furthermore, we are going to "civilianise" between 200 and 300 posts in Thames Valley. We have had to pay for that from reserves by increasing our precepts by almost 14 per cent because the money available from central Government is not sufficient to increase police numbers to the required level. Moreover, the recruitment and particularly the retention of policemen in London are extremely difficult. Those are all reasons why the raw figures do not always tell the full story.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I shall intervene only briefly. It seems to me, having listened to the debate so far, that the proposed power of direction is totally misconceived. In its proposed form, it pre-empts consultation; whereas, if it were reversed behind consultation, it could be a step towards retaining the reserved power. However, from the point of view of administration and good policing, the proposal seems provocative nonsense.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: Those points were all helpful and underlined earlier points. I should like to return to the resource issue. I think that we could probably all agree, hand on heart, that there can never be sufficient resources for the police service. The question that I always ask is: what is the appropriate resource level? Perhaps when he was the shadow Home Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, had in mind an optimum number for the Metropolitan Police. I do not know whether he did, but I certainly do not remember him going on the record with such a figure. Perhaps he had an optimum number in his head.
Our Government, however, have been firm and resolute in their commitment to ensuring that the police service has well-funded budgets. We have also started in the past few years to see a turnaround in the whole issue of recruitment and retention. The figures bear that out. In March 1997, there were 127,158 police officers. We anticipate that, in March 2002, there will be 128,000. We also project that, in March 2003, there will be a total of 130,000. Obviously, when we reach those figures, we shall have to continue examining whether they are the right ones. It will be for those in position on the day, working with their colleagues in the police service, to make those assessments.
The case is there to be made. We accept and have never hidden from the fact that resource issues are very important and that we must address them. It is also true that, in the timeframe that I have been talking about—the four years from March 1997 to September

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2001—3,000 extra support staff have been put in place to support the police in their important work. Moreover, according to my figures, budgets will grow from £7.7 billion in 2001 to £9.3 billion in 2003–04. That does not suggest a lack of commitment. It suggests to me that we should keep these issues continually under review to improve support and resource levels so that we can tackle the profound issues surrounding crime.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, was kind and helpful in his observations. We take the point that we shall have to reflect on how the power is exercised. However, we believe that it will be exercised where HMIC, the standards unit and perhaps the Audit Commission have found evidence of precise failure. As I said at the outset, we would expect to pursue the matter, in an iterative and helpful manner, in those circumstances.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Those comments have been repeated by Ministers so often now that the Government should perhaps table an amendment to this clause ensuring that, if the power survives at all, it can be exercised only in the circumstances he has just enunciated.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord accepts my case—that this would be appropriate action where there has been an identifiable failure—and I am grateful for that acceptance.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The Minister knows—I nearly used a Saxon word—very well that I believe that the whole clause is misconceived; we shall soon be dealing with that point. However, if the power must survive, the legislation should include the limitation that the Home Secretary cannot go off on a frolic of his or her own, but act only on receipt of an adverse report from the inspectorate. That would allay some fears.
Lord Elton: It should limit the Home Secretary to perceived failure and not expected failure. The Minister continues to say that the Secretary of State can act only when there is evident failure, but the Bill does not say that.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: The Minister says that he is dealing with a case. In effect, however, without meaning to do so, he is moving away from the essence of the argument. He really has to go back and consider the essence of the issue, and whether, in the form in which the proposal is made, there is a pre-emption of essential consultation. That is the essence of this argument.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: This whole debate is predicated—I thought that I had made this clear at the outset—on there being perceived failure, or the likelihood of failure which, if it existed, would fundamentally undermine the effectiveness and efficiency of a police force. I think we are all agreed that it is desirable to achieve effectiveness and efficiency. That has been a constant thread in
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legislation for much of the past 40 years. Obviously, we shall reflect on the point that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, made. We may well be able to improve the wording of the clause.
I am grateful that there appears to be acceptance, albeit not wholehearted, on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, that if we can further perfect the meaning of the clause to make it useful in its exercise, we shall be happy to do so. However, the measure is in essence a matter of last resort where there is proven failure on the part of whole or part of a police force. It seeks to enable such a police force to be sustained in an efficient and effective way. We take on board the sensible comments about the need constantly to review the resource in supporting the force and ensuring that it is properly provided for.
Lord Dixon-Smith: This has been—
Lord Condon: I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Before the noble Lord responds, I emphasise the anxiety that other Members of the Committee have mentioned in connection with the clause. I hear what the Minister says but, as drafted, the powers are not linked to unsatisfactory performance. Subsection (1) of new Section 41A states:
"in consequence of a report under section 54 or otherwise".
The word "otherwise" can be linked to future anticipated behaviour as opposed to faults that occurred in the past. That is then linked to fairly unfettered powers to set performance targets and so on. It may be a theoretical argument, but an argument can be constructed to the effect that without any fault having occurred the Home Secretary of the day may seek to impose performance targets for nakedly political reasons, perhaps in the run-up to a general election, to demand that clear-up rates in relation to a particular crime improve dramatically in an unreasonable period of time.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I wish to ask the noble Lord a question to draw out the issue. Does he accept that the Secretary of State may in certain circumstances be right to act if there is anticipated failure that would have an adverse effect on the effectiveness and efficiency of a force? If the Secretary of State is obliged to wait until that failure has occurred, I suggest that he would be rightly criticised for failing to act earlier in anticipation of an evident failure in the efficiency and effectiveness of the force.
Lord Condon: I agree absolutely with the noble Lord on that issue. Such action in those circumstances would clearly be in the public interest. I believe that all that Members of the Committee are arguing for is that those circumstances should be stated on the face of the Bill.
Lord Dixon-Smith: This has been a long and interesting debate. Perhaps I should begin with a few words of explanation to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, as to why I do not go round the whole of the landscape before I get to the substance of my argument. Quite

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simply, as in this case, the reason is that we have often covered the ground earlier to some degree and also, if one were to do that, one would prolong the debate considerably with much repetition. I also like to think that Members of the Committee have experience and knowledge of the situation. I do not accept the noble Lord's criticism of my remarks. If the Bill dealt exclusively with those situations where a report indicated failure, his remarks would be entirely appropriate and I would agree with him. I cannot remember whether the noble Lord was present at the time, but we certainly tabled an amendment which we debated last Thursday as to whether we should take out of subsection (1) of new Section 41A the words "whether or otherwise". The noble Lord, Lord Condon, referred to those words, as did the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. The other word that renders the whole provision rather abstruse is "will". The measure deals with a situation that might arise in the future. Those areas give cause for concern.
I deal with two other issues. I pick up the resource issue and then put it on one side, so to speak. Clearly, the resource issue is important but it has nothing to do with the particular issue that we are discussing. However, as it has been brought up, one has to say that the situation with regard to manpower in the police is now improving. That must be welcome to absolutely everyone and is certainly a reversal of the trend that existed only about two years ago. That is immensely welcome and it is good to see that that situation has changed.
I come back to the substance of how you deal with a force that has a problem. The real question which lies behind the amendments that we are discussing is whether it is a right and appropriate use of a Secretary of State's immense powers—after all, he has legislative authority—to deal with what might be a problem in a basic command unit, as the powers go down that far. Last week I said that in many cases a direction emanating from a Whitehall department is less effective than a telephone call to someone in authority who is directly in charge of the situation to ask what on earth is going on as a problem has developed. The person directly in charge will already know about it as he will have seen the report and will have been present when the inspectors carried out their inspection. The inspectors will have told him that the situation was not right and asked him what he intended to do to sort it out. I draw an analogy with the Ministry of Defence. Senior officers in the military would be astonished if the kind of procedure that is suggested in these proposals were to be applied to a military situation.
However, I accept that we are discussing an entirely different situation. The police constitute a civil force. I accept that the Home Secretary finds himself occasionally in the embarrassing situation of having to answer awkward questions in another place. However, that is appropriate; he is accountable. His solution to putting that right is to ask those who are immediately accountable to him for the situation what they are doing about it. However, the powers that we are discussing do not seem to me to constitute good
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management practice. We all share the same ambition; that is, to have a police force which works effectively and well on behalf of the whole community. There is no difference between us as regards that ambition. As I often used to find in discussions with my father, the difference is over method. I believe that the Government have picked the wrong method. However, I shall study what they have said. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 52 to 57 not moved.]
4.30 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smithhad given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 58:
Page 5, leave out lines 10 and 11.
The noble Lord said: I believe that we have slipped on this amendment. I do not intend to move it. But Amendments Nos. 59, 110 and 130 are grouped with it so that gives me the opportunity to speak to them. I do not believe that I can move Amendment No. 58, but I believe that it is all right if I do not withdraw it until after dealing with the group of amendments. We had better de-group these amendments because I do not intend to speak to Amendment No. 58, but to the following amendment.
[Amendment No. 58 not moved]
Lord Dixon-Smithmoved Amendment No. 59:
Page 5, line 11, at end insert "and, subject to his obtaining the approval of the relevant police authority to such plan, shall take such steps as are necessary and practicable to implement any action plan resulting from such direction"
The noble Lord said: I apologise to the House: occasionally one gets into procedural difficulties. This amendment deals with what is to happen when the chief officer of police submits an action plan and has to deal with it. By implication, an action plan is going to be acted on, but there is nothing in the Bill which actually says that it must be. It is also essential that the police authority is fully involved in the situation. The amendment is designed to bring that about.
The amendment also calls on the chief constable to obtain the approval of the police authority and NCIS as regards Amendment No. 110 and the National Crime Squad in relation to Amendment No.130 and the approval of the directors of the action plan. It is important psychologically that everyone is thoroughly involved at all levels. This amendment seeks to make explicit on the face of the Bill something which I am quite sure the Minister will tell me is implicit. He may try to tell me that the amendment is unnecessary, but we thought that it was worth making sure that this situation will come about. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, did not move Amendment No. 58. If he had been serious about it, he would have removed from Clause 5 a provision which states that a police officer is required to comply with

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any direction issued under the clause. Effectively, the clause would have been entirely purposeless. I believe that the noble Lord realises that.
He continued by suggesting amendments which effectively render the clause irrelevant or superfluous. The other three amendments provide the requirement to comply with directions under the clause, but for that to he highly qualified. A chief officer, in circumstances which the noble Lord is attempting to establish, would he required to comply with a direction issued under the clause and would implement any action plan resulting from such a direction, subject to obtaining the approval of the police or service authority.
Therefore, regardless of what was agreed in consultation between the chief officer and the police authority and of what the Secretary of State agreed to in an action plan, the police authority would effectively be able to veto its implementation. That is the effect of the noble Lord's amendment. We argue that the phrase "necessary and practicable", which seem reasonable words in themselves, would also risk offering a get-out clause if the action plan was not to be fully implemented.
Perhaps that is what the noble Lord intends. If he does, it fundamentally undermines the purpose behind having a power of direction. The chief officer could then claim that the Secretary of State had imposed impractical conditions on the force and that under this provision he was unable to deliver the action plan.
I can understand circumstances in which that might arise, but I question its desirability. Frankly, there would be little purpose in the Secretary of State being able to issue directions to chief officers if the very means of implementing them could effectively be vetoed at the very last stage by the police authority. I am not sure that that is the right way for the police service to proceed. There has to be a question mark over that point.
Perhaps the argument being put forward by noble Lords opposite is that there should be a greater role for police authorities in preparing action plans. I shall be very interested to hear whether that is the case because welcome though such involvement would be—and they are to he involved in the process—we need to focus on the real reason and intention behind the power of direction.
We keep coming back to this point. The power of direction is to enable the service to drive up and improve standards and quality of performance. After all, that is what we are attempting to achieve. We have just had a long debate about how one achieves efficient and effective policing and its importance, particularly as regards issues where a long-term and precise failure has been identified and, in such a situation, the kinds of powers of direction that may be required.
I am grateful for Amendment No. 58 not being moved. I believe that the noble Lord will wish to reflect on the net effect of the other three amendments that he spoke to in this group. They would fundamentally undermine what we are seeking to achieve where there is a measure of agreement between us on the desirability of raising standards and ensuring that
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there is adequate support from the centre of the right kind and which has been negotiated and subjected to arbitration. We see that as being part of the process of getting the support in place and ensuring that the powers of direction are not undermined by an effective veto on action plans.
Lord Bradshaw: Perhaps I may intervene before the noble Lord speaks. This matter goes to the very heart of the issue of the tripartite nature of policing. In my view one cannot separate the chief officer from the police authority, which is what this clause seeks to do. Since Derbyshire was, I believe, the last police authority found to be inefficient or ineffective, police authorities have been thoroughly reformed. They include independent members and they have also gone through the process of best value. They have also gone through considerable processes of consultation. I honestly believe that if they are left out of the process one goes to the very heart of the way in which policing is conducted here.
The Minister has never made it clear why the Home Secretary wants these powers. He has all sorts of powers of direction, which are used informally such as when there is a petrol crisis and airliners fly into buildings in the United States. There are immediate directions from the Home Office which are issued by informal means. He does not secure legislation to do that. I am sure that he has enough powers now. The Minister has not made his case at all.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I support what has just been said. I believe that we are moving towards understanding the Government's need to enable direction to be given in cases of proven incompetence. We will not go over the last debate again. But would it not undoubtedly salve some of the soreness that the exclusion of the police authority would occasion if this amendment were accepted? I can see the Government's anxiety in that they may believe that the police force would not have got into this mess if the police authority had been doing its job. But things would have moved on if matters had got to the stage where the Secretary of State had to issue a direction.
I invite the Minister to think carefully about the need to preserve the tripartite structure, which has just been alluded to, and the importance of keeping the police authority on side, if I may put it like that. It is worth more than a thought and I hope that the Minister will give it more than that.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: Since the issue of the tripartite arrangement has been raised, it is important to place on record our continued confidence and trust in that relationship. Perhaps without realising it, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made quite an astute observation. He makes lots of them! He made the point that changes have been made to the tripartite arrangement. Changes were made in the 1994 Police Act, which reconstituted police authorities and changed their composition. I have heard the other side of that argument—that those changes undermined the tripartite arrangements at the time. In practice, that

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has not been the case. The arrangement was changed. It is organic; it has changed over time. We see some of our proposals for this piece of legislation as again reordering that balance but, nevertheless, recognising the fundamental importance of the tripartite arrangement, which has in the past served us extremely well. Although at present there is no specific proposal that the police authority should give particular approval to the plan resulting from the direction, we anticipate that, through debate, it will be involved in the evolutionary process of seeking to remedy something that is clearly not working.
I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, will accept the point that it may on occasions be absolutely right for the Secretary of State to issue a direction to the chief officer and to expect some immediate remedial action to be taken, especially when the problem causing the direction needs immediate resolution. It would fall specifically to a chief police officer to put right any precise failure that had led to a lack of confidence in the police locally and to ensure a restoration of public confidence in the local police service to deal with particular problems that are identified. Given the nature of the police service and the difficult job that it has to do, there may in the future be circumstances in which that precise power of direction will need to be exercised, without necessarily having to refer the matter back to the police authority itself. However, by and large, we anticipate that the police authority will be involved in the development of an action plan following a direction.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I do not wish to draft an amendment on my feet—it is not my business to do so—but will the Minister accept that the words "after consultation with the police authority" would chime exactly with what he has just said?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble and learned Lord, of course, has great experience of such matters. Without commitment, I shall be quite happy to reflect on the important point that he has made.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: The noble Lord and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, has at least winkled something out of the Government. I accept the Minister's criticism that it could be argued that this amendment may give the relevant authority a power of veto. That, of course, is perhaps not the purpose of this debate. However, we face considerable difficulties in tabling amendments to this clause. My own inclination was simply to deal with the clause as a whole when we reach the Question whether it shall stand part of the Bill, rather than trying to dissect it.
We have had a worthwhile debate, if only to extract from the Government their absolute statement of confidence in support of the tripartite arrangements. That in itself has made the debate worthwhile. One might have suspected, if one simply read the Bill, that that confidence no longer existed. We have had a useful discussion. I do not intend to rehearse the issues
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any further at this stage. We shall consider what the Minister has said. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: I listened with great care to what was said earlier today by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. There is no doubt that his tone was very reasonable, as were his replies on the first day of Committee last week. One has the impression from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that the Government are willing to amend this clause. The noble Lord certainly gave the impression that its purposes are limited merely to what would probably be acceptable to both sides of the House. However, it appears to me that the difficulty arises in that, whereas that may be the Minister's intention, the wording of the clause is extremely wide and gives unnecessary powers to the Home Secretary, such that it affects the tripartite arrangement for the management of the police force in this country. I shall endeavour to illustrate how wide it is.
The noble Lords, Lord Borrie and Lord Rooker, said that this clause could not come into being unless there was, to use the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, already a finding that the police force, or part of it, was in serious disregard. With great respect, I do not believe that that is so. A "finding" implies an independent finding by an independent body. Here one requires no finding, but merely that the Home Secretary, in order to make directions about how a police force shall behave, should satisfy himself, without stating the basis of the evidence, that a part of that force will cease to be efficient in particular respects.
The clause goes on to state that the chief of police, having responded to the directions of the Home Secretary and having put in a plan of action to remedy what the Home Secretary foresees as a possible defect in a particular respect in a part of that force, has the power to direct him again to change that plan so as to fit in with his directions. Sub-section (4) states that, on considering an action plan submitted to him in accordance with a direction, the Secretary of State may direct the chief officer to revise that plan. It has been said that he may continue to require him to revise it until it eventually accords with his own wishes and that finally, having done so, the chief officer of police of any police force is required by sub-section (11) to
"comply with any direction given to him under this section"
It seems to me that those are much wider powers than those which the Government purport to say are the purpose behind this clause. It is very difficult to understand the difference between the powers granted to the Home Secretary under Clause 5 of this Bill and moving by stealth—I do not intend to be in any way derogatory to the Home Secretary—unnoticeably and slowly towards a national police force, without having open debate, if that is the way in which we wish to proceed. I therefore hope that the Government will

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consider carefully the terms of Clause 5 and the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, implied that he would consider.
I do not understand the answer that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, gave to my noble friend Lord Waddington. He said that the Bill's powers could not be used in the way in which my noble friends Lord Waddington and Lord Elton suggested or to regulate the number of different parts of a police force. I give what some will say is an extreme example, but it may not be. The Home Secretary might be satisfied that in a force that has a motorway and other roads running through it, the intended decision of the chief police officer to reduce the number of police cars on the motorway and to employ the police in other ways could make that force inefficient in a particular respect; namely, in relation to the control of traffic on the motorway. There is nothing in the clause that could not require the Home Secretary to make the chief constable provide a plan that would show how he was going to dispose of his officers for the purpose of remedying the possible problems that the Home Secretary had perceived.
We should also consider the fact that Clause 32 will allow the chief police officer to take on such community officers as he wishes. I do not see how that could overrule the requirement that he,
"shall comply with any direction given to him",
by the Home Secretary. It is arguable that the actions that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, suggested were never the intention of or purpose behind the Bill fall within the scope of the Bill. For those reasons, I hope that the Government will carefully consider the terms of the clause.
Lord Renton: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Carlisle for his comments. He suggested that the Government should amend the clause but I feel obliged to go further. The clause is unnecessary; it is a bad clause. If things were going wrong, Clause 4, which will give power to the Secretary of State to give directions to the police authority, is what is needed. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, pointed out, it is absurd to separate the responsibilities of the police authority from the chief police officer. Instead of maintaining order and preventing and fighting crime, chief officers would, under Clause 5, become involved in a mass of bureaucratic and detailed directions, which would come from Home Office officials and which would lead to arguments with them.
It is many years since I was responsible for police matters in the Home Office, where, for four and a half years, I was Under-Secretary and Minister of State. My noble friend Lord Carlisle and other noble friends have had those responsibilities in more recent years. In my time, we simply did not have the staff, expertise or experience to exercise such control over the police. I do not know—it is right that none of us knows—whether the Home Office now has officials with such responsibility and expertise. However, even if the situation has improved, such bureaucratic control over chief constables would not help them to do their work more effectively and put matters right. It would
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be time-consuming and tiresome for them and direct their attention from their true responsibility of keeping order. I hope that the Government agree to withdraw the clause altogether.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: It is worth quickly reminding ourselves what the clause will do. First, a direction does not have to be laid before Parliament. Secondly, it can be issued by the Home Secretary on his or her initiative. Thirdly, it is not dependent on any third party or adverse finding. Fourthly, it is a direction with which the chief constable must comply. Fifthly, it completely bypasses the existing tripartite balance and leaves the police authority totally out of the calculation, except in so far as the Home Secretary has to tell the police authority that a direction has been issued when one is issued.
When examining these centralising powers, there is a danger that one does not see the overall context within which they will operate. We have surely seen enough centralising measures during the past few years. We have seen, for example, county probation committees converted into county probation boards, although closely comparable powers were put in the Home Secretary's hands. We also saw that with community health councils and in many other areas. We on these Benches object in principle to any further centralisation of powers at the expense of local power and local government that is not overwhelmingly and beyond peradventure justified by hard evidence. The one feature that has been signally lacking in our debate so far on this part of the Bill is any clear evidence from the Government that the present arrangements are failing.
I take considerable comfort from those Members of the Committee who have experience of police authorities. I refer in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Condon, who is to me a sort of Moses on the Mount in this debate. So long as he agrees with me, I shall continue to look on him as Moses on the Mount. It is notable that in one of his interventions in our debate last Thursday, he said—indeed, the Minister also said this—that the tripartite arrangements have stood the test of time. So what on earth are we doing driving a huge wedge into the existing balance between police authorities, the Home Secretary and the chief constable?
We are told that the powers will not be used except in the last resort. With respect to the Ministers, they are not entitled to say that. They can say, "I will use the power only in the last resort", but they can say no more than that. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is following my argument—
Lord Rooker: I am always listening.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am glad of that. We are dealing with the relations between the state, the police and local communities, and in relation to that matter we need to proceed on an extremely cautious basis—perhaps more so than in relation to almost any other area. We should proceed not on the basis of complete mistrust but on one of extreme scepticism when we

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hear statements from a Minister that seek to bind future Ministers. We have had experience of overzealous—and, some of us may believe, misguided—Home Secretaries. It would be profoundly mistaken to agree to the clause, which completely subverts—let us not dilly-dally—the existing tripartite arrangements. It would he folly to allow that unless we had overwhelming evidence of the failure of the present arrangements.
We are bound to return to the importance of local democracy and of consent in policing. The police force is under enough pressure. For example, there is enough evidence of people refusing to give evidence to make us feel strongly that nothing at all should be done to diminish local influence and control.
I shall read a letter that I received from Christine Laverock, who is the chair of the Suffolk police authority. She pithily summarises that authority's view of the clause and this part of the Bill. She said:
"In our view, these proposals ride roughshod over the voice of local communities, and make Police Authorities administrative agents of central government. The operational independence of Chief Constables and the role of target setting, monitoring and planning by members of Police Authorities is in danger of being seriously undermined".
We say "Amen" to every word in that letter.
I have one further point to make on the issue of management. At present, chief constables know roughly where they stand: they are primarily responsible to their employing police authorities. Therefore, to allow the Home Secretary to dive in without consulting the police authority, as Clause 5 would permit, and issue directions with which the chief constable must comply would be devastating in terms of that chief constable knowing where he, or she, stands. The Old Testament was right to say that a man cannot serve two masters. The effect of Clause 5 would mean that the chief constable would have to do just that.
With the leave of the Committee, perhaps I may read from a letter that I have received from Martin Wargent, who is the chief executive of the Central Probation Council. Some noble Lords present in the Chamber today will have taken part in the debate on the proposal to strip the probation committees of their powers in almost precisely the way that is now proposed under this Bill. He has visited 32 of the 42 boards, and summarises their view of what that stripping of powers has done to the management arrangements, as follows:
"Chief Officers are getting instructions from the Home Office that are not always made clear to the employing boards. Board members are increasingly concerned about the nature of their role. They were told it was of great importance and their skills and excellent background experience would make them central to good delivery of services, good staff care and good community liaison. They are discovering that they are bypassed by the National Probation Directorate [under the Home Secretary] which directs the Chief Officer … There is growing disaffection amongst probation Board members".
How do the Government expect the calibre of people serving on police authorities to remain as high as is currently the case if significant powers are taken away from them and given to the Home Secretary?
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I sometimes think that this business of the Home Secretary having the power to intervene and to take decisions away and exercise them himself is a little like a father with a son who has come of age. He says to the son, "Well, good luck son; you are now in the world on your own. By the way, I shall have the right to ring your bank manager and tell him not to give you an overdraft, but I shall not exercise that other than in extreme circumstances". We all know that we need to consider the matter in the round and that the salami slicing of powers away from local authorities, local bodies, and, here, police authorities, can have a devastating effect over time on the calibre of people willing to serve on such boards, and, indeed, on the way that they perceive their authority and power. Noble Lords on this side of the Committee are adamant that this clause should not stand. It will be counter-productive. We believe that it should be removed from the Bill.
5 p.m.
Lord Condon: I believe that the Minister has argued his case both persuasively and genuinely. I admire his instinctive feel for where the balance should lie in the tripartite arrangements. He has argued convincingly as regards how the clause would be used; that is, if it were used in the way that he would like it to be used. However, the noble Lord has failed to persuade us that it could not be used in ways that do not match his aspirations. As drafted, the clause could be used in ways that were not in the public interest, which could damage the tripartite arrangements and, indeed, which would allow personality clashes to be played out through the Bill's provisions, whether such clashes arose because of an unreasonable Home Secretary, an unreasonable authority chairman, or an unreasonable commissioner or chief constable.
As presently worded, the clause provides worrying scope for unreasonable men and women to utilise the Bill. Therefore, in his defence of the clause, I encourage the Minister to give the Committee some reassurance that he would consider further drafting to close the credibility gap between what he says will happen and what might happen under the Bill, as currently drafted.
Before I sit down, perhaps I may thank the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, for his description of me a short while ago. I was called many things during my police career, but very few were as charitable or as kind as his comments.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I agree with every word that has so far been spoken in this clause stand part debate. I should just like to remind the noble Lord. Lord Rooker, of what he said the other day. I am sure that I am right in saying that it was him. I believe he said, "We are not looking for a national police force". In responding to the debate, it would be helpful if the Minister did not just repeat those words, because I am sure that he meant them. Perhaps he could go a little further and tell us that he will be satisfied after the next stage of the Bill that it would not be possible for someone with very different intentions from his own, and those of the present Government, to use the provision in the way that the Opposition now fear.

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There are some 60 lines in Clause 5. However, there are but 11, or so, lines in the brief summary of the clause that appears in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill. I should like to draw the Minister's attention to that quite short paragraph, and to ask him whether he has any reservations as to what is said therein. It would be of some comfort to me if the noble Lord were to say that that is an accurate summary of the clause. The paragraph begins by saying that the clause,
"empowers the Secretary of State to require a chief officer to take remedial measures where he is satisfied that the whole or any part of the force either as a whole or in any aspect of its operations is not efficient or effective (or will become so unless such measures are taken)".
The main point to note is that it is entirely on the initiative of the Home Secretary: no one else is involved. There is no consultation, and no warning to a police authority of what is afoot. It is just a matter of the Home Secretary saying that there is something to worry about in a particular force that must be put right; and that he requires the chief officer to take the remedial measures. He is giving instructions. That certainly raises a big question mark over that declaration to which I referred earlier; namely, that the Government are not looking for a national police force.
The paragraph in the Explanatory Notes to which I referred continues to say:
"The intervention power takes the form of a requirement on the chief officer to prepare and submit an action plan to address those aspects of the force's performance that the Secretary of State considers inefficient or ineffective".
If that is not a step in the direction of a national police force, I really do not know what is. It is possible that the Government do not intend to land us with a national police force, but one cannot help fearing that they may one day wake up to the fact that they have actually taken a series of measures that have precisely that effect. I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has experience of opposition. He should not dismiss—I am sure that he will not—all the fears of opposition as being purely founded on partisan, party considerations. They are not; they are genuine anxieties. There is a long and deep-rooted tradition of not having a national police force that will now be eaten away, whether or not that is the Government's intention.
The last part that I want to quote from paragraph 30 of the Explanatory Notes is that under Section 41 A(9),
"the action plan must be prepared in consultation with the relevant police authority".
It is nice that the police authority has been let in at the last minute. But, unless the Government regard police authorities as being worthless organisations, it seems an extraordinary omission that the Home Secretary has not placed upon himself or his successors the duty to consult them.
I agree with everything that has been said about this clause. As it stands at present, I hope that, even if we do not divide against it today, we shall certainly reject it on Report.
Lord Dholakia: I concur with everything that has been said about the clause. I have no doubt that in a
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few years' time the Home Office will ask some kind of management consultant to consider the arrangement that the Minister seeks to introduce. He will wonder how the hell we got into such a mess.
We argued that during debate on the probation legislation. My noble friend Lord Phillips rightly pointed out the Government's insatiable appetite for controlling everything centrally. We are opposed to any move which takes away the powers and functions of the independent police authority and gives those powers to the Home Secretary. Clause 5 effectively introduces new Section 41A to the Police Act 1996, giving the Home Secretary power to issue directions to chief constables to take remedial action, bypassing the police authority. We object to that. lit should be the police authority and not the Home Secretary which controls that type of function.
The Home Secretary's new Police Standards Unit already has sufficient teeth, and sharp ones at that. although we have already made known out concerns that this part gives the Home Secretary too much power and control at the expense of local policing. In effect, Clause 5 gives him the power to direct chief constables in all but specific operations or cases. That is a new departure and one which threatens the viability of local policing. I believe that the perception of the general public is that that is going down the road towards central control of police or a national police force.
The role of the police authority, and thus the local community, is all but ignored. The Home Secretary will simply notify the authority of any direction and the chief officer will then consult it on his action plan. Otherwise, it is a two-way dialogue between the chief officer and the Home Secretary.
Why does the Home Secretary need those powers when he already has extensive powers under Section 40? Our opposition in relation to clause stand part seeks to restore the balance in the process. It should be the job of the local police authority and not the Home Secretary to oversee the remedial action.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Rooker: I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Condon, for saying that I have been persuasive. I must report back to the boss at the end of the day that I have defended Clause 5. I believe that the clause is defensible. However. I, together with my noble friend, said on Thursday and again today that if Clause 5 is put to the Committee as it stands—that is, unamended—it will be rejected outright. We are not stupid—we understand that there is no question about that. We shall not wait until Report stage. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, asked me last week whether we could discuss the matter beforehand so that it was not left until the last minute. As a result, discussions are taking place and suggestions are being put forward in the appropriate quarters.
Therefore, with the permission of the Committee, I do not propose to go back to first principles but I do want to place a few matters on the record. There is complete distrust of the Home Office which is

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probably sometimes born out of experience. I do not mean that in a pejorative sense; it is a healthy scepticism. But, two ex-Ministers of State and an ex-Commissioner have obviously, over the years, seen something in a way that I have not done.
However, I said last week that, even before it starts, the operation of the clause will be subject to an agreed protocol between the Home Secretary, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities. I made that clear. No Member of the Committee today has even referred to that. With respect, most noble Lords have simply gone for the jugular. They have completely ignored the caveats that I have already inserted. But, in fact, the Home Secretary does not want to do many of the things that noble Lords are suggesting. Before he begins to exercise any powers under the Bill, he will obtain an agreed protocol—by definition, it must be agreed—with the relevant authorities; that is, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities.
Although I suspect that the lawyers will have difficulty in finding the necessary form of words—however, that is their job; it is what they are paid for—the powers will be used only in the last resort. I know that that is not a very legalistic form of words, but that is the situation. In the letter that I sent to noble Lords in response to a submission that we received following Second Reading, I made it clear that, by their nature, the powers would be exercised only as a last resort. That applies to Clauses 4 and 5; it is not new. Some of the powers already exist in relation to police authorities, although it is true that they have been delineated separately for chief officers.
I shall obtain an answer to the example of the motorway given by the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle. It was a good example because it is one that people can readily understand. But, to my mind, it is inconceivable that the Home Secretary will operate on the powers without advice. I believe that, by way of example, both my noble friend Lord Bassam and I have mentioned Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, the Police Standards Unit and the Audit Commission. There are other bodies. Such action will not be taken on a hunch. The Home Secretary will not operate in an unreasonable fashion. Ministers are not allowed to do that; we are subject to the legal process.
I accept that the Committee is unhappy. Examples have been given in relation to the national probation directorate. I stand to be corrected because I do not remember every Written Answer for which I am responsible. However, since I have been in this House—that is, since last June—I do not believe that the words "national probation directorate" have crossed anyone's lips at any Question Time. I hear from a sedentary position the words, "It's too early yet". But the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has already quoted a letter today stating that the national probation directorate is not working, and so on. I do not track all the Answers given in the other place; that is outside the remit of my day job, if I may express it in
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that way. But all the key issues are raised in this House. Therefore I am confident that issues relating to the national probation directorate have not been raised by your Lordships.
The Home Secretary will not, in the words of one noble Lord, "dive in". He will not, in the words of another noble Lord, send in "hit squads". Those allegations are without any foundation whatever.
The answer that I must give to the first question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, must be: yes; by the end of Report stage, after Easter, I do not want to be in a position—nor do I believe that anyone else would—of looking back in a few years' time and being told, "Well, you didn't ask enough questions as a Minister". That is what I have always done in all the roles that I have held. I am engaged in one such role at present which has nothing to do with this Bill. I am saying, "Hang on a minute. That may go wrong". I may be asked later, "Did you ask these questions or did you get a second or third opinion before you took this course of action?" Those are ordinary, reasonable things which a Minister should do. It is true that it sometimes slows down decision-making processes, but by the end of the next stage I believe that one should be comfortable in providing the answers. The fact is that, when the Bill leaves this House to go to the other place, it will do so only by consent. I understand that. The noble Lord, Lord Peyton, made what was probably a slip of the tongue and said that I had had no experience of opposition. All my life I have been in opposition, even when I have been on the side of the establishment.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: The noble Lord should give me credit for remembering that!
Lord Rooker: I was a humble Back-Bencher between 1974 and 1979. I knew what it was like then to feel as if one was in opposition. As regards the Explanatory Notes, I plead guilty. It is outrageous that anyone who buys the Bill for £10 has to pay £8 for the Explanatory Notes, which clearly state on the front page:
"They are not, and are not meant to be, a comprehensive description of the Bill. So where a clause or part of a clause does not seem to require any explanation or comment, none is given".
They do not form part of the Bill. Parliament has not been asked to approve the Explanatory Notes.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: Perhaps I may repeat my question to the noble Lord. Do I understand that he does not dissent from anything that is contained in that paragraph of the Explanatory Notes?
Lord Rooker: No, but it could have been bigger, better and more detailed. For example, it could have benefited from the inclusion of paragraph 13 of the letter I wrote to noble Lords on Clause 5, which is as long as that part of the Explanatory Notes. It uses the phrase "last resort"; it makes clear that there will be a protocol before anything is done and refers to what was in the White Paper which is not necessarily in the Bill. As I said, the Bill relates only to those parts of the White Paper, which require legislation.

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I hope that I shall he permitted to take this away and speak to my elders and betters about the contributions made by noble Lords as regards Clause 5. That also applies in a global sense to Part 1. I understand the particular concerns about this clause. It probably requires more clarity and precision in the trigger mechanism which is used before such a clause would operate. That is going pretty far for me in Committee. I hope that I shall be able to come back on Report and please the Committee.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Before the Minister sits down, he commented on the experience of the Central Probation Council and said that he had not heard any Questions being asked in relation to that since he has been in the House. As my noble friend Lord Dholakia said, these are early days. I asked the Central Probation Council what, even in these early days, was the developing experience. That is the background to that matter.
My second point is that the Minister makes much of the protocol which the Home Secretary intends to introduce. However, that comes into the same category as notes on clauses. It is not part of the statute; it may not be right and the next Home Secretary may not want one.
Lord Renton: Before the Minister replies, perhaps I may ask another question. I made the point that Clause 4, which gives directions to a police authority, makes Clause 5 unnecessary. It might help if the Minister were to comment on that.
Lord Rooker: Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, that much of Clause 4 exists at present in respect of police authorities. Last Thursday, my noble friend Lord Harris, who is not in his place, tabled an ingenious amendment which moved a good part of Clause 5 into Clause 4, thereby getting rid of it. The mood of the Committee then was, as many noble Lords said, that that was a seductive way of solving what was clearly a problem. That is on the table for us to consider in the Home Office.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, I shall have nothing more to say about the national probation directorate until I start to receive questions on it.
Lord Dixon-Smith: The noble Lord, Lord Carlisle, took the wind out of my sails when the debate began. However, perhaps we might now draw it to a close. It has been a good debate. The essential issue that drove the tabling of the amendment that Clause 5 should not stand part of the Bill was that the clause is centralising and micromanaging to a degree which is inappropriate. We are all completely convinced of that. I am bound to say to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that in the answer he has given he has not sufficiently allayed the fears expressed.
He began by saying that there would be discussions in all the appropriate places. Discussions are wonderful things, but we do not have discussions before us; still less do we have the content of such
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discussions. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, raised the question of a protocol. If the Government were serious about the content or the protocol, it might have been useful if we had been able to have sight of it. I know that that is often the case, and this is a circumstance which has been criticised on many occasions. In particular, I recall that there were protocols on how relations should develop between this Parliament in Westminster and the Scottish Parliament. A number of us had to fly through the Scottish Parliament legislation completely blind because protocols did not exist and there was no way of telling exactly what the relationship was going to be. That is a problem.
Although the Bill carefully, correctly and specifically limits the power of the Secretary of State so that he cannot take action that would affect any specific operation, the fact of the matter is that he could take a whole host of actions which could affect the capacity of the police to act effectively operationally if he were to get wrong the balance of his directions. That is not ruled out. I am not a betting man, but if I had to bet on whether experienced policemen on the ground were more likely to reach a solution to a problem with local management rather than a Secretary of State sitting in an ivory tower in Whitehall, I would bet on the people on the ground.
I accept the question that is raised in the event of a report indicating that there are problems. However, by the time that report crosses the desk of the Secretary of State, my strong view would be that remedial action would already have been taken. Such situations do not develop in isolation. By the time it was reported to the Secretary of State, the people on the ground would be aware of it. The whole technique of management today has changed. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, made the point that police authorities and, indeed, the police service generally, have evolved dramatically over the past few years. That is not just because of best value but simply because in this modern era we have much more management information which makes that possible. It is the access and provision of such information which could lead to this situation and which might drive a Secretary of State to take action. If he did not receive the information, he would not be able to issue directions.
We still have considerable doubts as to whether the clause is appropriate. For a host of reasons, most of which have been raised in this debate or in debates on the individual amendments to the clause, I do not believe that it is appropriate to have such a clause in this form on the face of the Bill. That said, the Minister indicated that he is prepared to consider the whole issue and the way it is presented. I take seriously the words of the noble Lord, and I am glad to be able to do that. With that, I do not oppose the Question that Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 61 not moved.]
5.30 p.m.
Clause 6 [Regulation of equipment]:
Lord Bradshawmoved Amendment No. 62:
Page 5, line 47, leave out "such persons as he thinks fit" and insert—

"(a) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of police authorities in England and Wales;

(b) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police of forces maintained by those authorities; and

(c) such other persons as he thinks fit"

The noble Lord said: Clause 6 deals with equipment. In moving Amendment No. 62, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 131 which relates to the corresponding provisions for the National Crime Squad. The clause on its own is not a particular cause for concern. However, it must be viewed in the wider context of Part 1. It is yet another centralising measure.
The clause gives the Home Secretary the power to make regulations which require all forces to use the same equipment. He can require forces to hold stocks of certain kinds of equipment, even if they will not use it locally. As the Minister probably knows, under the mutual aid provisions forces go to each other's assistance.
We all want our forces, if possible, to be equipped with the most modern equipment. But equipment, as the Minister knows, does not come free. I know from my experience with the fire service, which was a Home Office department until recently, that half the fire services in Oxfordshire were using second-hand uniforms and equipment simply because there was not the wherewithal to buy new equipment. So it is not simply a question of the Home Secretary saying, "You will have the latest equipment", and it suddenly arriving free of charge, because it will not.
Money spent on equipment is not available to spend on police officers. Therefore, any regulations which are made have significant financial implications for police authorities. I do not know whether the Minister has yet seen the precepts for police authorities around the country. We shall talk later about such matters as police pensions. But I can assure the noble Lord that they are well above the 2.3 per cent increase which we got to fund a 13 point something per cent increase in precept. It is really quite serious.
Of course we will not have as much scope to use money as we think fit; it will be as the Home Secretary thinks fit. The recent experience with the new radio system has taught us that it is critical that the three partners—the chief officers, the police authorities and the Home Secretary—work closely together to decide whatever new equipment is bought. These are multimillion pound projects; they are not small projects. Even a decision to use a different type of baton throughout the whole of the police service would be extremely expensive in terms of both the equipment and the training that would be required to enable the officers to use whatever type of equipment was specified.
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Therefore, we are asking specifically for the Association of Police Authorities and ACPO to be consulted before regulations are made. At the moment, the Home Secretary is only required to consult "as he thinks fit". We would rather that there was an obligation to consult the appropriate authorities and that such an obligation could not be bypassed should the Home Secretary so wish.
No doubt, as in the past, the Minister will give us an assurance that the Government would not dream of making regulations without consulting ACPO and APA, but we should very much like to see that on the face of the Bill. That would give a measure of confidence, extending into the future, and beyond the period, which we hope will be very long, that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, sits on the Front Bench in that or in another job.
The amendment would not restrict the Home Secretary's ability to consult more widely with other interests, but it would send a powerful signal to police authorities and the police forces that he will work in partnership with them. The Minister has indicated that he will look closely at the wording of previous clauses in the Bill. I hope that he will feel able to give a similar commitment to us today. I beg to move.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, particularly on the point about consultation. The powers to make regulations with regard to equipment do not seem to be wholly unreasonable. There have been incidences in the past with incompatible equipment between forces and so on. It is taking time to worry those difficulties out of the system. I recall several years ago one authority ordering state-of-the-art equipment; but that then put it virtually incommunicado with its neighbours. That of course cannot be satisfactory.
It is absolutely essential that if the Secretary of State is to regulate in this area of equipment he should have the fullest possible discussion, particularly with those who will use the equipment, in determining its specification. Getting things wrong in this area would be completely disastrous. I am sure that he would not wish that to happen, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, will be most helpful on this point.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord said that I was going to be the emollient one this afternoon. That does not mean that my noble friend Lord Rooker is not emollient at all appropriate times.
If the noble Lord agrees not to press his amendment this afternoon, I shall agree that we shall take the matter away and construct an amendment which gives effect to what he is after. We think that a reasonable point has been made. We agree in principle about the need to consult representatives of chief officers, police authorities and so on and their equivalents with NCS and NCIS. That would be our intention in any event. But the point has been well enough made.
The amendment is defective in the sense that it needs to be made more consistent with other legislation, and in particular with Section 37 of the Police Act 1996. So,

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if the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is good on this one, we shall be helpful, take it away and bring something useful back on Report.
Lord Bradshaw: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Dixon-Smithmoved Amendment No. 63:
Page 6. line 8, at end insert "; and
( ) communications equipment"
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 63 and 64 are simple little amendments which add words to the Bill. It is really a moot point whether proposed new subsection (2C) (at the top of page 6) is appropriate in the Bill at all. It states:
"In this section 'equipment' includes—

(a) vehicles; and

(b) headgear and protective and other clothing".

There is a great deal more to equipping a police force than vehicles and headgear and protective and other clothing. The amendments would add the words "communications equipment" and,
"information technology (whether hardware or software)".
However, I think that in reality the word "equipment" is probably sufficient. Once one begins to create a list, it can go on ad nauseam.
This is just a probing amendment to discover whether there was a specific reason why the Government decided to mention vehicles, headgear and protective and other clothing.
On the subject of vehicles, I hope that the Government will be extremely careful what they do. My local police force in Essex has a large Ford establishment within its boundaries and has had a long, co-operative arrangement with Ford developing cars—not just for police use. That has been an extremely useful arrangement for both sides. If we are to "regulate" vehicles and vehicle types, I hope that the arrangements will be sufficiently flexible to permit such a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship to continue. I beg to move.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: There was a time when there was a commonality of communications equipment and information technology, when we had whistles and notebooks. The amendment seems sensible, although I am a little cautious about adding needlessly to the list, which should be confined to essential matters where there is plainly advantage.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I have the feeling that when he was a lad in and around Sudbury, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, was probably caught out by whistles and notebooks. Perish the thought!
I return to the probing amendment. We intend communications and IT equipment to be categories of equipment that could be subject to the regulations. The items listed in the clause—cars, clothes, and so on—are specified as included only because they are not obviously equipment. Communications equipment is obviously equipment so there is no need to specify it in
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the Bill. The same applies to IT. We have taken the view that specifying obvious items in the Bill may cast doubt on other types of equipment that are not mentioned.
So that is the explanation for the wording of the clause. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has been helpful in tabling his amendment because it has enabled us to clarify that point.
Lord Dixon-Smith: If the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, has achieved anything, he has made the point that the definition should stop at the word "equipment" and we should not list anything for the sake of clarity. If we were to ask a police officer in a traffic division whether his car was equipment, he would say that it was essential equipment because he could not do without it. This has been an interesting debate but perhaps we can make better sense of it later. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 64 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
5.45 p.m.
Lord Dholakia: The Minister has given us assurances that he will consider suggestions made by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. In the light of that, I do not intend to press the matter further.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Regulation of operational procedures and practices]:
[Amendment No. 65 not moved.]
Lord Topemoved Amendment No. 66:
Page 6, line 28, at end insert—
"( ) On considering any advice received from the Central Police Training and Development Authority and before making any regulations under this section, the Secretary of State shall consult—

(a) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of police authorities in England and Wales; and

(b) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police forces maintained by those authorities."

The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment, I shall speak to Amendment No. 132. The two amendments are similar to Amendments Nos. 62 and 131 which we have just discussed in relation to clause 6. I hope that they will receive the same emollient response from the Ministers on the Government Front Bench. They are of greater concern because Clause '7 is even more worrying than Clause 6. That is because it represents a significant departure from the existing constitutional position. It gives the Home Secretary power to determine operational policing practices and specify them in regulations. We all want good policing practices to spread; we all want standards of performance across the country raised to the level of the best. There is no argument about that.

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However, I question whether the Home Secretary is necessarily always the best person to determine what is good operational practice and especially whether something that works in one area will work in another. Our concern about the clause, as with so many others, is that it provides yet another piece of the jigsaw that, when assembled, will result in a very different picture of the tripartite relationship. We seek by the amendments to provide a small but important safeguard by recognising the roles of the other two partners—the Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers—in determining the regulations.
Operational practices and procedures concern the style and nature of the local policing: issues in which local people have a keen interest and now rightly have a voice through their police authorities. No doubt the Minister will remind us—I am already aware of this—that both the APA and ACPO are represented on the Central Police Training and Development Authority, which will be responsible for drafting the regulations. So why have we tabled the amendments? Because the role of the CPTDA board is to provide strategic oversight of police training. The board cannot and should not spend its time trawling through draft codes and regulations. It will not be able to consider detailed comments from police authorities and forces. If it did, it would never have time to do its job properly.
As I said, the clause represents a radical change in the constitutional position. We must ensure that the views of police authorities and forces are heard clearly by the Home Secretary himself, not just the CPTDA, before decisions are reached on any regulations. We feel strongly that the voice of local people, reflected through their police authorities, must be heard in decisions about how they are policed.
We received an emollient response to the previous, similar amendments. I hope that the Minister will again feel able to give a commitment to re-examine the issue of consultation before Report, when I am sure that we shall return to the matter. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: To cut a long story short, while we do not support the noble Lord's amendments, we are happy to reflect on whether there should be an express duty on the CPTDA to consult ACPO and the police authorities separately—bearing in mind that, as I said on Thursday, they will have representatives on the board anyway. It is the duty of the CPTDA to organise the codes of practice and it will clearly consult on that. We do not want to be unnecessarily bureaucratic by building in a second round of consultation. We will reflect on whether to place that duty to consult on the new authority.
Lord Tope: I am grateful to the Minister for that undertaking. I hope that, on reflection, he will consider that there is a difference between having two representatives on the board and properly consulting the police authorities and ACPO. In the light of the Minister's comments, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bassam of Brightonmoved Amendment No. 67:
Page 6, line 30, at end insert—
"( ) A statutory instrument containing the first regulations to be made under this section shall not be made unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House."
The noble Lord said: I can probably be pretty brief in moving this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker. Basically, it gives effect to one of the recommendations—
Lord Rooker: The one.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: That is right, the one recommendation made in the report of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform. It recommended that in view of the potential width of the power delegated to the Secretary of State, on first application of the power the regulation should be subject to the affirmative procedure. We are more than happy to go along with that, which is why we have tabled the amendment. I know that the Chamber is keen on our compliance with the recommendations of that Select Committee and on this occasion we are more than happy to do so. Amendment No. 68 gives full effect to the committee's recommendation. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bassam of Brightonmoved Amendment No. 68:
Page 6, line 31, after "any" insert "other"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 7, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Dixon-Smith: Clause 7 deals with the regulation of operational procedures and practices. As with Clause 5, we think that it goes too far.
We accept that the Government wish to drive for greater efficiency and effectiveness in the police service. However, the clause goes too far because it may stultify and freeze off development. It says:
"The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision requiring all police forces in England and Wales—

(a) to adopt particular operational procedures or practices; or

(b) to adopt operational procedures or practices of a particular description".

Although it is a sine qua non of good policing that operational practices and procedures should be compatible between forces, the idea that there should be one centrally directed way of doing things does not appeal to me. It appeals even less when one considers that there might be a change of Secretary of State and we would have somebody who would like things done differently.
On this side of the House we are in danger of becoming boring on the subject, but the development of operational practice will happen out in the field. It will be evolved in the light of hard experience gained by policemen dealing with criminals and community

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problems. It is unbelievable that a Secretary of State could regulate that process. I have no difficulty with the idea that the inspectorate, the CPTDA, the Audit Commission and all the other bodies should work with the Government to see that details of best practice are distributed around those who are not doing so well and that people should be guided in the best way of doing things. Nobody has any problem with that, but we do not require a power of regulation for procedures and practices in order to achieve it.
For a long time this afternoon we have been debating a question of management style. The management style that is coming from the Government is that Whitehall knows best. In my experience, by the time that Whitehall has found out, the best has probably moved on; somewhere in the country, somebody will be doing something better that we have not yet heard about. That is why we are concerned about the clause.
The clause says that,
"The Secretary of State shall not make any regulations under subsection (1) unless he considers—
(a) that it is desirable in the national interest"—
well, as they say, he would say that, wouldn't he? —
"and that the making of regulations is necessary".
He is obliged to seek advice from the CPTDA and so on, but then we get into all the possibilities for consultation, as the CPTDA,
"shall consult such persons as it thinks fit".
It is a bit harsh to judge it like this, but the CPTDA is a new organisation. In fact, it is a creation of the Home Office. The CPTDA has yet to become a proven body.
We oppose the clause simply because we regard the centralising powers encapsulated in it, as in earlier clauses, as singularly inappropriate.
Lord Tope: I know that the Minister is keen to make progress. He gave me a commitment that he would think about the amendment that I moved earlier and come back to it, so I will not now speak at the length that I was going to speak on the Motion.
I should make it clear that, even if the previous amendments that I moved—or at least the spirit of them—are accepted, those of us on these Benches would still find the clause unacceptable. It represents an unnecessary and unwarranted interference by the Home Office in local policing. Operational policing—policy and practice—is properly a matter for police authorities. The clause distorts the tripartite relationship and undermines our system of policing by consent, so we oppose it. I am sure that we will return to it on Report.
Lord Fowler: I support what my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith said. My concerns are his concerns.
We are talking about operational procedures and practices. One of the great advantages of our policing system, with the many different forces, is that one force might pioneer a new way of doing something. It is a real strength of a local police service that it can do that. I am concerned that, if the spirit of the clause were to be put into effect, we would be transferring such
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decisions to the Home Office and setting things down in a uniform way for the whole country. It is anything but clear that that would be to the advantage of the police or the public. The process would become centrally driven—Home Office-driven.
As my noble friend said, it is one thing to have the inspectorate checking whether particular systems are being used well and efficiently and effectively; it is quite another to have the kind of uniformity that lies behind the clause. Like both noble Lords who have spoken, I have the strongest reservations about the clause.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: I also support my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith. I do so by analogy, and perhaps extravagant example.
When I lived in the United States in the 1950s, I had a friend who was a retired officer of the Indian Army. He showed me a manual that instructed officers of the Indian Army in getting camels across rivers. I acknowledge immediately that there are probably practical problems in getting camels across rivers; I acknowledge that there may be health and safety considerations and that there may be animal welfare issues. However, the clear objective is to get the camels across the river, and the camels would not be much use to the Indian Army if they did not survive the experience.
By analogy with the French Government, who always know exactly what any French child is being taught at any particular time of the day, it may have given satisfaction to the commander-in-chief or the viceroy—who may be the same—to know that all camels were being taken across rivers in the Indian subcontinent in the same manner at any hour of the day. However, it was quite clear to my retired friend from the Indian Army that the manual was unnecessarily constricting and that officers who could not get camels across rivers were unworthy of service in the Indian Army.
6 p.m.
Lord Rooker: I shall not even try to follow that. The noble Lord has cited a good example; it give us a picture in our minds.
I thought that the earlier brief debates on this clause were quite positive but, to be frank, I do not accept the arguments put forward in seeking to remove the clause from the Bill; far from it. There seem to be some fundamental misunderstandings.
I have forgotten which noble Lord said it, but a point was made that the Home Office would be in charge of the Central Police Training and Development Authority. Let us look at what happens today, in March 2002. National police training is currently a part of the Home Office. From 1st April 2002 it will become the Central Police Training and Development Authority, a non-departmental public body established through the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. In some ways police training is now being put at arm's length from the Home Office, with an independent chair for the authority, along with six

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independent members from the private sector, whose names I did not mention last week and I do not intend to do so now. There will be two members of ACPO. one of whom is a chief constable and two members of the Association of Police Authorities. Do not tell me that the authority is to be run by the Home Office.
Through previous legislation, the Home Office is now setting up a separate, non-departmental body to carry out an important function that it is not necessary to carry out 100 per cent, as is the case now, by officials in Queen Anne's Gate. The notion, "Oh, this is the Home Office", when in April we shall set up a new organisation bringing in fresh thinking, outside interests and frontline police expertise is the exact opposite of what most noble Lords have just said. Although we may fundamentally disagree about the way we are going, we ought to look at the road signs. The road sign on this issue is not over-centralisation and it is certainly not micro-management.
The clause forms an important part of the machinery. Noble Lords were brief in their remarks, so I too shall be brief. The president of ACPO, Sir David Phillips, in giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee in another place on 7th February, stated that:
"We have argued for a long time that we do not have a sufficient mechanism within ACPO not only to develop and propound good policy but to make sure, as far as we can, that it reaches all corners. The need for there to be a better mechanism to spread good practice I think is identifiable".
That is not someone saying that they do not want to see a mechanism used to spread good policy and that the mechanisms are already sufficient and in place. They are not.
It is no secret that in the White Paper we set out our approach for raising professional standards. I have said that the bottom tier will be purely advisory guidance to be issued on a non-statutory basis. We have already debated the middle tier covering codes of practice. This clause covers binding regulations. I know that it can be interesting to quote selectively, but not one Member of the Committee mentioned subsection (6) of this clause. Any regulation made under this provision will need to be approved by this House, but no one mentioned that point. I ask noble Lords to look at the legislation. This is not the Home Office seeking to drive through regulations at the whim of the Home Secretary. Parliament will approve regulations as set out on the face of the Bill, but no one mentioned it. If an outsider was listening to the speeches of noble Lords, frankly they would think that another Bill was being debated.
The Home Secretary will be extremely positive about the contributions made by noble Lords in relation to this Bill because I have said to him that that is a good idea, bearing in mind the situation that we face. But he will not be positive if I go back and say, "Well, David, they want to chuck this clause out. Too much Home Office interference". He will say, "Didn't you tell them that Parliament has got to approve the regulations?". "No, I forgot about that"—and heads
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off. I have to say to noble Lords that this is serious legislation. Parliament—this House—will have to approve the regulations.
I shall cite just one example of where they might be used so that Members of the Committee can see the scope of the ideas here. At the moment, all forces in England and Wales have different approaches to the gathering and handling of criminal intelligence. That comes as a surprise to me, but it is the reality of the matter. As a result, there is no mechanism for effectively sharing intelligence across force boundaries. The power in Clause 7 could be used to require all forces to adopt at least the minimum requirements of the National Criminal Intelligence Service's National Intelligence Model; in other words, there is a body that has already thought about this matter. The effectiveness of policing is clearly enhanced where one force can make efficient use of intelligence gathered in another force.
We do not want a national police force and we are not going to have a national police force, but criminals do not respect police force area boundaries. Thus there are some areas in which it is necessary for police forces to be able to work, co-operate and at least share information. We have also talked about equipment. I say simply that that is but one example.
It is clearly stated on the face of the Bill that, before making any regulations, the Home Secretary would consult the tripartite partners and others in the context of the national policing plan to see whether any particular areas of procedure need to be mandated in this way. After those discussions, if it is concluded that it would be in the national interest to regulate, then it will be for the Home Secretary to seek the advice of the Central Police Training and Development Authority and, in most cases, the National Centre for Policing Excellence, which will be a part of the Central Police Training and Development Authority—I wish there was a shorter way of saying all that, but there is not. The centre would be expected to handle the detailed work, which would be subject to oversight by the CPTDA board, on which I repeat both ACPO and the APA are represented.
In offering its advice, the new authority will draw on professional policing experience and inevitably there will be very close consultation with the relevant ACPO policy committee. It is axiomatic that that would follow. Furthermore, the authority will of course consult other bodies and persons before it concludes its deliberations.
By their nature, the regulations will be concerned with the generality of cases—for example, how to collect and record criminal intelligence or how to investigate homicides or other serious crimes. Regulations cannot relate to particular cases, so again—as elsewhere in the provisions—there is no threat to the operational independence of the chief officer.
I have said that we would be willing to look at all the points raised by noble Lords, but I hope that the main concerns have been covered by the clause as drafted in

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the Bill. We shall look at those that are not, along with the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and come back on Report.
Lord Dixon-Smith: The Minister has done his best to relieve our concerns with regard to this clause, but I am hound to say to him that in doing so, he has not convinced me of the need for the clause to be kept in the Bill. I do not think that we can call in aid the White Paper, which covers many matters that do not require legislation. It has been pointed out previously that the White Paper was published only five days before the Bill. Matters not requiring legislation set out in that paper no doubt are already being implemented. However, the relationship between the White Paper and this Bill has nothing to do with the argument.
I accept that the CPTDA may well become a very effective free-standing body and I think that that is what we all hope for it, but it is not yet in place in its final form. I still have a tremendous fear of the old cliché which states that the man who pays the piper, calls the tune. When I was in local government, I always found that if I controlled the finances, and possibly also the manpower, I had every department exactly where I wanted it. The same applies to government, so we should not wholly set aside our worries.
The Minister is right, Parliament must approve any regulations made in this way—but parliamentary supervision of regulations is less thorough than the supervision that we give to primary legislation. We have the opportunity to accept it or refuse it, and that is as far as it goes. If the mood that prevails in the Committee continues, I suspect that regulations brought forward under this clause will never pass, which comes back to the issue of whether there is a need for the clause in the first place.
The Minister referred to the national intelligence model as being appropriate for regulation. I do not believe that it is necessarily appropriate. While I agree that there is every need for the national intelligence model to be spread as rapidly as possible across all the police forces of the country, we come back to the business of the best way to do things and I doubt whether a regulation could be worded in sufficiently good form to bring that about. We are talking about the spread of best practice and, generally speaking, that is not a matter for regulation but for persuasion. I doubt whether people would need a great deal of persuading on that point.
Although the Minister has gone some way towards alleviating our concerns, he has not shown that the clause is necessary to the Bill, which is a different thing. We will consider what he has said.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Bradshawmoved Amendment No. 69:
After Clause 7, insert the following new clause—
"SPECIAL CONSTABLES
(1) The Police Act 1996 (c. 16) is amended as follows.
(2) In section 51 (2)(d) after "constables:" there shall be inserted—
"(dd) the payment to special constables of an annual bounty;"."
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The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 69, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 183. The amendments are, to some extent, related because they both refer to special constables. It is an old subject which has been debated previously in your Lordships' House on at least two occasions since I have been here.
The needs of the police service are very much for manpower on certain specific occasions—for example, on Friday and Saturday nights, at football matches, race meetings and so on. Such events require a lot of manpower—sometimes to direct traffic, sometimes to control crowds—and a mechanism whereby we could employ more people as special constables than we do now is highly desirable.
The county in which I live employs people as retained firemen. In fact, more than half the firemen in the county of Oxfordshire are retained. They are paid for two hours training on a Wednesday evening and when they turn out, as required, for a fire. In the Thames Valley, we employ about 400 special constables—we have weeded out of the force those people who do not attend very often or who may be too old or inactive—but they constitute a very small part of the force.
One of the reasons for that is that we do not pay them. There have been suggestions in your Lordships' House that special constables should be given a bounty akin to that enjoyed by Territorial Array soldiers, who are paid for a fortnight's camp and whenever they are required to turn out. Alternatively—the method we prefer because we are looking for younger people and we wish to make the service modern—people should be paid to attend for training and to turn out regularly as required. The Home Office has always said that this would be very difficult, but I know that most police officers support the idea of an enhanced special constabulary.
I am not proposing in Amendment No. 183 a specific method of remuneration because some people may prefer to pay a bounty, others some kind of lump-sum payment, and others may prefer for special constables to be paid by the hour when they attend for duty. However, bearing in mind that the fire service throughout much of the country relies on volunteers, as I call the retained men, to attend when required, it is time that we allowed police authorities the freedom to employ people to turn out.
If this were to happen, I am sure that instead of having about 400 special constables in Thames Valley we would have a lot more. In my home town there are 10 retained firemen but there are no retained constables. That situation prevails in much of the county. If special constables were to be paid it would make a big difference.
I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about the proposal. It is not prescriptive but allows authorities a choice. I know that in London it may be more difficult to recruit special constables, as it is to recruit retained firemen, and it may not be possible there, but it could have application in much of the country. I beg to move.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing forward the amendment. It gives an opportunity for us to hear what the Government have to say about building upon a body of long-established men and women who are now accepted by the regular police service. That was not always the case, but the misgivings and suspicions have now been overcome.
We should certainly carefully consider this issue before we get to the provisions in the Bill which provide for detention officers and community safety officers, who, in the latter case, will not have powers of arrest. They are neither fish nor fowl, nor even a good red herring. I am not saying a decision about them should be taken now, but we certainly should hear what is wrong with a proposal to build upon the special constables.
The noble Lord's analogy with the retained firemen was a very good one, as all of us who live in the countryside have reason to acknowledge.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: I support what my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, have said. Surely what we all want to achieve is a situation where there are more policemen noticeably on the beat. Therefore, the area of special constables—who are recognised as such, who wear a recognisable uniform and have recognised powers—is where we should look first to get that increase in numbers so as to have more policemen visible on the streets of this country.
Just as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said that he believed that in Oxfordshire, in the area of the Thames Valley, a considerable increase could be achieved, I have no doubt that in other parts of the country more special constables could be recruited if the terms of employment were more attractive than they are at the moment. As my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew said, I hope that the Home Office will tell us what is its attitude towards special constables and whether it agrees that this is an area in which it should give special encouragement.
Lord Condon: I, too, want to encourage debate on the role of special constables. Without going into all the history, one has only to go back 20 or 30 years and in most police forces there were as many, if not more, special constables than there were regular constables. Some county forces had almost twice as many. They were an integral part of the policing of county forces.
Events have moved on, and it has been harder to recruit and retain special constables, particularly in the big city environment. That is not just because of pressures of work. It is partly a question of lifestyle. If a man or woman works in London and is thinking of becoming a special, his or her first thoughts are about having to travel home from work out of London; therefore, people think about becoming Specials in the area in which they live. A great many pressures prevent people from becoming Specials in big cities.
As to payment, when most existing Specials are asked whether they wish to be paid, they say categorically no. But that is based on the experience
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that they did not take up the position expecting to be paid. As a matter of personal pride, they see it as somehow demeaning if they argue for payment. However, I believe that a great many good and worthy people are deterred from joining the special constabulary in big city environments. They would be further encouraged if there was a payment.
As the Minister and others have said, the special constabulary in the big cities mirrors the ethnic diversity and richness of big cities much better than the regular force. Specials are an important means of encouraging diversity involvement in policing. There are worthy reasons why the situation regarding Specials should be reviewed and why they should be given important consideration—not as a total alternative to community safety officers or to other provisions in the Bill but because of their history and because of the valuable part that they can play in modern policing.
Lord Tope: I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Condon. Perhaps I may speak briefly—and somewhat nervously in his presence—of my experience in the Metropolitan Police Service. The noble Lord is right to refer to the difficulties, which we can all understand, of the recruitment and retention of special constables in cities, and particularly in a large urban area such as London.
However, one feature in London is worthy of consideration. The proportion of special constables in the Met who are from visible ethnic minorities is significantly higher than it is in the mainstream force, the full-time force.
The noble Lord, Lord Condon, referred to many special constables saying no to the idea of payment. They are, of course, a pre-selected sample. They came in knowing that they were not going to be paid. I should have thought that in all police forces, and certainly in the Met, we should be doing all that we can to encourage growth in the number of special constables, particularly given the lead that has already been taken in terms of recruitment among visible ethnic minorities. Payment, in whatever form, must be an incentive in terms of encouraging such recruitment.
What we are seeing—and I hope that we shall see it happening more and more—is that a significant number of those who start out as special constables then wish to join the force as full police constables. That must be a good move. I therefore look forward with great interest to the Minister's response. Payment in some form to special constables can only encourage people further in that direction.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I rise to add general support to the amendments. I do not want to anticipate later stages of the Bill, but it is our belief that the special constabulary is perhaps the ideal vehicle for handling some of the issues that arise later in the Bill. Without wishing to take words from the Minister's mouth, we should perhaps appreciate the law with regard to special constables. I took the trouble a considerable

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time ago to look this up. It goes back to the 1996 Act, which is the simplest and most basic authority. Section 27 states:
"The chief officer of police of the police force maintained for a police area may, in accordance with regulations under Section 51, appoint special constables for that area".
Section 51 states:
"The Secretary of State may make regulations as to the government, administration and conditions of service of special constables … Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), regulations under this section may make provision with respect to … qualifications … retirement … suspension … [and] the allowances payable to special constables".
So we do not need further law in order to do this. What we need is willpower. I simply make that point, for what it is worth.
It should be a matter of concern to all of us that the number of Specials has diminished. We ought to try to reverse that. We have designs on later parts of the Bill which may or may not be wholly acceptable. If they were to become acceptable, they would provide the most original line of thinking that has taken place with regard to special constables for a considerable time. I support the amendment.
Lord Rooker: At Second Reading, 15 out of 21 speakers mentioned the Specials. As special constables are not referred to in the Bill, that was an indication that the issue needs to be addressed. Although I am not able to address it now, I have some hopeful words to offer.
The amendments are drafted in good spirit. However, the drafting implies a compulsion on chief constables to employ Specials. It so happens that no chief constable has refused to employ Specials, but having listened for several hours to Members of the Committee talking about not forcing rules on chief officers, that is ironic.
Having got that off my chest, I can say that this is a fair point. It is true that the number of Specials has dropped—from 20,000 four years ago to about 13,000 today in round figures. That is to be regretted. Specials play a magnificent role.
Of course, Specials are not civilians exercising police powers. They are not remotely comparable with the kind of people we are talking about in Part 4 of the Bill. Once attested, they are full police constables—and in that sense, as was always the case, they are never off duty. They are a volunteer police force. They are not civilians exercising a few police powers.
To address the amendments, work is going on in this area. The police authorities already have discretionary power to pay a bounty to Specials with the agreement of the Secretary of State under regulations made in 1992 (SI No. 1526 1992). The provision was introduced to facilitate an experimental bounty scheme in 1993 and has not been repealed.
The Government are considering—subject to the current spending review—the case for paying a fixed allowance to Specials in return for a minimum commitment in terms of hours. No firm decisions have been made, but this could be done by means of an
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amendment to the regulations. It would not require primary legislation. I want to satisfy the Committee that there is a mechanism already on the statute book which could be used, rather than this Bill. That is an important point. I do not want the Committee to think that, although we are considering the matter and might do something, it is a matter for primary legislation and that we shall have to wait for more parliamentary time. The regulations are already in place.
We share the aims behind Amendment No. 183, which are, in total, to improve the recruitment and retention of special constables. On the other hand, we do not believe that the proposed new clause would achieve that. There is an emphasis on each force having its own policy for Specials and this could give rise to the risk of fragmentation and lack of clarity about their conditions. Therefore, we must be careful.
For that reason, the Government are currently working with stakeholders on a range of measures to improve recruitment and retention of Specials, including the new national training package and the revised conditions of service and conduct regulations. Central to that process will be the Home Office-ACPO good practice guidance on the management and deployment of Specials.
The proposal in the new clause that each individual force should determine how its Specials will be paid might be a bit divisive. I understand that the poll was taken among people who knew that there was no pay to start with. We have to be careful, because people might try to judge how much individual forces valued their Specials. I am sure that every force values its Specials. The Government are considering the case for a payment of a fixed allowance for Specials.
I do not know when we shall come to Part 4, but I implore noble Lords not to see the Specials as a substitute for our proposals. We shall debate those proposals properly. By their nature, Specials are police constables; they are not civilians exercising limited police powers. They work outside the normal working hours of their day job, in contrast to community safety officers and accredited persons, which will be full-time jobs available at the beginning and end of each day. It is not a switch on and switch off process in the same way as Specials. I mention that only because it is the fact of the matter.
It was never expected, even on Second Reading, that I would be in a position to make any commitments in Committee, but there is a commitment and work is actively going on in the Government, in consultation with stakeholders, on what we can do to improve numbers of Specials. In due course it will be a matter for this House to approve changes in the regulations. That is important. We cannot put the issue to bed and I am sure that noble Lords will keep coming back on it. It will be at the forefront of my mind while the Bill is going through Parliament anyway and I have no doubt that it will also rightly be raised in the other place.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw: I thank the Minister for that reply. We have been told in the past that work is going on in

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the Home Office but, like the mills of God, it grinds exceeding slow. I ask the Minister to put a bit of his notorious energy behind the people who are dealing with the matter, because we are waiting patiently. I notice that there are powers. I presume that they extend from the bounties in the past, which I know were paid in Dorset. They were very small bounties of about £200 a year. We want a proper scheme of payments. I stand to be corrected on whether it should be different for different forces. Perhaps some forces want Specials and others do not. I have no wish to force things on people if they do not want them. In the meantime, I thank the Minister for his reply and I hope that we shall return to the subject very soon. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 8 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Dholakia: When we first tabled our intention to oppose the clause, we had no indication of what the Minister had in mind. He has already explained that Schedule 1 would apply to NCS and NCIS similar provisions to those applied to local police forces by Clauses 1 to 7. We have already rehearsed the issues at some length in debates on amendments to Clauses 1 to 7, so I do not intend to pursue the matter further.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Powers of the Secretary of State in relation to NCIS and NCS]:
[Amendments Nos. 70 to 74 not moved.]
Lord Dixon-Smithhad given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 75:
Page 74, line 22, leave out "the whole or any part of"
The noble Lord said: I do not intend to waste the time of the Committee on this group of amendments. They would apply to the schedules some of the proposals that we debated in Committee last week on the clauses. I do intend to move Amendment No. 75 or the other amendments in the group.
[Amendment No. 75 not moved.]
[Amendments Nos. 76 to 97 not moved.]
Lord Dixon-Smithhad given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 98:
Page 75, line 27, leave out from "measures" to end of line 17 on page 76 and insert "for the purpose of restoring the efficiency and effectiveness of NCIS"
The noble Lord said: The amendment represents the drafting that I would prefer, but we have been round and round the subject without securing agreement on our proposals and I do not intend to move the amendment now. We shall wait to see what comes back at the next stage of the Bill.
[Amendment No. 98 not moved.]
[Amendment Nos. 99 to 132 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 133 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Clause 9 [The Independent Police Complaints Commission]:
[Amendment No. 134 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 135:
Page 7, line 9, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
"(b) not less than five members appointed by the Magistrates Association; and
(c) not less than five members appointed by the Local Government Association."
The noble Viscount said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 137. We have now moved on to Part 2. A police complaints commission appointed by the Government of the day hardly deserves the description "independent". To introduce a truly independent element, some of the appointments should be made by other bodies.
The Magistrates' Association represents those who have experience of the police and of people accused of crimes, who are likely to be a major source of complaints, as well as experience in sifting out the truth of conflicting claims. The Local Government Association represents the people elected by the public, who are served by the police. It also has the added advantage that it may sometimes be controlled by a different political party from that in government and can therefore provide an element of political balance to the appointment process.
Those bodies can be relied on to choose members who have relevant experience, while spreading the source of appointments and giving the commission a much better chance of developing the reputation for independence that it will need if it is to inspire confidence in its adjudications.
On Amendment No. 137, the Bill proposes giving some police powers to accredited persons—who will form such a feature of Part 4—but fails to bring them within the remit of the independent police complaints commission. That does not make much sense. The nature of the powers vested in the police makes an independent system necessary and desirable. All those who have such powers, including accredited persons, should be brought within the independent system. The argument against allowing the employer to deal with complaints is the same as that against allowing the police to police themselves. Once accredited persons are brought within the complaints system, they should also be kept away from membership so as to preserve the independence of the commission. I beg to move.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I shall briefly support my noble friend on his amendments. I have tabled Amendment No. 136. I am astonished by its modesty. I simply suggested that not fewer than three members of the commission should have police experience.

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I do not think that I would have thought the amendment necessary were it not for the fact that the next subsection states:
"A person shall not be appointed as the chairman of the Commission, or as another member of the Commission, if—
(a) he holds or has held office as a constable in any part of the United Kingdom".
I accept that we want to have a completely independent chairman. However, I think that it is very important that a body of this importance should include people who possess some experience of police work and are able to ventilate the point of view of the police generally on these matters.
I hope very much that, in considering this matter, the Government will reflect on the degree of mistrust about their current proposals. Many policemen of all ranks believe that the Government are taking too much into their own hands, and that they do not pay sufficient regard to the need to have the confidence of the police. The Government will not enjoy the police's confidence unless the police are satisfied that the arrangements for handling complaints against them are fair and in no way biased against them. I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to that view.
Lord Borrie: I rise to express some support for the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil. It is very reasonable that, of the commission's 10 members, three should have had experience of police service. I am currently involved with two unrelated self-regulated industries: the accountancy profession and the world of advertising. Although they have ensured that a majority of those serving on the governing councils of their self-regulatory bodies are independent, they have also ensured that a specific number—a minority, admittedly—should have experience of the world of advertising or of the accountancy profession. I therefore have much sympathy for the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton.
Conversely, I feel that no support whatever should be given to Amendment No. 135, proposed by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman. He started his remarks by asking how the independent police complaints commission can be independent if it is appointed by the Government. Over the years, numerous bodies, including the current Police Complaints Authority, have been able to establish with the public—and, I should hope, with Members of this House—a reputation for independence despite the fact that they are appointed by the Government. In such cases, the Government seek to make a point of ensuring that the members are independent.
Moreover, to safeguard that independence, the Government seek to provide some security of tenure. The office concerned with public appointments is always concerned with ensuring, among other things, that appointments entail some years of security so that members appointed by the Government or a particular department shall indeed be independent and able to perform their tasks fully and adequately.
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I oppose Amendment No. 135 for that particular reason. However, I also oppose the particular notion which it expresses that responsibility for appointing half the commission members should be handed over to one voluntary association—the eminent and reasonable people at the Magistrates' Association—and that responsibility for the other half should be handed over to another voluntary association, the Local Government Association. There has been great disagreement across the Floor of the Committee about the degree to which the Home Secretary should have responsibility in these matters, but surely we can agree that the Government should not abnegate and hand over to someone else responsibility for the appointment of the chairman and commissioners of the independent police complaints commission.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Condon: On Second Reading, I made what may have seemed the extravagant claim that getting the independent police complaints commission right was one of the Bill's most important objectives. I still believe passionately that we must get this provision absolutely right.
I find myself, paradoxically as a former police officer, almost arguing against the amendments. Many years ago, I was persuaded—as the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Police Superintendents' Association and the Police Federation have more recently been persuaded—that a proper complaints process is vital to public confidence in policing. A lack of confidence in that process would be the greatest mischief and must be avoided. I am not taking anything away from the good and worthy people who have spent many years in the current complaints arrangements and done their very best to make those arrangements work, but it is still a fact of life that very many people do not have confidence in the police complaints process. In particular, and more disturbingly, many people from ethnic minority communities do not have confidence in the police complaints procedures.
It is vital that we get it right. Anything that waters down the sense of newness and change and the greater emphasis on independence needs to be thought about very seriously. I would only rarely argue with the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, on these issues, because I respect his motivation in raising them. However, in respect of the other two amendments, we should be very careful not to water down the important and symbolic statement about the independence of the new provisions.
Lord Bradshaw: Like the noble Lord, Lord Condon, we stress the need to ensure independence for the complaints authority. Although it is superficially attractive, I am not sure that Amendment No. 135 provides the independence that we want. I can see what the amendment seeks to do, but I do not think that it does it.
We do, however, welcome the provision in Amendment No. 137. We think that it is a sensible amendment and we support it. As a member of a

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complaints authority, I know that there is not much confidence in the process. However, I can assure noble Lords that the investigations are most thorough. Furthermore, with the restorative interventions which are now not only allowed but encouraged, we are disposing of very many more complaints by bringing together the parties. They agree on some issues, even if it is only to differ, and they are at least on good terms with one another.
I therefore support Amendment No. 137. I am not sure that Amendments Nos. 135 and 136 add to the independence of the authority.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux): I should inform noble Lords that, if Amendment No. 135 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 137.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: Like the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, I have had relatively recent experience of serving on an ombudsman's scheme. That scheme related to financial services, but it has now been subsumed under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. It had a controlling body of eight, five of whom were independent, with three from the building societies industry. The chairman was of course an independent.
I assumed from the Bill's wording that the considerations which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Condon, had powerfully influenced the Government on the need to establish independence in the minds of the public. I recognise that the scheme is not the same as an ombudsman scheme; there are critical and essential differences, not least in the range of issues which will be covered by the commission. I am conscious that although the ombudsman for the Northern Ireland police service did not serve in the RUC, she did serve on the police authority of the RUC, when it existed, prior to the present police board being set up.
I refer to the views of my noble friend Lord Peyton and to those of the noble Lord, Lord Condon. Does the Bill preclude appointments to the commission—I refer to the relevant amendment from the Opposition Front Bench—on the part of those who have experience of these matters, even if they have not served directly in a police force? That is the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Condon, raised. I understand the Government's view on the matter, but I shall be interested to hear their response. I wonder whether there is virtue in exploring compromise in order to satisfy the point made by my noble friend Lord Peyton; that is, that if the commission comprised entirely independent members it would not understand how policing works in general.
Lord Rooker: I accept that we are in totally different territory in this part of the Bill. I welcome the broad support for the changes that we are making. I shall not argue about the definition of titles. However, the independent police complaints commission will certainly be independent of government. It is funded
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centrally and therefore it is not totally outwith the system. Nevertheless, it will be set up as an independent body. Certainly, its decisions will be utterly and totally independent of both the police and the Government. The Home Secretary will have no involvement in those decisions.
I refer to some of the points that have been made. It is crucial that the Committee understands that the appointments will not be made on a whim. A code of practice will be drawn up by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. When Members of the Committee opposite were in government, there was no Commissioner for Public Appointments. That person was not appointed until about 1996. The present system is innovative, is much more codified, and has many rules and regulations to ensure transparency. We do not want to restrict appointments to people of particular backgrounds. We shall operate a totally open recruitment process as regards the appointments. The members will be representative of the community and will provide the new commission with a wide range of skills, experience and expertise.
I say at the outset in response to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that constables will be excluded from membership of the commission. I shall discuss the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, in a moment. I am fairly certain that any citizen who has served as a member of a police authority would not be excluded from membership of the complaints commission. We are not putting up a cordon except as regards serving or former police officers. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, expressed the matter much better than I when he said that public perception is crucial to the success of the organisation we are discussing.
Amendment No. 135 would limit the field of people with necessary competencies. We do not believe that there is any advantage to be gained by placing the responsibility for appointments in the hands of any other bodies. This is a new, non-departmental public body. It is common practice that appointments to the boards of public bodies are made by Ministers. The power to appoint and dismiss board members is an important safeguard of a Minister's ability to supervise a public body. The chairman of the new body will be appointed by Her Majesty rather than the Home Secretary. Anyone who looks at Schedule 2 and the rules with regard to the removal of the chairman of the commission will see clearly that the chairman will be an extremely powerful, independent figure who will not be beholden to any Minister whatever or any Member of either Chamber of Parliament. The commission will be set up in a similar way—
Lord Dixon-Smith: In describing the appointment of the chairman the Minister has provoked me to inquire: who in this instance is Her Majesty?
Lord Rooker: Subsection (2) of Clause 9 states:

"(a) a chairman appointed by Her Majesty; and

(b) not less than ten other members appointed by the Secretary of State".

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Her Majesty will appoint on the recommendation of the Secretary of State. The chairman will be a person of substance. It will be almost impossible to remove the chairman unless the gravest circumstances which are set out in Schedule 2 should arise. As I say, the chairman will be extremely independent.
I accept that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, is seductive; nevertheless it runs directly counter to the principle that the public's perception of the commission should not be that of the police investigating the police. The expertise will come from the people employed by the commission. It will be free to employ whoever it chooses to carry out investigations. That includes former police officers, serving police officers, people from other police forces or from none, such as private investigators. The frontline experience will come from the people employed by the commission; it will not be found at the level of the commission where the final decisions will he taken.
We are confident that the commission will be able to recruit people with the abilities and expertise necessary to fulfil their role from a variety of walks of life. We do not believe that the competencies required are exclusive to the police service. As I say, if police expertise and experience is required—it clearly is in respect of investigations—it is more appropriate for it to be held within the investigative teams of the commission, rather than in its membership.
I can be a little more emollient as regards Amendment No. 137. There are some important points to consider as regards who is or is not a member of the police family. There is an attraction in Amendment No. 137 which stands in the name of the noble Lord. Lord Dixon-Smith. The amendment stipulates that those who have been involved in a community safety accreditation scheme should be barred from membership of the commission. Such persons will be members of the extended police family and, as such, will work closely with the police. Although they are not employed by a chief constable, they exercise very limited police powers. It would not make sense to have on the commission someone who is doing that job, or who has done that job.
Perhaps I may examine further Amendment No. 137. The employer of an accredited person is a private citizen. Accredited persons could be involved with shopping centre security or local authorities. It would be wrong to exclude from membership of the commission employers of accredited persons. An accredited person is accredited with very limited police powers. However, that does not apply to employers of accredited persons. We must consider those two different roles. As I say, it would be unfair to exclude from membership employers of accredited persons. However, as regards accredited persons themselves, so far as I am concerned, it is an open and shut case. They are part of the police family, exercise police powers, and should not be eligible for membership of the commission. I shall return in due course with a suitable amendment to that effect.
7 p.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, for his support of my amendment. However, having heard my noble friend on the Front Bench and the noble Lord, Lord Condon, I would like to set an example and say that I recognise that my amendment was mistaken and I would not wish to press it further. I was quite convinced by their arguments.
Viscount Bridgeman: As regards the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, I agree that I was wide of the mark. However, I am very grateful to the Minister for the explanation of his ideas for the appointments to the commission. In the light of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 136 and 137 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 9 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: There is one question which I would like to ask the Minister under clause stand part. It relates to the scale of the budget for the commission. My particular reason for doing so is that in Northern Ireland, which I agree is not a directly analogous case, the budget for the ombudsman exceeds by more than a factor of two the budget of the Police Board. Consequently, there have been some observations in the community in Northern Ireland as to whether that is an appropriate comparison.
Lord Rooker: I remember looking at this matter during Second Reading. The budget and the resources for the independent police complaints commission will be approximately three times the size of the budget for the existing Police Complaints Authority. It is a substantial amount of extra resources going into this area.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [The Independent Police Complaints Commission]:
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 137A:
Page 81, line 37, leave out sub-paragraph (2).
The noble Viscount said: This is a probing amendment. The terms as to the remuneration of members should be determined at the time of their appointment. The Secretary of State should have no power to make extra payments on termination over and above the initially agreed entitlement. The arrangements between the Secretary of Stale and the commission should be seen as totally transparent. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My response is going to be very brief and I hope that it will reassure the noble Viscount. This is a standard provision in the setting up of a non-departmental public body. It is almost identical to those used in establishing the Police

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Information Technology Organisation (PITO) under the Police Act 1997 and also the Central Police Training and Development Agency under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. We believe that it is appropriate for the Home Secretary to be able to direct the new IPCC to make payments to departing chairmen, deputy chairmen or members where appropriate. That has been a long-established principle. Provision has been made for it in the current legislation which governs the Police Complaints Authority. It is a continuation provision to reestablish something which already exists. There is nothing new, fancy or elaborate about it. There are no whistles or bells attached to it. It is a bog-standard job.
Lord Renton: It may be that the Government have a number of special circumstances in mind which could vary considerably. It would be very helpful to know something of the special circumstances which might arise, even if only one example is given.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I confess that I do not have an example in my head at this moment. If the noble Lord would give us time I am sure that we shall be able to provide him with a special circumstance that might seem appropriate, to use the language of the briefing. It would perhaps be extenuating circumstances where a person has had to leave the commission rapidly for some reason. There is an element of flexibility. It is there and I suspect that the provision has been used quite sparingly.
Viscount Bridgeman: I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for his explanation of the procedure. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 138:
Page 82, line 3, leave out "Subject to sub-paragraphs (3) and (5),"
The noble Viscount said: This amendment is concerned again with the independence of the commission and freedom from political interference. In order to preserve its independence it is important that the commission should appoint its staff without interference from the Home Secretary. I did hear the Minister's reply to the intervention of my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith. Nevertheless, the right to have a say in the commission's choice of chief executive ensures that the Home Secretary can mould the commission in his own image, which is an unacceptable infringement of the commission's independence.
I ask Members of the Committee to recall the theme running through the debate on Clause 5. This legislation must be successor-proof and in this case proof against a tendency towards political interference by a future Home Secretary. I beg to move.
Lord Dholakia: I support this amendment. Although it is not directly relevant, perhaps I may declare an interest. At one time I worked as a member
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of the Police Complaints Authority. What I am not quite sure about is why the Home Secretary requires a power to approve the appointment of a chief executive? More importantly, why is it necessary for him to appoint the first chief executive of this independent police complaints authority? The word "independent" does not necessarily fit if the Home Secretary is going to interfere in the appointment. I do not know of a statutory commission where that has been possible. Can the Minister give some indication as to why the Home Secretary is so interested in this particular matter?
Lord Renton: Under this Bill and various other statutes, the Home Secretary is given a very wide range of detailed powers. How he is expected to have the knowledge, and sometimes the expertise, necessary to exercise those powers is a bit of a puzzle to me. I do not see why the commission itself, which will have to operate with the co- operation of the chief executive, should not appoint the chief executive without the need to seek the approval of the Secretary of State.
Lord Tope: I also support this amendment. I imagine that it is very probable that the commission would wish to have a chief executive, but if it is independent it should surely be its choice as to how it wishes to operate. I can understand, when the commission is yet to be established, that it may be for the Secretary of State to appoint the person to act as chief executive, but why should not that be someone appointed as an interim measure until the commission is established and able to determine, first, whether it wants a chief executive, which I hope it would, and, secondly, who that chief executive should be?
Finally, the Minister went to great lengths a moment ago to assure us, with total sincerity, about the absolute independence of the commission. How can we be reassured that a commission is really and truly independent if probably the most important appointment that it makes in its chief executive, the person for running the body, is subject to the approval of the Secretary of State? How can that possibly be consistent with being truly independent as the Minister assures us?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am impressed that there is a determination in the Committee that we should have a truly independent police complaints commission. That is absolutely right and none of us here today want to see anything other than that. It is good that there is a political consensus for it. But we need to be realistic and reflect on how similar bodies are established.
The argument runs like this. As with Amendment No. 133, these provisions are pretty much standard for the setting up of non-departmental public bodies. I am sure that there are Members of the Committee who are very familiar with this and more so than I. with the establishing of the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO). Very similar provisions were set up under the Police Act 1997 and the Central Police Training and Development Agency, which was set up

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under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, and, my noble friend Lord Rooker advises me, very similar procedures were followed in the setting up of the Food Standards Agency; and I do not believe anyone would argue that that is not a genuinely independent body that feels free to criticise the Government whenever it is right and appropriate so to do. It is a genuinely independent body, established with very similar procedures, which has provided exactly the measure of credible independence that we expected it to deliver.
It will be essential for the Secretary of State to appoint the first chief executive of IPCC. That person will need to be in place well before the IPCC has been formally set up, to take forward its establishment and set in place all its operating procedures, which otherwise would have to be done by the Home Office. In the light of the argument about genuine independence, I shall leave the question of whether the Committee would regard that as desirable. We think that it would be a much less satisfactory way of proceeding.
We also believe that it would be appropriate for the Home Secretary, who has a role in overseeing the operation of the IPCC and the police complaints system as a whole, to have the power of approval—but it is only a power of approval—over subsequent and future chief executives and over the terms and conditions of their appointments. After all, the Home Secretary is ultimately accountable to Parliament. We believe that it would be an important safeguard of the Government's ability to supervise a public body most effectively, so that, importantly—criticism is often made that we seek to undermine the role, importance and significance of Parliament—Parliament itself can hold the Government properly to account for the performance of the IPCC, which surely can be done only through the Home Secretary. However, if the Secretary of State has the power of approval with regard to the chief executive, it would be appropriate for the appointment of IPCC staff to be delegated to the chief executive or his or her senior officials. The Secretary of State need only have the power of approval, therefore, over the terms and conditions of the appointment of those members of staff.
We are therefore 100 per cent in favour of the notion of full independence. We see this as a practical and reasonable measure to take in terms of setting up the IPCC. In relation to the subsequent appointment of chief executives, the Home Secretary retains only a right of approval. The Home Secretary represents the golden thread of accountability running through the whole system. I can understand some of the scepticism about the genuine independence of the IPCC raised by this issue. However, there are many examples, of which I have given three, of how the same standard approach to the creation of genuinely independent, non-departmental public bodies has worked perfectly adequately in the past.
In those circumstances, I hope that noble Lords are reasonably assured by my comments and will feel able to withdraw and reconsider the amendments, which, I
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willingly concede, are inspired by a genuine need to create an independent police complaints supervisory body.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Tope: I am even less reassured than I was before the Minister stood up. I am not sure that it is fair to compare PITO and the training authority with something called the independent police complaints commission. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, spoke very eloquently about the vital importance of the new independent police complaints commission being perceived to be independent. I therefore cannot see any justification for the Home Secretary retaining the right to approve—and therefore, by definition, to veto—the appointment of the chief executive. I do not understand why the Home Secretary cannot be prepared to leave that to the wisdom of the commission and its members.
I well understand the position concerning the first appointment. On the first day of Committee I declared my membership of both the new Greater London Authority and the new Metropolitan Police Authority, both of which bodies were established with interim chief executives—or, in the rather quaint world of police authorities, an interim clerk— appointed, of course, by the Government because no one else was in a position to do it. But both of those authorities, when established, were able and trusted by the Government to make their own appointments without the approval or disapproval of not only the Secretary of State but even of the Mayor. Why are the Government not willing to extend the same trust to the body that they, as fully as we, accept has to be seen to be independent?
Lord Rooker: Perhaps I may again refer to the example of the Food Standards Agency, the White Paper for which I was originally responsible. I suspect—I shall obtain further information for the next stage—that the first and most important person to be appointed will, by definition, he the chair of this authority. The noble Lord nods, but it would be common sense to make sure that the chair is first appointed. The nature of the advertising for the post of the chair will be different from that for the other members. It may be—I do not know—that the appointment of the first chief executive by the Home Secretary will be done in conjunction with the chair-designate. That may be a practical solution. It would be practical because it has worked elsewhere in government. It has been approved by this House and is thought to be a fully independent, bona fide way of making such public appointments in the first instance. We shall be happy to consider other ways of doing it that meet the demands of a new organisation, but we do not want the Home Office to do all the work. That, as my noble friend said, is the whole point of the exercise.
Lord Tope: That is not in issue at all. None of us is arguing, alternatively, that the Home Office should do all the work. I accept what the Minister has said about how the first appointment may be made. What about

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the second, third and fourth appointments of successive chief executives? The Minister has still not addressed the question why an independent police commission must ask the Home Secretary to approve—and therefore, by definition, not approve—the appointment of the chief executive.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: Although some may be critical of the powers granted to the Home Secretary in Clause 5, I still believe that the Minister is right in saying that we should not assume, for example, that merely because an appointment is subject to the approval of a Minister, it would in any way affect that individual's independence. That is commonly done in many tribunals. There is a line between accepting the right of a Minister to approve the appointment of a chief executive, or the membership of a committee, without in any way undermining the independence of that committee. It is different from the kind of powers that we were considering earlier.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: I apologise for being unable to attend the earlier part of this debate. Having listened to the critical point about the independence of the police complaints body, I suggest that no one would ever argue that, in appointing the chairman of the governors of the BBC, the Secretary of State of the day tampers with the independence of that body.
Viscount Bridgeman: The concern about the composition of the commission and the appointment of the chief executive has been widely aired during our debate on this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, has drawn attention to the difference between the appointment of the initial chief executive and that of his successors. However, I note the Minister's comment that that is common practice. I hope that the Minister will reconsider the whole composition of the commission and the executive. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 139 to 145 not moved.]
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 10 [General functions of the Commission]:
Lord Peyton of Yeovilhad given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 145A:
Page 8, line 7, after "confidence" insert "and that of the police".
The noble Lord said: I propose this amendment tentatively, in view of the Government's comments on my previous amendment. I am also very much influenced by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Condon. I appreciate that it is very important to safeguard the total independence of the authority. I am minded not to move the amendment unless the Minister wants to discuss it.
[Amendment No. 145A not moved.]
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 146:
Page 8, line 16. leave out from beginning to first "to" in line 17.
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The noble Viscount said: It should be a basic principle that all bodies that are given police powers should be brought within the remit of the independent police complaints commission and that any exception has to be justified. I suggest that there is no obvious reason why the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad should not also be subject to the independent complaints system, which is applicable to mainstream police forces. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: The National Criminal Intelligence Service, the National Crime Squad and those forces that are maintained otherwise than by police authorities, which we may call the Home Office police—I refer to the British Transport Police, the Royal Parks Police and the Ministry of Defence Police—are not automatically included in the system. They are included if the Secretary of State makes regulations that establish corresponding or similar procedures or if a particular force and the complaints commission, with the approval of the Secretary of State, enter into an agreement. I should explain the reason for that because we obviously want such forces to be included.
It is necessary to provide for the inclusion of those bodies via regulations or agreements because there will be differences in those bodies from regular forces that mean that it is not possible to fit them into the complaints system, which is primarily designed for what I referred to as the Home Office police. The regulations will be able to take account of any individual peculiarities. For example, the British Transport Police operates throughout Great Britain and not just in England and Wales. That could require minute drafting changes, which would be more easily done in regulations.
It is important that the IPCC's functions in relation to those forces takes account of the differences from the regular forces, which will be expressed through regulations. That is a good example involving Great Britain as opposed to England and Wales. Amendment No. 174 would compel forces to enter into an agreement with the IPCC.
The Home Secretary made a commitment to Parliament, which I repeated, during the passage of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill just before Christmas, to bring the Ministry of Defence police and the British Transport Police under the scope of the new police complaints system. However, it is appropriate for other forces that are maintained otherwise than by police authorities to be free to come to an agreement with the IPCC to set up such a system if and in such a way as it would be appropriate to do so. I refer to bodies such as the Ports Police, the atomic energy constabulary and the Royal Parks Police. Nevertheless, it is also appropriate for the Secretary of State, who has a role in overseeing the operation of the police complaints system as a whole, to have the power to approve such agreements when they are made. The amendment appears to accept that the Secretary of State should have the power of approval over the variation or termination of an agreement between the

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IPCC and a non-Home Office police force. We therefore fail to see why the power of approval should not also extend to an agreement as originally made.
We want the other police forces to be included, and we gave a commitment that some of them would be. However, that will be done by regulation because the nature of the set up is different from that of the Home Office police.
Lord Bradshaw: I am pleased that the Minister made that clear. We hope that the regulations will be made promptly. The relevant forces are none the less made up of constables, and they have police powers. We want the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the other forces which are organised differently to be brought within the Bill's provisions as soon as possible.
Viscount Bridgeman: I am grateful to the Minister for explaining why the NCS and the NCIS should be excluded and for confirming that the other police bodies to which he referred should be brought within the commission. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 147 not moved.]
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Gambling
7.26 p.m.
Lord Faulkner of Worcesterrose to ask Her Majesty's Government how they intend to respond to the Gambling Review Report.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I start by thanking all noble Lords who have put their names forward to speak in this debate. I greatly look forward to hearing their contributions, although I fear that those contributions will mostly be rather short. I declare an interest in that I have been an adviser to Littlewoods Leisure and its predecessor company Littlewoods Pools since 1977. That was at the time of the Royal Commission on Gambling, which was chaired by Lord Rothschild. I am also an unpaid member of a number of committees, charities and boards, which receive or distribute funds that are derived from gambling.
I am grateful to the many organisations that have written to me in recent weeks about this debate on the Budd report. I agree with many of the points that they have made. If I do not mention all of those bodies this evening, I hope that they will forgive me. There was only one response with which I profoundly disagree; I shall come to that in a moment.
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The terms of reference of the gambling review are set out on page 6 of the report. A combination of changing social attitudes and the arrival or e-commerce, the flight of United Kingdom bookmakers abroad and the threat of Internet gaming persuaded the Government to set up the review, and they were right to do so. The review also provided an opportunity to take stock of the gambling market as a whole, following the enormous impact made by the arrival of the National Lottery at the end of 1994. That changed for ever the traditional Home Office approach, which was enshrined in the Betting and Gaming Act 1960; that is, that the role of government was to discourage the stimulation of demand for gambling. Gambling is now seen as a mainstream leisure activity, and that is reflected in the fact that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has taken over responsibility for it from the Home Office.
The opening paragraph of the Budd report would seem to provide as good a basis as any for a new public policy on gambling. That policy is,
"to ensure that…Permitted forms of gambling are crime-free, conducted in accordance with regulation, and honest".
It is also to ensure that:
"Players know what to expect, are confident they will get it, and are not exploited",
and that:
"There is protection for children and vulnerable persons".
In following that approach, it would seem to be a fundamental principle that there are no artificial boundaries or distinctions drawn between the different forms of gambling, other than to make it adult only and to maintain sensible retail structures.
It is therefore all the more extraordinary that by far the largest gambling operator in the country—the National Lottery—should have been outside Budd's terms of reference. That was rather like asking a student to write an essay on the rise of fascism in the 1930s but to exclude any reference to the German Nazi Party. I suspect that the National Lottery was omitted to maintain the fiction, first propounded when the National Lottery legislation was going through Parliament in 1993 and 1994, that the National Lottery somehow did not involve gambling. However, Budd reports in paragraph 14.7, that,
"80 per cent of people surveyed thought that doing the national lottery was gambling".
Of course it is; it is a public monopoly, licensed by Parliament and run by private sector companies for the benefit of their shareholders. There is nothing wrong with that. It has generated huge sums of money for good causes, and it pays lots of tax. So, in my view, it is a pity that the opportunity was missed to include the National Lottery in the review of gambling. In particular, I should have like to know what Professor Budd and his colleagues would have had to say about the role of the National Lottery Commission, and about regulation generally.

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This is the only regulator of a monopoly about which I am aware that has within its terms of reference the conflicting aims of both stimulating demand through the phrase,
"maximising the return to good causes",
and protecting the public from the dangers of excessive play. The Government could have the opportunity to correct the situation when they legislate on Budd by placing the regulatory duties of the National Lottery Commission under the proposed gambling commission. I hope that they will give very careful consideration to that proposal.
Given the extraordinary favourable treatment that the lottery has been accorded by successive governments since it started, and its exclusion from the gambling review, we might have expected Camelot to respond to Budd in a measured and conciliatory way. But, sadly, not so. In every area where there is a possibility of some additional competition, such as the introduction of side betting and the deregulation of bingo, it preaches gloom and despair.
Let us consider, in particular, what Camelot says about society and charity lotteries, and Budd's very sensible recommendation that,
"the limits on expenses and prizes as a percentage of proceeds should be removed, subject to an overriding requirement that no less than 20 per cent of proceeds must go to a good cause".
In its response, Camelot claims that these relaxations would reduce its payments to good causes by £1.28 billion over the seven-year licence period,
"threatening the very basis of the national lottery".
For the year up to 31st March 2001, the Gaming Board reported that sales of chances in society lotteries amounted to just £107.1 million from the 5,049 lotteries registered. In the same period, Camelot sales were £4.983 billion—that is almost 50 times as much.
Camelot has over 95 per cent of the scratchcard market, with unlimited stakes and prizes, unfettered access to television, radio, and the printed media, as well as a vast advertising budget, 35,000 agents, the Post Office as a tame retailer, and a deal with the BBC that pays Camelot money for programmes that advertise its product. Are its management and marketing staff really so poor that they cannot cope with a little competition from society lotteries, which, although a minnow by comparison, do so much good for the causes that they support?
Camelot points out that under Section 5 of the 1976 Act a minimum of 20 per cent of sales proceeds from society lotteries must be given to good causes, yet it ignores the figures in Section 6 of the Gaming Board annual report for last year which show that 47.11 per cent of sales were retained by the good causes—that is substantially more than the 28 to 32 per cent provided by the National Lottery. That is despite a limit on society lottery prizes of either £25,000 or 10 per cent of the value of chances sold. As the maximum size of a society lottery is set at £1 million, the maximum allowable prize is just £100,000.
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One great difference between the two is that people who buy society lottery tickets know precisely what good cause they are supporting, whereas they have no say in how the National Lottery good cause money is distributed. A typical charity that benefits from a society lottery is the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, based in Liverpool, of which I am proud to be a patron. It works in partnership with the University of Liverpool. It grants over I million each year to carry out research into the early detection of lung cancer, and supports lung cancer nurses at various cancer centres around the country. Its chairman of trustees, Sir Philip Carter, has written to me in the following terms:
"We applaud what the National Lottery has done for the country but we protest strongly at Camelot's intention to resist the Budd recommendations on relaxation of charity lottery regulations … We have never received one penny of government funding for our research programme nor have we received any funds from the National Lottery. That is why it is so important you do not deny us the opportunity of bringing in legitimate funding through a society lottery".
In his letter, Sir Philip also points out that the foundation is likely to receive over three-quarters of a million pounds in 2002 from a lottery run on its behalf by Littlewoods Leisure. He goes on to say:
"Any increased support for the national lottery at the expense of charity lotteries will jeopardise this and have a devastating effect on organisations like the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation".
When my noble friend the Minister replies to the debate, I hope that she will be able to give us some indication of the Government's intended legislative time-scale. On the assumption that it may be a little while before we see a substantial Bill, will the Government at least act on the society lotteries front, and use existing regulatory powers to double lottery sizes and prize limits?
In conclusion, I hope that my noble friend will also be able to say that the Government accept the broad thrust of Professor Budd's recommendations, and that they agree that his team has produced an excellent report that will provide a way forward for gambling in this country through a fair and competitive framework for all participants.
7.36 p.m.
Lord Burnham: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, is much to be congratulated on introducing this debate. But it is quite ridiculous to expect such an important subject to be covered in one hour. Before I begin. I probably should declare an interest as my wife is a director of the British Horseracing Board (BHB).
I have chosen to concentrate on one aspect of gambling, a fairly new one; namely, person-to-person betting. That it is a live subject is demonstrated by the fact that half the front page, page 2 and all of page 9 of yesterday's Racing Post is devoted to the subject. In P2P betting, as it is described, punters bet with each other, usually by means of the Internet. These bets are brokered by firms who take a commission, approximately 5 per cent, for their services. As BHB charges for the services that it provides on the basis of turnover, this makes nonsense when the turnover is the

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broker's fee—that is to say, 5 per cent. More importantly from the Government's point of view, there is a clear and major loss to the Revenue.
P2P is now big business with a steep growth curve. From a few thousand two years ago, it is now standing at ¤15.68 million a week for one firm, Betfair, alone. This makes it a major threat to on-course bookmaking. Some bookmakers are claiming that it is illegal on the grounds that it allows individuals to act as bookmakers. The Jockey Club's director of security, General Phipps, is calling for government action to regulate this form of betting. Illegal or not, there are clear dangers to the integrity of betting when it is so easy to lay a horse, or whatever, to lose.
The Budd report recommends that betting brokers should be licensed and regulated in the same way as bookmakers. This must be right, as must some way of ensuring that brokers and punters make a fair payment to whatever sport gives them a field in which to lay their bets. It is to be hoped that this policy will he adopted when the DCMS view on the report is published next month. It has to be said that the operators are co-operating, particularly where there may be suspicious betting markets. They are showing a clear understanding of the data protection issues and seem to wish to work with racing and other statutory authorities.
In general, not all of the report is rational; for example, it takes up an illogical stance on betting in pubs compared with drinking in casinos. But, generally, it is to be welcomed. I hope that other noble Lords will find time to cover the salient points in their skeletal three minutes.
7.39 p.m.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Faulkner, I am shocked that the Government excluded the National Lottery from Alan Budd's otherwise excellent report. However, I am not surprised. As a government, it is not very often that you find a tax that is not only popular but one that also enables you to extract money from poor people's pockets and spend a large amount of it on rich people's hobbies. But they did exclude it and I regret that. However, in relation to one issue it has crept under the bar; that is, in the recommendations of Budd that betting should be allowed by bookmakers on National Lottery numbers. Here I declare an interest as a member of the board of the Tote.
It seems strange that it should be banned in the first place. One can bet on whether it will be a white Christmas, on the Booker Prize, on the name of the next Archbishop of Canterbury and on whether Prince Charles will ever be king. However, one cannot bet on lottery numbers. I could understand that if the amount of money that such betting would cost the lottery were very great. The question is: is it?
With the aid of Europe Economics and MORI, the bookmakers produced a substantial study—I have read it; it is a convincing piece of work—which states that such betting would not have much effect on the National Lottery. Indeed, it might even increase sales
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because, in case they did not get all six numbers but got three or five, some people would place money on the results in order to hedge their bets. However, the National Lottery has said that over the lifetime of the licence period it would cost it sums of £400 million and more. If that were so, it would of course be an important argument.
But the National Lottery—a publicly set-up body—has decided to keep its report secret. It claims to have reports from the Henley Centre and PricewaterhouseCoopers which bear it out, but it will not publish its research. I believe that that is an affront to public policy-making. We need to hear both sides of the case in order to make a judgment. I am shocked that the National Lottery—a body which relies on the integrity of figures—should deprive the debate of figures in this way. It is cheating and it should not he permitted.
However, I do see a way forward. I believe that bookmakers should be allowed to bet on numbers but, just as bookmakers are about to have to pay a licence fee to the British Horseracing Board for the use of horse-racing data, it seems to me that it would be sensible for bookmakers to pay a fee to the National Lottery in order to accept bets on its numbers. Instead of there being a conflict situation in which the bookmakers say "yes" and the lottery says "no", that would produce something which, in my experience, is rather rare in gambling—a situation in which everyone wins.
7.42 p.m.
Lord Wade of Chorlton: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for bringing forward this matter for debate. My interest is in seeing development in Blackpool. Therefore, I want to speak in support of the resort casinos which are proposed and encouraged in the report.
In speaking, I have the support of about 71 per cent of the people in Blackpool, all the major organisations in Blackpool, the Blackpool Challenge Partnership, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn, the RDA and many other important organisations in the North West. It is calculated that the type of casino that would be built in Blackpool, given the right opportunity to do so, would in the short term produce some 3,000 jobs, possibly rising to 25,000 jobs once the business had gathered momentum.
It is an interesting fact that the number of people who come to Britain for their holidays is decreasing and that those who go away from Britain for their holidays do so more and more often because we no longer provide the information, entertainment and leisure complexes that people can find elsewhere in the world. Four hundred thousand English people go to Las Vegas every year. That certainly did not happen in my younger days. Then, going to Las Vegas would have been the most daring thing that one could possibly imagine doing.
Therefore, the aim is to try to create new and exciting leisure activities in Blackpool, which at present, it must be admitted, is a dying town. Its

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economic development is possibly smaller than that of any other area in the North West. Its GDP is declining annually. The type of people who visit the town would not support the exciting shops and activities that were there in the past.
Therefore, I strongly believe, along with many others, that the development of high-quality resort casinos which offer a wide range of restaurants, facilities, entertainment and gambling would be a tremendous boost to what could, again, be one of the best central places in the UK for people to visit and spend money. If we want to create jobs and opportunities in the North West, we must attract people who will spend money. In order to do so, there must be enormous investment and people who are prepared to make sacrifices and work hard to make it happen.
They are likely to do so only if we create a legal framework which allows them to invest their money with confidence. They must know that they will receive the support of the Government, the local authorities and all those who can make such a great development possible. I look forward to the time when I can see along the front at Blackpool splendid resort hotels which draw in people from around the world and machines which take a great deal of foreign money.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on raising this issue. I declare an interest as honorary vice-president of the Lotteries Council, which represents a patchwork of those who rely on local lotteries for an essential part of their income—that is, sports clubs, charities and hospice supporters, the organisations which are the stuff of strong and vibrant communities.
Tickets for those lotteries are often sold door-to-door in all weathers. Some are sold by dedicated volunteers; others by direct mail to supporters. None of them represents the remotest threat to the comprehensive network of about 25,000 retailers who handle National Lottery ticket sales. This field is a rare case of there being room for the Goliath of the National Lottery and the David of small charities.
The test that I would make to illustrate the point is this: do I gamble £1 on a National Lottery ticket because I know that I have a 14 million-to-one chance of becoming a multi-millionaire and that only 28p of that £1 goes to good causes, or do I gamble £1 because I know that 47p of it will go to the good local cause in my area? In that sense, it is a choice between personal gain and community gain. It would be good if Camelot could arrange to tell us how many National Lottery winners have put some of their massive winnings back into the community of which they are—at least, they were at the time that they bought the ticket—a part.
The small charitable lotteries want only to raise the limit of the £1 maximum stake, the £1 million maximum single lottery proceeds, the £100,000 maximum single prize and the £500,000 maximum annual turnover, all of which have been in place since
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1993. None of this will lead to an unwelcome or socially damaging upsurge in gambling; nor, as I said, is there any real threat to the National Lottery.
It is inevitable that the National Lottery has hurt some good-cause local charities. The small lotteries are simply asking for increases which will help them to sustain their community-enhancing role. I ask the Minister to assure your Lordships that the Government will consider those points and leave aside for another day the wider suggestion of the Gaming Board that all limits for lotteries should be removed. There may well be a case for that, but I believe that the smaller local lotteries have a stronger case in seeking a rise in the limits, as I have just described. The small lotteries need those modest increases now. Important as the National Lottery is, it should not be allowed to harm small lotteries any further as they do good for communities in ways which the National Lottery cannot reach.
7.48 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Wakefield: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, on securing this debate. I have consulted other Christian denominations. We broadly welcome the report but we also have some particular concerns. In our view, the proposals about children and fruit machines do not go far enough. There is a very strong opinion within the Churches that the age restriction for these highly addictive machines should be raised to 18 across the board and that that should come into effect when the reforms are introduced rather than in five years' time.
We also believe that the age for participation in the National Lottery should be raised to 18. I regret that we are out of step with all other Western countries in being the only one to allow gambling under the age of 18. But I also urge the Government to consider including in the national curriculum education for children and young people about responsible gambling and the consequences of problem gambling.
I share concerns about on-line gambling, which rose from 339,132 sites world-wide in July 2000 to 2,348,208 last October—a rise of 700 per cent. I welcome the proposals for policing that, but I wonder how they will be implemented to avoid laundering and under-age play. There is also a strong view within the Church that alcohol should not be sold at gaming tables. Given the adverse effect that alcohol has on judgment and self-control, we believe that that is important. In our view, prohibition should remain.
As a Yorkshire Bishop, I am in the strange position tonight of speaking up for Lancashire and backing Blackpool's casino hopes. Their Bishop, my friend the Bishop of Blackburn, recently visited Las Vegas. He assures me that he did not have a flutter there, but he was persuaded that hotel casinos bring regeneration. The casino proposal is the only regeneration plan there is for Blackpool. Given the level of deprivation there, it is the lesser evil, but only if a substantial sum of casino profit goes to local regeneration in Blackpool, and support systems for those adversely affected or addicted are firmly in place and not left to chance.

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In the same vein, I welcome the proposal for a gambling trust to promote research and treatment, but I would want to see business practices in the gambling industry develop in ways which would help to prevent addictive behaviour. In short, does the Minister agree that there must be no deregulation without greater social responsibility?
7.51 p.m.
Lord Mancroft: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for this opportunity. I should declare an interest. I earn my living as chairman of a company licensed by the Gaming Board as an external lottery manager, and I promote a number of lotteries for charities with which I am involved, am chairman of the Drug and Alcohol Foundation, which is the largest provider of day care for drug addicts here in the City of Westminster. We provide care for people from 32 different local authorities. The deficit that we have, which every small charity has every year, is entirely funded by our lottery income. The building in which we operate in Dartmouth Street, which noble Lords are welcome to visit, is entirely paid for by lottery money.
The Lotteries Council, of which I am a member, and of which the noble Lord, Lord Corbett, is a distinguished vice president, is delighted that the report recognises the importance of lottery income to charities and sporting organisations. That income is, in many ways, more important than the income which comes from the National Lottery because it is much more flexible and easy to distribute. I hope that the Government take on board the importance of that income at a time when there has been a significant collapse in core funding for smaller charities. Society lotteries existed long before the National Lottery. They will never pose a threat to the National Lottery as Camelot has tried to suggest.
I understand that the Government do not want to do anything to risk the status of the National Lottery, but I can only emphasise that the commercial muscle of Camelot means that no charity or group of charities will ever challenge the National Lottery's domination of the marketplace. Camelot's control of the retail network makes it almost impossible for societies to sell their tickets through shops. I believe that my company is probably the only one with an on-line capacity remotely similar to Camelot's with, I suspect, the possible exception of Littlewoods. However, I can tell your Lordships that if we achieve 1 per cent of Camelot's business, we will have been successful beyond our wildest dreams.
I hope, therefore, as the noble Lord, Lord Corbett said, that we shall not have to wait for primary legislation to see enacted the recommendations in the Budd report in respect of stakes, prizes and expenses. I know of no reason why the Government should not act on Budd's recommendations, which are supported by the Gaming Board and the Lotteries Council, and bring them forward by deregulation.
My next point is in respect of frequency. I believe that the only reason that the Budd report focused on frequency was because of the information given to it by
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officials. Not one single submission focused on frequency; there was only the information given by officials, and that was not the full information. The hard data were not given to Budd. That is why Budd came to the conclusion he did, which is understandable but completely wrong.
In particular, the Government must understand that because Camelot prevents societies from selling their tickets in shops, we have to find alternative outlets. That is why we retail in pubs; not through choice but because we have no choice. The only type of lottery that works in a pub is a rapid-draw lottery. If the Government prevent us from running those kind of lotteries, there will be little future for society lotteries. I hope that the Government will bear that carefully in mind.
7.55 p.m.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, this is clearly a sprint and not a test of stamina. The report seems to me to be sensible, constructive and speedy. Clearly, it starts from a free market philosophy. It suggests replacing a prescriptive regime with a more permissive one. I welcome the fact that it reduces moral nannying and excess regulation. It usefully accommodates the growth in on-line gambling, which was previously not covered by existing legislation.
However, it has defects. The price for its speed is sketchiness on detail, rather like most of us tonight. The general theme, modernisation and liberation, is one I support. It approaches gambling in an adult way. It allows adults to participate in what is a successful growth leisure industry in which Britain is a leader, especially in the application of computer technology. The report deals with the real moral and social issues. It ensures that children and criminals are not involved. It also refers to the problem of addiction. Here, I declare an interest as a past president of GamCare, the charity concerned with addiction. There is not a great problem, but it is serious for the individuals concerned. I welcome the proposal that some gambling revenues should fund research into the problems of gambling.
I shall now comment on a few specific issues. There are sensible proposals on casinos to make them more open; to abolish the 24-hour membership rules; to abolish permitted areas; to allow live music and more machines and to create a more enjoyable environment, which I support. As regards allowing resort casinos, I agree that that might regenerate some of our more depressing seaside resorts, one of which has been mentioned. In return, perhaps the new casinos might devote some of their revenues to supporting local social projects. That happens in France, where it is part of the deal in obtaining a licence. In passing, I note that Las Vegas, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wade, has more catholic churches than Rome. I believe that the provision for repentance in resort casinos is a good idea. Blackpool would benefit more than most.
As regards licensing by local authorities instead of by magistrates, local authorities know the local scene. On horse race betting there are several concessions to

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bookmakers, including betting on the lottery, which I support. I hope that that means that more resources will be available for racing and that those two sides will settle soon. As regards banning slot machines in working men's clubs, I hope that that has no political chance. I trust that any quibbling over minor details will not deter Government from moving to speedy reform along the broad lines proposed by Budd. Gambling is a major leisure industry providing simple social pleasures for millions of people. It should not be overtaxed to drive it overseas or underground. It should be properly regulated and monitored, which Budd proposes. I hope that my noble friend will assure the House of government action soon.
7.59 p.m.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: My Lords, perhaps I may add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, on giving us a chance to debate this important topic tonight. I should like to make a couple of brief points. My first point is that I support the broad thrust of the report where it seeks to sweep away artificial divisions and practices. Like several other noble Lords, I am against the nanny state and I welcome the approach. However, I do so subject to two provisos.
First, I spent 20 years of my career helping to develop the regulatory system in the City. We found that an integral part of an effective regulatory system is what we now call "transparency". Investors must know what they are letting themselves in for. In the hallowed present phrase, "Shares can go down as well as up". In that vein, I endorse the need for gamblers to be reminded constantly of what they can lose.
Secondly, there is the subject of the protection of young people. Here I follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield. I was surprised that the report, having selected 18 as the age at which most people are mature enough to make decisions as regards gambling, then proceeded to propose that children should continue to be allowed to play on fruit machines. I fear that I find different permissible ages for different types of gambling to be unsatisfactory and unclear.
My second point concerns taxation. I found the report's treatment of tax issues and tax implications to be its weakest part. The Government need to be clear on their long-term tax strategy for the industry before legislation is introduced; otherwise tax and regulation may come into conflict.
Finally, there is the regulation of spread betting. I have already referred to my past membership of the board of the Securities and Futures Authority. We on the SFA were horrified when we were told that, as a result of a court case, we were going to have to regulate spread betting, and in consequence apply conduct of business rules, know your customer rules and financial prudential regulation to the spread betting industry.
It came about because a spread betting firm, more I suspect in hope than expectation, took a spread betting client to court to try to enforce a debt. In my view the
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judgment was and remains perverse. I urge the Minister to read paragraph 9.46 in the report. The example given there shows the clear illogicality of having spread betting regulated by the Financial Services Authority. I hope that the Government will think carefully about this matter before we come to the legislative process.
There are many other important issues worthy of debate; notably the proposed new licensing structure and its implications for a countrywide level playing field. I congratulate the review body on its meaty report. I again thank the noble Lord for introducing the debate today.
8.2 p.m.
Baroness Golding: My Lords, I want to thank the noble Lord for the opportunity to debate this important issue. I am not certain if I should declare an interest because I am a member of the all-party dogs group, or because I am a member of the all-party horse racing group, or because I jointly chair the All-Party Betting and Gaming Group. But anyway I declare an interest in that I have more than a casual interest in the gambling review.
I confess that I have read the Budd report from cover to cover. I agree with a large part of it. For example, I strongly agree with no betting in pubs, but strongly disagree with proposals to abolish jackpot machines in clubs.
There are many interesting recommendations in the report. There is the establishment of a gambling trust to oversee the causes and treatment of problem gambling. That then raises the questions of how it is to be funded and how it will link in with the provision made at present by GamCare. All gambling is to be regulated by a single regulator. That raises questions as to whether that should include the National Lottery and as to whether spread betting should continue to be regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Licensing of premises is to be undertaken by local authorities. Will that link in well with the abolition of the demand test and permitted areas rule?
Relaxation of the rules for casinos has long been needed and is very welcome. But must we wait for a Bill to abolish the 24-hour membership rule? Could not that he done quickly by regulation? We are desperate to encourage tourists. They do not understand why we still put this block on their legitimate enjoyment.
I am aware that the National Lottery for some reason was not included in the gambling review. But is it not time that it was made to stand on its own feet? There are very many charities—small and large—battling for available money. They do not have the advantages of a national lottery and often are not eligible for a grant from it, often because of complicated and impossible to fulfil requirements. Why should not the National Lottery be free to take its chances in expanding its income by, for example, putting its terminals in betting shops? I am aware that it has a duty to maximise its income, but surely not by giving it unfair advantages over other smaller lotteries and charities?

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There are so many issues raised and so much that is good to be considered in this excellent report. I very much look forward to the detailed debate on the review and on all the interesting issues that it raises.
8.5 p.m.
Viscount Falkland: My Lord, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for this brief opportunity to discuss gambling in this country in the light of the Budd report.
I think that we can be reasonably proud in this country of over 150 years of sensible legislation which has supported public policy. Gambling has not been actively encouraged, but where it has taken place it has done so with the minimum of criminal activity and with as fair a deal as possible for the betting public. The overall success of this policy—this relates somewhat to what the right reverend Prelate was saying—is that it has sought to protect the young and the vulnerable.
Although relatively little is still known about the addiction of gambling, it affects quite a small proportion of people who gamble, as, indeed, alcohol addiction affects quite a small proportion of those who drink. There is much more to be discovered about this and there is much more help to be put in place for those who suffer. The policy has allowed the successful conduct of horse and dog racing, among other activities. There is a betting market created by bookmakers, whose integrity and efficiency must have surprised some other countries with tote monopolies who did not opt to go down that road.
Casinos in this country have operated usually profitably, some very profitably and within a firm regulatory environment. They have produced a good deal of useful foreign exchange for this country. The noble Lord, Lord Wade, mentioned the view in the report about the interesting Blackpool proposal. I do not share the view which seems to come out of the report that the regeneration of our seaside resorts should go entirely down that route. But this particular high-quality proposal which follows more closely what happens in Atlantic City is an interesting one.
The responsibility for gambling has now passed from the Home Office to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Only time will tell whether that is a good or a bad thing. Gambling is obviously now perceived as a leisure activity which is more important than the concern that our forefathers had with some of its social and moral worries. I hope that these issues will he addressed in the White Paper.
Here again I seem to be leaning towards the view expressed by the right reverend Prelate. Dangers do exist and will continue to exist wherever gambling takes place. Control and monitoring must surely be an important part of any legislation. I look forward with great anticipation to that part of the White Paper.
The Gambling Review Body report seeks to ensure an environment in which providers and consumers can both benefit. That is a useful and helpful aim. We remain to see whether they are successful in doing that. The explosion of spread betting and one-to-one
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betting, which is a complicated issue that was described by the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, need to have special attention paid to them by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. We anticipate that that will also be dealt with in the White Paper. But it should be soon. How soon, perhaps the noble Baroness will be able to enlighten us.
8.10 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I join in the general thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for this debate. In general, I welcome the plans to reform the law on gaming. It is a mess. Its reform needs to be considered against the background of a growth in leisure time, more relaxed attitudes to gambling in general and of course the new trends in gambling such as on the Internet and the person-to-person gambling which was so ably referred to by my noble friend Lord Burnham.
There are also weaknesses. My noble friend Lord Hodgson referred to the problems over taxation. The Budd report has stirred up fears in some parts of the leisure industry that the proposed deregulation could in some circumstances mean that the cure is worse than the disease.
Business in Sport & Leisure states that its main criticism is about the concept of "ambient gambling". Does the Minister agree that, from this understandable view of gaming, there then follows a series of recommendations which fly in the face, it would seem, of the way in which the gaming industry works in the UK and, if implemented, could mean the closure of a significant number of leisure outlets, especially perhaps private clubs and seaside arcades? For example, does the Minister agree that we should reject recommendation 70 and leave alone the current regime of a jackpot machines in not-for-profit clubs?
Amusement arcades are one of the significant attractions of United Kingdom tourism resorts. After all, they create family entertainment and are for the most part well managed. The recommendation that local authorities could impose blanket and retrospective bans on established gaming businesses in their area has alarmed the leisure industry. For example, John Bollom of Mumbles Pier, Swansea says in Game On, the submission of the British Amusement Catering Trades Association:
"It's bad enough finding the funds to invest in the business on an on-going basis without worrying whether or not the local authority will implement a blanket ban to shut us down in a year's time".
My noble friend Lord Wade was right to direct our attention to the economic potential offered by the development of resort casinos. On this occasion, I am happy to follow the lead of the perhaps unlikely alliance between my noble friend and right reverend Prelates—I say Prelates in the plural because I include the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford—in hoping that Blackpool may be given an early boost by Budd in that regard.
I am aware that the leisure industry has made representations to the effect that the proposal to allow large-scale use of machines in casinos means that,

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instead of having casinos that provide a social, leisure atmosphere, we might end up with warehouse environments of mindless gaming, with wall-to-wall machines. Will the Government consider a pragmatic solution of a step-by-step approach whereby deregulation could be applied to areas where the local community was overwhelmingly in favour? I am of course thinking directly of Blackpool.
Many noble Lords, such as my noble friend Lord Mancroft, referred to the National Lottery. It is vital that the Minister directs us to the Government's view of how the lottery could or should be affected by the Budd report. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.
8.12 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Faulkner for raising this important topic, and I have listened with great interest to what he and others have said during this debate. I accept that, as the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, said, it is somewhat frustrating that speakers have had such a short time, but I must say that many interesting points have emerged.
I am afraid that I must for now disappoint any noble Lords—including the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay—who may be hoping for a foretaste of the Government's decisions on the review. As noble Lords will know, the report makes 176 recommendations about all sectors of the commercial gambling industry and about sports club and charity lotteries. I shall certainly not attempt to summarise the report tonight—my noble friend Lord Donoughue had a pretty good crack at that and I cannot improve on what he said.
Sir Alan Budd and his colleagues have, as we expected them to, produced the most important analysis for 20 years or more of gambling regulation in Great Britain. As many speakers have said, it is a thorough and impressive piece of work, and I pay tribute to it. It was imperative to have such a report because the controls that have served us well since the 1960s are increasingly out of date and need of modernisation. The Government are not alone in that view—it was expressed just now by the noble Baroness.
In publishing the report last July, we began a process of public consultation. We received almost 300 substantive responses from all parts of the commercial gambling industry and from others with an interest. Separately, we have also received more than 3,000 letters from people commenting on one or another aspect of the report's conclusions. There has been broad support for the review's conclusion that there can be substantial deregulation of the gambling industry consistent with ensuring that crime is kept out, that there is protection for children and vulnerable people and that consumers—the punters—get a fair deal. On the other hand, there has been disagreement about some of the review's more specific proposals.
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It is now for the Government to decide how to take forward the necessary reform, and I can tell the House that we anticipate being able to make an announcement within a few weeks. It would be quite wrong for me to indicate our intentions before such an announcement.
We decided that we needed a review because our current laws on the commercial gambling industry—apart of course from the National Lottery—date from the 1960s and 1970s. Many people argue, especially with the advent of the National Lottery, that our controls are too restrictive and do not reflect the more relaxed, less condemnatory, attitudes to gambling that people have nowadays. That has been the general tenor of this debate. Irrespective of whether that is true, there were important reasons for subjecting the controls to the thorough, dispassionate analysis that Sir Alan Budd and his gambling review team have provided.
When our present controls were devised, no one had heard of the Internet, interactive or digital TV or even of mobile phones. But those are now important ways of delivering gambling and they are outflanking our current system of control, which is based largely on the notion that most commercial gambling will be carried out in premises such as a casino or a betting office. We have already heard from a number of speakers that that is no longer the case.
At the same time, we consider a properly regulated gambling industry to be an integral part of the leisure industry and indeed of the economy. But our restrictive controls discourage that. They are overly complex and difficult to deregulate. The Government looked to Sir Alan and his team for a rigorous, detailed and independent examination of those important questions.
I have been asked by several speakers, including my noble friend Lord Faulkner, what is the legislative timetable for change in controls on gambling. Given the speed of developments in the commercial and media worlds, there is a strong case for bringing our laws up to date as quickly as possible. It will come as no surprise when I say that a complete transformation of the law on gambling would require the replacement of three large Acts of Parliament passed in 1963, 1968 and 1976, together with some smaller Acts and a huge number of statutory instruments. So that is a big task, but the Government recognise the case for urgency. While a Bill on the subject may be unlikely during the next Session, we are of course considering how quickly we can introduce one thereafter.
As noble Lords have said, there may also be opportunity to change the law in advance of that by relaxing some of the controls in existing legislation. I cannot be specific about that other than to say that we will give it serious consideration.
My noble friends Lord Faulkner and Lord Lipsey asked why the Government did not ask Sir Alan Budd to examine the National Lottery. We asked the review body to consider the effects of its proposals on National Lottery income, and the report contains a chapter about that. It was not a case of one law for Camelot and another for society lotteries.

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I assure my noble friend that the Government do not think, as Ministers in the previous administration were once quoted as saying, that the National Lottery is not a form of gambling. Of course it is. In fact, we had just subjected the National Lottery to a major review that resulted in the National Lottery Act 1998, so the Budd review period of 1999 to 2000 was really not the time to put the National Lottery through yet another evaluation, especially as it fell right in the middle of the competition to run the lottery for the next seven years.
Now that the competition is over and the National Lottery is back into a period of stability, we will conduct a review, looking particularly at what we need to do to ensure that there continues to be viable competition for the contract to run it. However, that was not a reason for the Government to hold up the Budd review, which everybody agreed was urgently needed and long overdue. I shall leave Camelot to defend itself against the forceful criticisms made by my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester of its comments on the Budd recommendations.
With regard to society lotteries, raised by my noble friend Lord Corbett of Castle Vale and the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, the Government agree that the most important proposals are those to do with the maximum size of society lotteries—how many tickets they can sell and what their top prize can be. There are strict limits. For instance, there is a limit of £100,000 on a top prize. We will announce views on the matter soon as part of our overall announcement on gambling reform, but I want to say how much the Government understand the lotteries' frustration with the present limits and their desire to move beyond them. Society lotteries do an enormous amount of good and the Government want to see them prosper.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield talked about problem gambling. Whether we call it addictive gambling, a compulsion or an obsession, there is no doubt that it is a serious issue, and it can ruin the lives of individuals and their families. As the Budd report says, it is an under-researched phenomenon, both its causation and its cure. A recent study indicated we have a relatively low incidence of problem gambling, at least by comparison with some other countries. Depending on the measure used, the study showed that between five and eight British adults in every thousand are affected. I suppose that we can take some comfort from that.
The gambling review's recommendations about investigating and treating problem gambling are among the most important in the report. They are especially important because, as the report says, some of the recommendations, particularly those on liberalising casinos, could have the effect of increasing the number of people with a gambling problem. The report recommended that the industry set up a voluntary fund to support more research and more resources for treatment. It also suggests that, failing that, there should be a government levy.
On the whole, the gambling industry takes a responsible attitude to the issue. Much work is being done by leading figures in the industry to set up such a
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fund, and there are pledges totalling around £800.000 for it. I say to the right reverend Prelate that there will be no deregulation without greater social responsibility.
My noble friend Lady Golding mentioned gaming machines, particularly those in pubs. I entirely understand her concerns. We shall certainly take into account her views and those of others on the issue.
The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, talked about deregulation and casinos. The gambling review proposes a significant deregulation of the industry and recommends the removal of many of the restrictions on online gambling. It proposes the abolition of most of the money and other limits that constrain bingo and charity lotteries. It suggests that casinos should be able to have linked gaming machines and unlimited stakes and prizes. As the report acknowledges, there is a danger: small, backstreet casinos were a significant problem after the deregulation of the early 1960s, and it is important that we do not see uncontrolled proliferation or expansion that outstrips the capacity of the regulator to police it properly. The Government agree that it is an important area, and the package of measures proposed by Budd is crucial.
Several other issues were raised but I do not have time to cover them. To the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, I say that the Government are aware of the increasing popularity of person-to-person betting. It is a new form of betting and has been made much easier by advances in technology. Budd recommended that betting exchanges should be licensed and regulated, and the Government are considering that recommendation.
The noble Lord, Lord Wade of Chorlton, made a great plea on behalf of casinos in Blackpool and was supported by other speakers, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield. I believe that Blackpool will benefit if some of the report's recommendations are implemented.
Our announcement, to be made in a few weeks' time, will make it clear which of the report's 176 recommendations we accept, which we do not and where we consider that further work is needed. It will also set out the Government's overall strategy on the major overhaul of the controls of gambling that everyone accepts is needed.

Police Reform Bill [H.L.]
8.26 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Clause 10 [General functions of the Commission]:
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 148:
Page 9, line 1, leave out sub-paragraph (ii).

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The noble Viscount said: This is very much a probing amendment. The clause provides for the various duties of the commission, including the duty to,
"protect persons who report such misconduct from victimisation".
It is unclear how that is supposed to be achieved. In the first instance, it must be noted that not all complaints will be dealt with by the commission; some, no doubt, will be dealt with under the informal resolution procedure. Such complaints will, therefore, not come to the attention of the commission. Even were a complaint to come to the attention of the commission, how is it to achieve that end?
If a police officer wishes to victimise an individual, a tempting way would be to investigate, prosecute or arrest. If a prosecution is instigated maliciously and fails, there is already a civil remedy in the form of a suit for malicious prosecution. There are civil remedies for wrongful arrest. In order to prevent such instances, the commission is proposing to order a police officer or police force not to investigate allegations of criminal wrongdoing. Will a criminal or suspected criminal be able to avoid detection by making a complaint and complaining of victimisation? That may be prone to abuse. I beg to move.
Lord Borrie: It may be convenient if I speak to Amendments Nos. 311 and 340, which are grouped with the noble Viscount's amendment. Those amendments are in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury.
At Second Reading, I recalled that I had had the privilege of piloting through the House what became the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. It had been piloted through the House of Commons by Richard Shepherd, the honourable Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, and was, to that extent, a bi-partisan effort. That Act gives invaluable protection to employees of all kinds who blow the whistle on wrongdoing in their place of work and are then dismissed, or victimised in some other way.
During the passage of that Bill, the Government said that the police had to be excluded from its provisions because they were not technically—l;and are not, technically—employees. But the relevant Minister of the day, Mr Ian McCartney, gave "an absolute commitment" that police officers would be afforded equivalent protection because they should be given equivalent protection.
There are some provisions in the current police regulations but I submit that they are not equivalent to the protections in the Public Interest Disclosure Act because there is no right of redress and compensation for a victimised police officer who has reported wrongdoing in the force.
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The problem is that a police officer who knows of wrongdoing among colleagues has little confidence that he can report it in safety. As Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary stated in 1999:
"There is a strong feeling among officers and support staff that retribution, subtle or direct, would result from making complaints against colleagues. There is a perception that no one commends such officers for demonstrating moral courage".
No one should doubt the value of protecting whistleblowers if in the public interest we want effectively to combat police wrongdoing. The Police Complaints Authority does not doubt it. A member of that authority said in 2000 that a whistleblower policeman found himself ostracised for reporting a fellow officer for corruption. That member of the authority said:
"He was a good officer. He became an outcast, vilified by his fellow officers and left largely unsupported".
He went on to say—and I believe him—
"He seriously considered suicide. He had been badly let down by the force".
There is presently a contradiction between the position of civilian workers and police officers, and that is likely to increase under Part 4 of the Bill.
Clause 10(4), which is now in front of us, puts a duty on the independent police complaints commission to facilitate the reporting of misconduct and to protect persons who report such misconduct from victimisation. The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, queried the latter part when dealing with his amendment.
However, Clause 10(4) does not provide redress to a victimised whistleblower, yet to my mind redress is not only justified in itself, but it is a stronger incentive to policemen to report wrongdoing than simply some "arrangements"—I use the word in Clause 10(4) —whatever those "arrangements" of the independent police complaints commission are.
The Public Interest Disclosure Act provides a framework for responsible and carefully-thought-out whistleblowing—not casual blasting of other people without evidence—in which the strongest protection is available to those who raise their concerns first with their employer. Clause 10 provides only for arrangements for concerns of this sort to be raised with the IPCC. Although the complaints commission can issue guidance stating that whistleblowers should not be victimised—that is what Clause 10(4) says—that would do no more than existing guidance in police regulations to the effect that victimisation of a whistleblower is a disciplinary offence.
I fear that the Home Office may believe that Clause 10 is a substitute for full protection to police whistleblowers under the Public Interest Disclosure Act. However, unfortunately Clause 10 does not to my mind give the "equivalent" protection which Mr Ian McCartney promised us all in 1998 and it will not effectively ensure the exposure of wrongdoing, which is what the public interest requires.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Dholakia: I support what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. I confess to being unclear about the intention behind the amendment moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman. In our view, it is entirely appropriate that the commission should be required to safeguard those who report misconduct and they should not suffer victimisation.
Perhaps I may cite two examples which may be of interest to the Committee. When I worked at the Police Complaints Authority, the complaints we found easy to substantiate were those which genuinely came from police officers. Through "whistleblowing", they were able to report on some of the misconduct, particularly in relation to sexual harassment of women constables.
Similarly, in the Race Relations Act, "discrimination" is defined as relating to someone who may be victimised before that individual has complained about a particular course of action. It is right and proper that if people make such complaints, or report such incidents, adequate protection is available to them. Therefore, it is right and proper that we do not support the amendment tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, but that we support what has been proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie.
Lord Harris of Haringey: I, too, support the comments made by my noble friend Lord Borrie. There is a deficiency in the current arrangements and we must ensure that we give officers the security to question and, where necessary, challenge or report wrongdoing internally. I am not clear that the present arrangements enable that to happen.
If that is possible, it is part of a process of ensuring that police forces can deter and detect serious wrongdoing. That is why it is important that we assist the IPCC to fulfil its functions, particularly relating to conduct matters under Clause 10(4).
Her Majesty's Inspectorate has commented that:
"Policing by consent relies on the overwhelming majority of the public…trusting and respecting individual officers and stall; the reality is this reputation can be seriously harmed if only a few fail".
The concern is that at present, and under the regime which would be allowed under the Bill, an honest officer victimised for reporting wrongdoing will be able to bring only an internal grievance. That lack of a distinct remedy or right of independent redress is an overwhelming obstacle to the present regime. According to HMI's report, Police Integrity: Securing and Maintaining Public Confidence, officers believe that if they complain they run the risk of being victimised for making the complaint. The report states:
"The Inspection found grievance procedures were widely held to be ineffective, with a misunderstanding of what they might achieve…in most forces, for a variety of reasons, there was little or no confidence in the system".
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, might refer to the report of the inquiry into the case of Gurpal Virdi, with which he was associated, in which there was much consideration by the panel of inquiry into the operation of internal grievance procedures.
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There was a general feeling that they were unsatisfactory and were not serving the purposes for which they were intended.
The provision in regulations and guidance that supervisors and managers should ensure that police whistleblowers are not victimised is clearly insufficient. I believe that unless the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Borrie is passed, the Bill will do little to rectify the problem.
The Bill clearly places a duty on the 1PCC to secure arrangements that facilitate the reporting of misconduct by police officers and to protect them from victimisation, but it is difficult to see how the IPCC can be expected to fulfil those duties. Although the IPCC may issue guidance, give advice and make recommendations, those may not be binding. It is therefore far from clear how those provisions as they stand can provide remedy or redress for an individual officer who has been victimised for whistleblowing. For those reasons, I believe that my noble friend's amendment is necessary.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: It is entirely appropriate that this group of amendments should be considered together because they all relate to the protection of those in the police who report misconduct. The intention behind the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Borrie is to remove the current exclusion of police officers from the public interest disclosure provisions of the Employment Rights Act 1996. My noble friend has taken careful note of representations made by the organisation, Public Concern at Work, of which I note my noble friend is a venerable patron.
We are very interested in my noble friend's amendment. As a government we are fully committed to this. In 1998 my right honourable friend Ian McCartney made clear his commitment in this regard. We want to ensure that full and adequate protection is given to those who are prepared to stick their necks out and report misconduct or corruption of which they are aware in their workplace—in particular, in this instance, within the police force and its support services.
We are satisfied that there are procedures in place for the protection of police officers who wish to report wrongdoing which are sound and comprehensive. This protection would have been enhanced by the provision in Clause 10(4)(b)(ii). However, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, seeks to remove it. I am slightly puzzled by the amendment. Perhaps it has been tabled simply to flag the issue.
We accept that these procedures do not provide redress in the extreme case where an officer feels that he or she has no alternative but to resign. In this instance, the officer would not have the same opportunity as that of an employed person to make a case to an employment tribunal for constructive dismissal.
Having heard the carefully thought through arguments put by my noble friend Lord Borrie, the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and also by my noble

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friend Lord Harris of Haringey, we shall be more than happy to reflect between now and the Report stage on the amendment tabled by my noble friend and into the possibility of bringing police officers within the scope of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 for protection in regard to "whistle-blowing". We think that the case has been well made. If that were to be undertaken, then Clause 10(4)(b)(ii) would not be required, and so we shall consider at the same time the amendment tabled by the noble Lords opposite. Thus, if we bring forward an amendment on Report—we are giving it active consideration—we shall be able to wrap up the issue once and for all.
A good case has been made and I should like to pay particular tribute to the group Public Concern at Work, who provided an extremely comprehensive briefing note for my noble friend Lord Rooker, which I have now had sight of. It presents a well structured and well argued case. I hope that, with those comments, the noble Viscount will feel able to withdraw his amendment. In saying that we shall consider this matter further, we shall of course wish to consult with noble Lords on the construction of a new amendment.
Viscount Bridgeman: I am grateful to the Minister for his response. He has satisfied our concerns about possible abuse. Perhaps I may turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. We very much support it and we hope that the Government will be able to produce modifications to the Bill to incorporate it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 10 agreed to.
8.45 p.m.
Clause 11 [Reports to the Secretary of State]:
[Amendments Nos. 148A and 148B not moved.]
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 149: Page 10, line 2, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b).
The noble Viscount said: This amendment refers to the reports of the independent police complaints commission. It is right that the commission's annual report should be made public, but we suggest that that obligation should be extended to reports made on matters to be drawn to the attention of the Home Secretary because of their gravity or other exceptional circumstances. By definition, these are matters of importance which the Home Secretary should not be allowed to keep secret.
Public scrutiny plays an important part in maintaining police standards and the commission's reports will form an integral part of the monitoring process and could provide a valuable early warning of
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problems which may be developing. They should be open to public debate and should not be for the Home Secretary's eyes only. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Lockwood): If this amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 149A on the grounds of pre-emption.
Lord Tope: I rise briefly to support the amendment, or at least the intention behind it. As has been said, it is important that all the reports of the commission are published unless there is a very good reason that they should not be; in other words, the presumption should be that all reports produced by the IPPC should be published and made available. The presumption must be that the Home Secretary will not publish them only if there is a particular reason. In that case, perhaps he should be required to give the reason. I hope that that is the Government's intention and that the Minister is about to reassure the Committee on that point. Perhaps in due course the legislation will reflect it.
Lord Rooker: The commission's annual report will have to be laid before Parliament and published. In regard to other reports, I can tell the Committee that there will be a general presumption in favour of publication. That is as clear a commitment as the Committee could get.
The Home Secretary will consider whether publication of a report is in the public interest and will exercise his discretion. It will of course be possible for reports to be released having had any sensitive information removed. The presence of sensitive information would not be an excuse not to publish; the presumption would be in favour of publication.
The commission, as guardian of the system, will have a much increased role in comparison with the Police Complaints Authority. One of its functions will be to make recommendations and give advice on police practice in relation to matters with which it deals or comes across during the course of its work. It may be that there are occasions when reports made by the commission on matters such as dysfunction cover solely police practice and would therefore not be a matter of public interest. Nevertheless, the presumption would be in favour of publication and we would not rule out publishing reports with any sensitive information taken out.
If the legislation is too onerous, I have to say that there is always the possibility that the reports will not be written. That is a problem we have to guard against in the real world. However, as I have said, the presumption would be in favour of publication, but the discretion provided in the clause allows the future integrity of the system, the confidence of the public and those who operate the system to be preserved. We shall soon know if reports are not being published and I should imagine there would be a row about that. But given the presumption in favour of publication, I trust that noble Lords will leave the matter at this point.
Viscount Bridgeman: I thank the Minister for that explanation. We must rely on the ability of the

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commission to ensure as far as possible that reports are not suppressed. We shall look carefully at the wording of the amendment which the Minister has undertaken to produce.
Lord Rooker: I thank the noble Viscount for giving way. With respect, I have not promised to bring forward an amendment. The last thing I want to do is to mislead the Committee. In order to avoid any doubt in this area, there will be a presumption in favour of the publication of reports. That is the position. It does not need to be put into the legislation. It will be repeated here and it will be repeated by the Home Secretary in the other place. The commission will know that the presumption is in favour of publication.
Viscount Bridgeman: The Minister's emollience has caused me to drop my guard. I understand what he has said and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 149A and 149B not moved.]
Clause 1l agreed to.
Clause 12 [Complaints, matters and persons to which Part 2 applies]:
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 150:
Page 11,line 9, leave out from "public" to end of line 13.
The noble Viscount said: The amendment refers to the issue of who can lodge a complaint. At present any member of the public can lodge a complaint. Although, at first sight, it may appear to be sensible to limit that right to the victim or witnesses, there are dangers in confining the right to complain to those immediately affected.
Part of the misconduct in question may be a threat of action against the victim if he or she complains and there may be no witnesses. If someone else—perhaps a friend or a family member of the victim, or even of the police officer—was willing to lodge a complaint, it would be wrong to prevent that and, as a result, let misconduct go unpunished. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: It will take me a little longer to explain why we hope that the noble Viscount will not press his amendment than he took in moving it. He has raised an important point.
In order that there should be no misunderstandings and greater clarity for the public, we have embraced the principle of much greater accessibility to the complaints system. We want a system under which the conduct of anyone serving with the police which has an adverse effect on a member of the public is dealt with efficiently and effectively. That is why not only victims will be able to make a complaint but also witnesses—including people in control of CCTV systems—and people acting on behalf of either victims or witnesses. People who may be apprehensive about approaching the police themselves will be able to make complaints through "gateways"—that is, through community organisations or individuals who have regular contact with members of the public.
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However, the amendment as drafted would enable any member of the public to complain about the conduct of anyone serving with the police, whether or not they had any connection with anyone connected with an incident or would be able to contribute in any way to any investigation. This would radically change the nature of the system by creating a significant amount of additional administrative work as a consequence of the wide-ranging rights. This would have a major impact on overall resources and divert them from more serious matters.
We have to strike a balance. It is clear that anyone connected with an incident or helping anyone connected with an incident, or any community organisation connected with anyone involved in an incident, will have ample opportunity to complain either as a victim or as a witness. There should not be any major blocks to anyone presenting a complaint under the system, but the way the amendment is drafted goes a little too far.
As to Amendment No. 156, the current jurisdiction of the commission as set out in the Bill includes special constables and civilians employed by police authorities who are under the direction and control of members of the police forces. Accredited persons will not be part of the police force or employed by police authorities and so are outside the scope of the system.
Some issues are raised in regard to this because of what was said in the earlier debate about people who are accredited not serving on the authorities. There is already a provision to ensure that an effective complaints system exists for dealing with complaints against accredited persons and it is not necessary to bring such persons within the scope of the system. They will not be employed by the chief constable and, in order to get them accredited in the first place, their employer will have to ensure and assure the chief constable that there is a proper, legitimate complaints system.
Accredited persons will not be allowed to use any force in the work they undertake and are not comparable to members of the police service. Their accountability will be to their employers. If there is an allegation that an accredited person has committed a crime, then the police will be able to investigate the matter in the normal way. If an allegation of misconduct is made that breaches the relevant employer's stated disciplinary code, the chief police officer will be able to insist that appropriate action is taken, otherwise the accreditation scheme would be put at risk. So there is a sanction on the employers who wish their schemes to be accredited to ensure that they have a viable, effective, open and transparent complaints system.
Lord Bradshaw: Before the Minister sits down, what system applies to a civilian contractor who employs staff to act, for example, as gaolers? For instance, Group 4, or a company of that kind, supply different staff at different places at different times of the day. If its staff are accused of incivility, can they be taken to

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the independent Police Complaints Authority or do we have to rely on the contract with that firm for its own disciplinary proceedings to take over the matter?
Lord Rooker: I think it is the latter procedure. If the staff were not employed by the police authority—as, for example, will be the community safety officers and detention or custody officers, who will be employed directly by the chief constable—they will be outwith the scheme. It would be up to the police authority in one case, or the chief of police in the case of accreditation, to take the necessary steps before awarding a contract or accreditation to satisfy themselves that there is a legitimate and proper complaints system. It would be in their interests not to receive loads of complaints from the public—because they would receive them first—about incivility and rudeness on the part of their contractors. Unless I receive advice to the contrary, that is the position. Otherwise I shall write to the noble Lord.
Viscount Bridgeman: I apologise for not speaking to Amendment No. 156, which stands in the names of my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith and myself and is in this grouping.
We shall come back to the question of accredited persons at a later stage. At this stage we are concerned that allowing an employer to deal with complaints will be similar to allowing the police to police themselves, a point I made earlier. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 151 to 156 not moved.]
Clause 12 agreed to. Clause 13 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Handling of Complaints and Conduct matters etc]:
[Amendment No. 157 not moved]
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 158:
Page 91, line 39, after "not" insert "(unless it constitutes an admission of a criminal offence punishable on indictment by a maximum term of imprisonment of five years or more)"
The noble Viscount said: This is another probing amendment. It would be unfortunate to say the least if a police officer guilty of misconduct serious enough to deserve imprisonment for a significant term escaped by engineering a local resolution procedure and making a confession that cannot then be used to bring him or her to justice. The amendment seeks to avoid such an outcome by accepting the admission of a crime which can carry a maximum sentence of five years. Admission of more trivial offences will still enjoy the protection of the resolution procedure, so this amendment will not prove an obstacle to the use of that procedure. I beg to move.
Lord Dixon-Smith: Amendment No. 161, which is grouped with Amendments Nos. 157, 158, 159 and 160 is, in a sense, the reciprocal argument to the one produced by my noble friend. It arises as the result of
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a case which was drawn to my attention in which about 20 police officers were involved in a raid where it was known that the people being raided were likely to be armed. During the course of the raid, one of the policemen, who was armed, felt that he was about to be shot and, in a snap judgment—and one can understand how these things happen—he shot a man in the shoulder.
With so many policemen on the scene, it was unsurprising that the facts were never disputed. Inevitably, the man appeared before the court on a charge of attempted manslaughter. The wheels of justice grind exceeding smooth and they grind exceeding slow. The case was dismissed at the end of last year, the CPS having done everything that it could to put a case together. In the end, the case failed for lack of evidence. That would seem to be that. But the officer involved now finds himself up on a local disciplinary charge for just that event.
That is the kind of double jeopardy of which we ought not to approve. Therefore, I was moved to table this amendment in order to probe the Government's thinking on the matter. It seems to me that if a case goes to the court and either cannot be established sufficiently to satisfy the judge that there is a case to answer or results in acquittal, that ought to be the end of the matter and disciplinary proceedings would seem to be no longer appropriate. I look forward to the Minister's response.
9 p.m.
Lord Elton: My noble friend's amendment excludes very serious criminal offences—a great deal more serious than offences that would render the chairman of the commission unfit to hold that office. I hope that, in replying, the Minister will address the question of exclusion—the extraordinary procedure by which a person making a statement for the purposes of a disciplinary procedure can exempt himself from criminal proceedings at any level of seriousness. I hope that the Minister will address that point and not merely the most serious end of the range.
Lord Rooker: Perhaps I may deal with Amendment No. 158 first.
Currently, about a third of all complaints—about 10,000—are resolved locally. There is substantial and widespread support for this process, and that is why the Government are committed not just to retaining it but to extending its use.
However, local resolution will be available only where the conduct complained about, if proved, would not warrant criminal proceedings. So any admission relating to the matter being subjected to the local resolution process cannot be an admission of any criminal offence, let alone one punishable on indictment by a maximum term of imprisonment of five years or more.
Any admission relating to any matter not being subject to the local resolution process is admissible in any subsequent criminal, civil or disciplinary proceedings anyway. This would include some minor

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cases, but it would also include some cases that would warrant disciplinary or even criminal proceedings as local resolution will not normally be available in such cases. It is essential for the appropriate authorities to have the power to investigate complaints about these cases, as otherwise they would not be resolved at all.
I accept that Amendments No. 158 and 161 are two sides of the same coin. Amendment No. 161 would make it impossible to take disciplinary action against a member of a force if that person had been acquitted in a criminal case. I cannot comment on the individual case mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, but I can well understand the example given.
Police integrity is vital to public confidence. That a particular criminal offence was not proved in a criminal court does not mean that police misconduct did not take place. An officer might, for example, be acquitted of a particular criminal offence of assault. It might nevertheless be clear that he had acted in a manner likely to bring discredit on the force. It is essential that police misconduct be properly accounted for. Therefore, the option of bringing a matter before a disciplinary hearing is necessary.
The criminal standard of proof is "beyond all reasonable doubt", whereas the standard in a disciplinary hearing is based on the "balance of probabilities". This civil standard of proof was introduced to police disciplinary hearings to bring them into line with other forms of employment.
The evidence that exists in a case may not prove beyond reasonable doubt that a crime took place but it may well prove on the balance of probabilities that misconduct did. The person concerned should not be able to get away with the misconduct. A force member may not be found guilty of a crime in a court but could well be found guilty of breaching the code of conduct in a disciplinary hearing.
If the opposite were the case, the possibility is that the public would not have confidence in the system. It might be argued that the system had been rigged—that someone had been charged with an offence which on the face of it appeared serious but in regard to which there was no chance of a guilty verdict being reached in order to prevent the person being disciplined; so the person would end up being not guilty on both because he or she would never be charged with misconduct.
Although examples such as that given by the noble Lord can be unfortunate for the individuals concerned, any breach of the code of conduct should be dealt with. If it is not dealt with in court, it must be dealt with in the normal process.
Viscount Bridgeman: I am grateful to the Minister for satisfying our concerns on Amendment No. 158. I think that they are the concerns of my noble friend Lord Elton.
Lord Elton: I have a point to raise with the Minister, if I might—this is a sandwich speech!
Viscount Bridgeman: I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Elton: I think I follow the point made by the Minister, but perhaps I may give an illustration. If a
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police officer is subject to a disciplinary procedure because he was in a pub instead of on the beat and makes an admission that he was in the pub, and if someone subsequently brings a charge against him for an assault that he could have carried out only had he been on the beat and not in the pub, would his admission be admissible? It is perhaps not the most felicitous example, and I am happy to hear the answer later. I merely want to be certain that the procedure in this provision will not impede procedures in court.
Lord Rooker: I think that the answer is yes. I apologise for being less than clear. I know that I have read all my notes more than once because they are marked up, but I obviously have a problem with one of my bullet points. I am reluctant to join up what may be two separate bullet points. I may have to write to the noble Lord. I shall certainly repeat one point that I made—which I probably had some difficulty delivering. Any admission relating to any matter not being subjected to the local resolution process is admissible in any subsequent criminal or civil disciplinary proceedings. I do not know whether that means that the answer to the noble Lord's question is yes, because the offence that he later described might be criminal. I may have to take advice and write to him on the specifics of his detailed question.
Viscount Bridgeman: I refer to the amendment to which my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith has spoken. We are concerned about the possibility of double jeopardy. We very much look forward to reading what the Minister has said on the subject. Perhaps he will he good enough to write to us. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 159 to 161 not moved.]
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Clause 14 [Direction and control matters]:
Lord Harris of Haringeymoved Amendment No. 161A:
Page 12, line 18, leave out "Nothing in"
The noble Lord said: The purpose of the amendment is to highlight an important gap in the existing complaints arrangements which will continue to be an important gap in the future arrangements. It relates to complaints about the direction and control of a force rather than about a specific incident or particular actions.
I can imagine a number of circumstances in which the issue might be important and in which people might wish to frame complaints. For example, people might be concerned that a force was giving insufficient priority to road safety and might wish to make a specific complaint about how that decision was taken.
A rather different example might be a complaint that a chief officer or senior officer had in effect encouraged reckless behaviour in the way in which they had given direction and control to the officers under their command. That might relate to a general tone that was set over a period of time rather than to a specific act.

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The problem when examining such cases is that it is unclear what route the complaint could take, either now or under the future arrangements. That is brought to mind particularly by a recent case in which someone wished to complain about a decision to appeal a court case in a civil action. The complainant was not clear who had taken the decision and chose, rightly or wrongly, to pursue a complaint about the direction and control of the force that led to that decision.
I make no comment on whether the substance of that complaint or the route that the complainant wished to follow were justified. However, when she approached the Police Complaints Authority, she was told that it could not pursue complaints about the direction and control of a force. The authority suggested that she should contact the Home Office. She then did that. The Home Office replied that it could not deal with the matter, but referred her helpfully in the direction of her local police authority. The local police authority had to point out that we could not pursue a matter in terms of the direction and control of the force and the approach that had been taken in that particular case.
Not surprisingly, the complainant found that extraordinarily frustrating. She wrote to many other people, including No. 10 Downing Street. Some noble Lords in the Committee tonight may have had letters or communications from the person concerned.
My point is not about that specific case but about the fact that there is no route by which someone can properly pursue a complaint about the direction and control of a force. My noble friend the Minister may be able to tell me what the route is. That would be an achievement that was beyond officials in the Home Office when they drafted their original reply to the complainant. However, I should be enormously grateful if such a reply could be put on the record, no doubt to be quoted on many future occasions.
Maybe my noble friend will suggest that there is a route in the Bill. It provides for the possibility of the Secretary of State issuing guidance to chief officers about the handling of such matters, but that seems to me also not to work. Any complaint about the direction and control of a force almost certainly relates to the direction and control that is set by the chief officer concerned, or by people acting on behalf of the chief officer, in which case complaining to the person who made the decision is probably not the way to achieve satisfaction.
Perhaps the best route is to direct such complaints to the police authority. I believe, however, that that would be an inappropriate solution to the problem. I should hope that the force's direction and control had themselves been approved by the police authority when it established the force's overall priorities and strategy.
We need essentially a single channel for such complaints. If we had one and someone wished, rightly or wrongly, to make a complaint about a force's direction and control, that complaint could be dealt with in a specific way. The new complaints body is the
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logical place to deal with such complaints. If they were dealt with by any other body, we would find that people make a complaint, become frustrated with the outcome received under the new complaints procedure and subsequently turn the initial complaint into a complaint about the force's direction and control with a view to having it reheard. That would be unsatisfactory. That is why we need to have a single channel and we must deal with the matter explicitly. It is also why I have tabled this amendment and seek to clarify the matter. I beg to move.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has moved the amendment with his usual ingenuity, on which I congratulate him. We recognise that complaints about direction and control should be dealt with. It is also true that the principal function of a chief officer is the direction and control of the police force to which he has been appointed. The Government realise that complaints about direction and control need to be attended to.
The effect of the amendment is clear enough: it would bring complaints about direction and control within the new police complaints system. As I sat there, I tried to meet the challenge set by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, of devising another route of dealing with the matter, but I am afraid that, even with my knowledge and experience of these matters, I have not come up with an answer. I shall therefore have to join the sad army of Home Office officials who have not come up with one either.
We regard the IPCC—as I am sure the noble Lord doe—as being designed primarily to deal with cases of real or alleged misconduct. Complaints about issues such as direction and control are essentially complaints about management rather than conduct. Therefore, such complaints should usually be dealt with by the police.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris, anticipated one of the points that I was going to make in reply. He has spotted that Clause 14 already provides for the Secretary of State to issue guidance to chief officers on the handling of complaints about direction and control. Indeed, it goes further and places a duty on the chief officer to have due regard to that guidance when handling any such complaint. That seems to us to be right. As I sat there thinking, I also thought that in some circumstances the police authority might be the appropriate route. I think that I share the noble Lord's view on that.
We believe that any direction and control decision or action that might constitute misconduct will be covered by the new system. However, as the noble Lord has raised a perfectly sensible point, we are happy to take it away and give it further consideration. In some specific cases in which there is a particularly high level of public concern, it may be appropriate for the IPCC to have an investigatory role. However, as I am sure the noble Lord will appreciate, we shall have to give that very careful thought.

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It is not an easy provision to frame. It also goes very much to the root of what a chief officer does. However, if we are bringing this type of issue within the IPCC's remit, perhaps we have been wise to seek to increase its staff. I can see circumstances in which a complaint of this nature could lead to an explosion in the number of complaints about the management and direction of forces more generally. It is a difficult issue for us to consider. Nevertheless, I make the commitment that we shall consider it further. As it is a particularly sensitive issue, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, others involved in police authorities and chief officer organisations will undoubtedly want to be carefully consulted on it so that it is pursued sensibly and with some consensus.
In the light of those comments, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Condon: I sympathise with the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about the lack of a route. However, I also share the Minister's concern that, should Amendment No. 161A be adopted, it would significantly change the role of the IPCC. It would move it on from considerations of misconduct issues to considerations of management, choice and priorities. Those are all issues which should rightly be challenged and for which there should be a route to enable such challenge to take place. However, that would significantly change the nature of the IPCC, the nature of the staff and processes it would have to engage and the processes that would lead to judgments being made about chief officers' priorities and management. Although I am broadly sympathetic to the mischief the noble Lord seeks to remedy and the gap he seeks to fill, I would have some anxieties if the IPCC were the chosen vehicle.
Lord Elton: I am informed by my own Front Bench that Report stage will take place on 8th and 9th April. I hope that that is long enough for a proper consultation to be carried out on what is a large and tricky business.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord makes a perfectly sensible point. This is a broad issue which has been properly raised. If there is a cautious note to my response it is precisely because of the core management issues which the noble Lord, Lord Condon, raised to which we must give careful consideration. Bringing that matter within the remit of the IPCC could lead to a massive explosion of interest. I am not saying that all complainants are vexatious as they are clearly not. It is an entirely legitimate process but it goes to the heart of the direction and management of a police service. We must pay careful regard to that as chief officers need to know that they can manage and lead with confidence. That is an important consideration.
Lord Bradshaw: Before the noble Lord, Lord Harris, replies, I should say that there has been one such case in my police authority. The case concerned the chairman of the police authority but involved a similar
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issue of management to that which has already been mentioned. I was one of the people who dealt with the matter. I had no prior knowledge of it. I refer to a management issue as opposed to a conduct issue. A conclusion should be reached as regards the person involved. That may not satisfy the complainant. However, I think that in the case mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, it is possible that nothing will satisfy the complainant. One should review the management of a case thoroughly and independently. For example, the chairman of another police authority or the chief constable of another force could undertake the review.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I do not see that the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, would cover the case that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, raises. I should have thought that that was a member issue which fell to be discussed or resolved within a member framework rather than a management framework to which the amendment is directed.
Lord Harris of Haringey: I am enormously grateful to my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton for the tone of his response. I assure him that I did not seek to be ingenious in the proposition that I made. I simply wanted to make clear that it was possible to pursue complaints on direction and control through this mechanism. I accept that that would lead to difficulties if it meant that every management judgment could be questioned. However, that situation could be addressed by clear guidance which spelt out that if a complaint were to be upheld it would have to he demonstrated that the direction and control were such that no reasonable chief officer of police would have taken the route concerned, or something of that nature. I do not think that it is beyond the skill of officials in the Home Office to find a way to cover such matters. I suggest that one will often find that important elements relate to these matters, in particular as regards complaints. An element of a complaint may be that there was inadequate supervision of a particular officer, not so much through the fault of the individual officer who should have been supervising, but because force policy did not permit there to be such adequate supervision or that there was inadequate back-up, or things of such nature. It would be wrong to exclude them from this process because if we do so we are in danger of the new procedure becoming as discredited in the eyes of many complainants as the existing arrangements.
I do not want to get into a situation where people will seek at every stage to second guess proper judgments made by chief officers. That would clearly be inappropiate. But I believe that there has to be some route whereby such matters can be challenged. Provided that clear guidance is given to exclude those sorts of complaints which are about the proper exercise of judgment and which enable an investigation into matters where it is suggested that in fact direction and control has been faulty, then it is important that it is included as part of this Bill. I look

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forward to watching the consultation process in action and to hearing the government's proposals at a later stage. For the time being I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 161B not moved.]
Lord Bassam of Brightonmoved Amendment No. 162:
Page 12, line 24, after "officers" insert "and to police authorities"
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I shall also speak to Amendment No. 163. Clause 14 provides for the Secretary of State to issue guidance to chief officers for the handling of complaints about direction and control, the very issue we have just been discussing. It also places a duty on chief officers to have due regard to this guidance when handling such complaints.
The intention of the two amendments is to enable the Secretary of State to issue the same guidance to police authorities and to place the same duty on them to have due regard to it. The principle function of a chief officer, as I made plain earlier, is the direction and control of the police force for which he has been appointed. Direction and control are core management issues such as the setting of overall strategic direction or policing priorities. So a complaint against direction and control is essentially a complaint against management procedures, practices and, fundamentally, decisions.
For these reasons the chief officers should be responsible for dealing with complaints about direction and control. However, a police authority also has a responsibility for the handling of these complaints. The principle function of a police authority is to secure the maintenance of efficient and effective policing within its force area and it does that through the chief officer. Therefore, in our view it is necessary to ensure that complaints about direction and control are dealt with effectively and efficiently. It is for those reasons that we have brought forward these amendments.
While recognising that in part they deal with some of the issues which have been raised in the earlier debate, I also recognise that they do not go quite as far as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, sought. However, we are very mindful of these issues. I hope that the amendments help to give Members of the Committee greater confidence in what we are seeking to achieve through the independent police complaints structures. I beg to move.
Viscount Bridgeman: We welcome this small, if limited, recognition of the tripartite arrangements and support the amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 162A not moved.]
Lord Bassam of Brightonmoved Amendment No. 163:
Page 12, line 27, after "officer" insert "and of a police authority"
The noble Lord said: I have spoken to this amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Dholakiamoved Amendment No. 163A:
Page 12, line 28, at end insert—
"( ) Every police authority in carrying out its duty with respect to the maintenance of an efficient and effective police force, and inspectors of constabulary in carrying out their duties with respect to the efficiency and effectiveness of any police forces, shall keep themselves informed as to the working of this section."
The noble Lord said: This amendment, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, is designed to ensure that there is a legal process and structure to oversee complaints regarding direction and control. I welcome Clause 15, which requires chief officers, police authorities and Her Majesty's inspectors of constabulary to keep themselves informed as to the working of the complaints system. We agree with that. It is important. However, we do not believe that it goes far enough, and I shall explain the reasons for that belief.
Issues relating to complaints, whether about alleged conduct of police staff or direction and control, go to the heart of the efficiency and effectiveness of the force and to the heart of public confidence in policing—a point recognised by Section 77 of the Police Act 1996, which ties the oversight of complaints issues to the statutory duty of police authorities to secure the maintenance of an efficient and effective police force. That enables police authorities not only to monitor what is happening but to act where the handling of complaints impacts on efficiency and effectiveness.
This amendment is based on the wording of Section 77 of the Police Act 1996, which, of course, will be repealed by this Bill. We have tabled the amendment under Clause 14, but we could equally have tabled it under Clause 15. The difference between this wording and that contained in Clause 15 is minor but important. It will ensure full and proper oversight and accountability of complaints. The public should demand nothing less.
I hope that the Minister will feel able to accept the spirit of this amendment. I appreciate that he may want to consider how best to reflect it on the face of the Bill and may find a better way of doing so. The key issue is the principle of effective oversight of this provision and clear accountability to local communities. I would welcome a commitment on the part of the Government to reconsider this amendment and table further proposals at Report stage. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: The effect of Amendment No. 163A is to place on police authorities and inspectors of constabulary an obligation to keep themselves informed about the working of Section 14. As the

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noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has noted, police authorities, inspectors of constabulary and chief officers are already placed under such an obligation by Clause 15(1) and (2). Those subsections impose on police authorities, chief officers and inspectors of constabulary an obligation to keep themselves informed about all matters with respect to any provision in Part 2, anything done for the purposes of those provisions, and to act or refrain from acting in respect of matters that have arisen under this part, but which have not yet been complied with or have been contravened.
Therefore, the amendment is superfluous. There is no need to place it anywhere in the legislation, ft is clearly there in a much wider form than it would be just in Amendment No. 163A.
Lord Dholakia: I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I shall consider the wider implication of what he has suggested and, if not happy, return to the matter on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 15 [General chafes of police authorities, chief officers and inspectors]:
[Amendments Nos. 163B to 163D not moved.]
Clause 15 agreed to.
Clauses 16 to 18 agreed to.
Clause 19 [Use of investigatory powers by or on behalf of the Commission]:
[Amendment No. 163E not moved.]
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 164:
Page 17, line 13, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Viscount said: Surveillance is a sensitive issue, which raises legitimate concerns about the infringement of human rights. The Acts in question were subject to close scrutiny when passing through Parliament. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 in particular was controversial in its reach. Primary legislation, especially on such a sensitive topic, should not be amended by ministerial diktat. If changes are needed, they should be brought before Parliament, where they can be subjected to proper scrutiny and debate. We regard this as an important amendment and I shall be very interested to hear the Minister's reply. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: Clause 19 will give the Secretary of State the option of providing, by regulations, the complaints commission with the ability to use powers and techniques that fall within the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The amendment would prevent the Secretary of State being able to provide the complaints commission with those powers.
We believe that the power is required to ensure that the complaints commission, when dealing with serious criminal offences that are alleged to have been
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committed by police officers, has similar powers to those given to the police under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
To meet recommendations from the Home Affairs Committee and the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, along with longstanding demands from the public and police, the complaints commission will be an investigative body. It will be able to investigate criminal and disciplinary allegations against police officers on its own, separately from the police. As I said earlier, it will decide who to employ in that regard. This will include all serious crimes that are committed by police officers, such as serious corruption cases, rape and murder. That goes well beyond the current police complaints commission rules.
For the complaints commission to be a fully effective, independent alternative to the police in carrying out those types of investigations, it is necessary that it has the same capabilities and powers. It is very likely that in some cases, such as serious corruption, there will be a need for surveillance or similar techniques if the complaints commission is to conduct an effective investigation. Therefore, Clause 19 provides for the use by the complaints commission of the same investigatory techniques as those that are available to the police. It will allow the Secretary of State to amend the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the Police Act 1997, enabling the complaints commission to use surveillance and covert human intelligence sources techniques, as set out in Parts II and IV of RIPA and Part III of the Police Act.
The regulation-making power in the clause will he subject to the affirmative resolution procedure to ensure sufficient parliamentary scrutiny. That was accepted as appropriate by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
The IPCC will have its own investigative teams, which will be made up of a mix of seconded police officers and civilian investigators. Those teams will receive all the necessary training that will be required for them to use those investigative techniques. They will be subject to the same responsibilities and procedures as the police in using the powers. It is expected that only members of the complaints commission will be able to authorise the use of those techniques.
The complaints commission will have to build up its expertise to be capable of undertaking complex investigations that require the use of such powers, and we expect it to work closely with the police on such investigations, particularly early on in its life. However, it will be open to the complaints commission to take the view that, for the purpose of independence and public confidence, it should be able to undertake certain kinds of investigations separately. It is therefore considered that an order-making power allowing the Secretary of State to provide those powers is necessary.
Today, the Joint Committee on Human Rights published its latest report, which basically amounts to a very long letter addressed to me. It contains 17 questions, some of which relate to this clause and the

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power. I shall obviously reply urgently to it, but I should not like to do that off the cuff tonight, using a few bullet points. I could do so, but it would not help our debate.
I hope that I have given the Committee a coherent explanation of why these powers are needed for the complaints commission. If anything will bring home to the public and to noble Lords in this Chamber the fact that this complaints commission is not the Police Complaints Authority, the knowledge that is has such powers to use will, I believe, make that crystal clear.
Lord Elton: Before my noble friend replies, perhaps I may ask the Minister a question. As the noble Lord mentioned a word that occurs in a subsection of the clause, I should very much appreciate elucidation. Subsection (1)(b) refers to,
"the conduct and use of covert human intelligence sources".
If the word "human" had not been included, I should have presumed that I knew the nature of "covert intelligence sources". Can the Minister—either now or in writing at a later date—tell me what sort of intelligence sources are ruled out by the inclusion of the word "human" in that subsection?
Lord Rooker: I shall most certainly obtain an answer to that question and write to the noble Lord.
Viscount Bridgeman: I am most grateful to the Minister for his full explanation. We are particularly reassured that the commission will have an independent role. We also look forward to the reply on the formidable document that the noble Lord has received from the JCHR. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 19 agreed to.
Clause 20 [Duty to keep the complainant informed]:
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 165:
Page 18, line 27, after "person" insert "(other than a person against whom a complaint is upheld)"
The noble Viscount said: It is right that the Home Secretary should be able to keep confidential information that might adversely affect an individual—for example, a complainant or an accused—if he is then cleared. However, a guilty person does not deserve the protection of secrecy and should not benefit from the exceptions. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: The Government are committed to creating a police complaints system in which there is the maximum degree of openness but also a proper regard for the rights of individuals, including the people about whom the complaint has been made. The provisions in Clause 20 are intended to ensure that complainants are kept informed both during and after investigations. However, the regulations made under this clause will not apply during or after disciplinary proceedings. There are separate provisions under Clause 32 for complainants to be involved in disciplinary proceedings. Complaints can only be
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either upheld or dismissed during disciplinary proceedings. That being the case, the amendment is quite unnecessary.
Moreover, it is worth stating that if this amendment had the intended effect, it might lead to all information on the person complained about being disclosed to the complainant, even if it had nothing to do with the complaint. Of course, that could lead to an unnecessary breach of privacy of the person about whom the complaint was made.
Viscount Bridgeman: I thank the Minister for his reply, which will require a certain amount of study. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 20 agreed to.
Clause 21 [Power of the Commission to issue guidance]:
Lord Bradshawmoved Amendment No. 165A:
Page 19, line 10, at end insert "and before giving such approval, the Secretary of State shall consult—

(a) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of police authorities in England and Wales; and

(b) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police of forces maintained by those authorities"

The noble Lord said: By moving this amendment we seek to establish whether the police authorities, and the chief officers of police, will be consulted by the Secretary of State before the guidance that he issues to the complaints commission is circulated and put into effect. I beg to move.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: These amendments would simply place an obligation on the Secretary of State—that is understood—to consult when drawing up guidance. We are happy with that proposal and are willing to take it away and give it fair consideration. It is a matter that we want to perfect, and I am fairly optimistic that we can return on Report with something that probably reflects what the noble Lord is seeking to put on to the face of the Bill this evening. However, I ask him to withdraw the amendment so that we can give it further careful consideration. That certainly accords with what we want to do and with the spirit of our approach to these matters.
Lord Elton: Before the noble Lord withdraws the amendment, and in view of the emollience which he seems to have taken from the Minister, I want to ask the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, a question. I see that the Secretary of State being required to consult would have a trickle-down effect. But, in fact, would one not expect that the commission would consult before constructing a requirement? That would be the prudent thing to do. I put that idea before him.
Lord Bradshaw: I believe that the Secretary of State is the person who issues the guidance. While it is possible that consultation will take place between the commission and police authorities or chief officers

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beforehand, I do not believe that we are absolutely certain that that will be the case. That is why I moved the amendment. However, I am happy with the assurances that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, has given us and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Renton: I am glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, say that he will take away the matter and reconsider the contents of Clause 21 because, quite frankly. I find the whole issue rather confusing. It concerns a power given to the commission to issue guidance to police authorities, chief officers and people serving with the police other than their chief officers. But it also requires the approval of the Secretary of State for the issue by the commission of guidance. Then subsection (4) becomes very complex in detailing the nature of the guidance and the way in which it is to be given. Although I realise that it is anticipating the next amendment to be taken—Amendment No. 166, which seeks to leave out paragraph (c) —I believe that it would be wise of the Government to reconsider the complexity that will arise in relation to the giving of this guidance. I believe that the whole clause could well be simplified.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am grateful for the noble Lord's intervention. I believe that our reconsideration of the clause is rather more limited, and I am certainly not in a position to be quite as emollient as perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Renton, would wish us to be. My noble friend Lord Rooker and I are brothers in emollience today and we share that emollience generally. We believe it to be a prudent course. But we have given a limited commitment and are happy to give the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, fair consideration.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 165B not moved.]
Clause 21 agreed to.
Clause 22 (Regulations]:
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 166:
Page 19, line 19, leave out paragraph (c).
The noble Viscount said: Amendment No. 166 echoes the concerns of my noble friend Lord Renton. It is a probing amendment, I hope of the customary emollience of the Bill. The section provides that the commission has the power to issue guidance in relation to whether or not a complaint is suitable for local resolution. It clearly has to be right that some of the more trivial complaints can be dealt with at the local level and resolved at the local level. Where those complaints are not resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant, there must be some basis for saying that the individual has the right to have that complaint escalated, as is the case, for example, with regulatory ombudsmen. The problem is that guidance is a blunt instrument. Are certain categories of complaint to be excluded from the commission's remit? When is a complaint to go to the commission?
If one proceeds on the assumption that local resolution is preferable to the police officer to an investigation by the commission, is it right that the
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police should interpret these regulations? Would it not be better to adopt the ombudsman approach that all complaints are dealt with locally unless the outcome is unsatisfactory in which case they are escalated? In this case, the commission could have the power of review over procedures and power to call upon complaints documents at random to ensure that matters are properly dealt with, with all the more serious complaints being dealt with automatically by the commission. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: Before the noble Lord replies, I feel that I should make a further point about paragraph (c), which deals with two separate matters. One such matter is about guidance being given on how to decide whether a complaint is suitable for being subjected to local resolution. Then we come on to an entirely different matter, which I should have thought would be better put, as a matter of drafting, into a separate paragraph; that is, guidance about the information to be provided to a person before his consent to such a resolution is given. Those are two separate matters and could well be put into separate paragraphs.
Lord Rooker: As regards the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, subject to the expert team which backs us up, and the esteemed parliamentary draftsmen in Whitehall, with whom I have had many a clash—I have tremendous respect for the work that they do—we shall consider paragraph (c). The noble Lord, Lord Renton is right. It appears to contain two entirely separate issues, which probably should he separate paragraphs. I shall take advice on that and report back to the noble Lord either by letter or by tabling an amendment.
Amendment No. 166 would remove from the complaints commission the power to issue guidance to the police about how to decide whether the complaint is suitable for local resolution and about the information to be given to a complainant before he or she agrees to an attempt at local resolution of his or her complaint. As I said earlier in our debates, currently, about one-third of complaints are resolved locally; that is about 10,000 of approximately 30,000. There is much to be said for dealing with complaints as locally as possible. There is widespread support for this process. We want to extend its use.
The legislation provides the framework within which decisions with regard to local resolutions should be made. The guidance will provide clarification and facilitate the making of those decisions.
The specific aims of the guidance issued in relation to this provision will be twofold. First, all police forces should know when they should be attempting local resolution straightaway, when they should be applying to the IPCC for approval to attempt local resolution, and when local resolution should not even be considered. There are some complaints which are just like an elephant on a doorstep; one would recognise it when one saw it even though one could not necessarily write a description of it. Without this there would be a real danger that officers who committed similar acts of misconduct could be dealt with very differently just because they were members of different forces.

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Secondly, complainants should understand what the process for local resolution should be, as appeals following attempted resolution can he made only on the grounds that the process has not been followed properly. Otherwise, complainants might feel that they have not been treated fairly. That could seriously undermine public confidence in the system as a whole.
The police as a rule appreciate guidance. The guidance provided for in both of these subsections—that is in relation to the subsections which refer to Amendment No. 165B that was not moved—will be essential in ensuring that there is consistency of practice across the country with regard to both dealing with conduct matters and local resolution. That said, there is clearly a case which has been made most powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for us to look at the construction of this part of Clause 21 and to report back to the Chamber.
Lord Elton: The Minister said that if my noble friend's amendment was made it would remove the power from the commission to issue guidance on the level of complaint which can be resolved locally, But that is not how I read the Bill. The introduction to Clause 21(4) states:
"Without prejudice to the generality of the preceding provisions".
The first of the preceding provisions is Clause 21(1):
"The Commission may issue guidance—

(a) to police authorities,

(b) to chief officers, and

(c) to persons…

concerning the exercise or performance, by [them]…of any of the powers or duties specified in subsection (2)".
The whole of subsection (4) is unnecessary if the matter is not exclusive but only permissive. Subsection (4) does say,
"may be issued under this section".
The commission is still at liberty to give other guidance. I wonder why so much work has been done before the body is formed in telling it what it should be providing guidance on. I daresay that subsection (4)(f) is required because that is, as it were, internal to the Secretary of State and the commission, but I cannot see that the rest of it is needed. I do not want a long answer now. I just ask the noble Lord to have the matter in mind when he is thinking about the structure generally.
Lord Rooker: I am happy to confirm that. I do not want to be critical, but it is sometimes the case that one has an idea and it ends up as a 10-page schedule, which was not quite what one intended. We shall look at the matter again. In order to look at the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, we shall have to look at the construction of paragraphs (a) to (f) of subsection (4).
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, in the later stages of the Bill we will be interested to know exactly what the guidance comprises. The Minister was concerned that there should be uniform treatment between police forces. It is important that the guidance is fittingly
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comprehensive and specific in that way. With those remarks, we shall study the Minister's reply carefully. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 22 [Regulations]:
[Amendment No. 166A not moved.]
Lord Bradshawmoved Amendment No. 166B:
Page 19, line 46. at end insert—
"( ) Before making any such regulations, the Secretary of State shall consult—

(a) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of police authorities in England and Wales; and

(b) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police of forces maintained by those authorities."

The noble Lord said: This is another case in which we think that it might be worth stating that consultation should take place under the tripartite arrangement. I beg to move.
10 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: We dealt with this matter in an earlier debate on Amendment No. 165A, so it is really for the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bradshaw: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 166C not moved.]
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 167:
Page 20, line 3, leave out "may" and insert "shall"
The noble Viscount said: The amendment would make the one-word substitution of "shall" for "may". The clause deals with matters that are fundamental to the operation of any effective complaints system. Such measures need to be in place, and if they are not to be included in the Bill, there should be an obligation on the Home Secretary to bring forward the necessary regulations. It is not good enough to leave such important matters to the decision of the Secretary of State. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: The Secretary of State will be able to make a wide range of regulations for procedures to be followed in the new police complaints system. This list simply gives an indication of some provisions that are most likely to be made by such regulations. The Secretary of State will not necessarily make regulations for all of them and he may make some that are not listed in the clause. It is appropriate for him to have discretion over such procedural issues.
Of course, when the Home Secretary makes regulations he will set out the cases in which, and the extent to which, they will apply; otherwise they would probably be unworkable. It is unnecessary to spell that out explicitly for just one matter listed in Clause 22(2) for which regulations may be made, as does Amendment No. 168. I hope that the noble Viscount

241
will accept that that is the normal way in which things are done. In this case, a little discretion is needed. As I said, the regulations may not be made for subjects that are listed in the Bill.
Viscount Bridgeman: I understand the Minister's reply and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 168 not moved.]
Clause 22 agreed to.
Clause 23 [NCIS and NCS]:
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 169:
Page 21, line 31, leave out "For" and insert "At the end of"
The noble Viscount said: In moving the amendment, I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 170,171 and 172. The Minister's earlier reply regarding the National Criminal Intelligence Service covered Amendment. No. 170. Amendment No. 171 is a probing amendment. We want to know why a comparable complaints system for Scotland and Northern Ireland should be left to the Secretary of State's decision. It is surely needed as much in those countries as in England and Wales. If the Home Secretary has the power to introduce such a system—it is clear from the clause that he has—he should do so or explain why he is imposing a system on England and Wales that he does not think good enough for the Scots and Irish. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: Clause 23 deals with the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad. The amendments, whether probing or not, do not appear to result from any difference in policy. They appear to be designed to achieve the same result as Clause 23 by a different means and seem to relate only to the NCIS aspects of Clause 23. There is something technically defective about them and I am seeking advice and further particulars from my learned friends.
It is important that the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad are brought fully within the complaints commission regime. There is no question about that. The amendments do not result from any particular change.
As regards Scotland and Northern Ireland, I am at a complete loss for an answer. However, in Scotland devolved matters are for the Scottish Parliament to consider, and Northern Ireland has its own system, which is why it is not covered by the Bill.
Viscount Bridgeman: Perhaps we can take the matter up with the Minister in correspondence outside proceedings on the Bill. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 170 to 172 not moved.]
Lord Rookermoved Amendment No. 173:
Page 22. line 11, at end insert "there shall be substituted—"
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The noble Lord said: This is purely a drafting amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 23, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 24 [Forces maintained otherwise than by police authorities]:
[Amendments Nos. 174 and 175 not moved.]
Lord Rookermoved Amendment No. 176:
Page 23, line 11, at end insert—
"( ) An agreement or order under this section in relation to any body of constables may contain provision for enabling the Commission to bring and conduct, or otherwise participate or intervene in, any proceedings which are identified by the agreement or order as disciplinary proceedings in relation to members of that body of constables."
The noble Lord said: Clause 24 enables the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the National Crime Squad and other forces to be brought under the proceedings corresponding or similar to those provided under Part 2 relating to complaints and misconduct. However, there are issues to do with the conduct of disciplinary proceedings that fall outside Part 2.
There is a provision in Clause 32 which relates to the conduct of disciplinary hearings that gives the complaints commission a right to participate in disciplinary proceedings following an investigation into a complaint or other conduct matter. That provision will enable the commission to present, or instruct counsel in presenting, the case against the person facing charges or to participate or intervene in some other way.
The amendment will enable that provision to be included in procedures for any other non-Home Office force—for example, the British Transport Police—that falls under the provisions of the clause if it is appropriate and desirable. Equivalent provision is made for NCS and NCIS in the new clauses to be inserted. We will come to those amendments on day four of the Committee stage. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: At this late hour, I should perhaps be hesitant about saying what I have to say. The Government cannot be prevented from moving and carrying the amendment. However, the amendment does have implications. It means that the commission will not merely be a commission for receiving and considering complaints; it will be able to use its own initiative to investigate matters that have not been referred to it. I do not say that that is wrong, but I think the Minister should bear in mind that that is an important consideration which will make the work of the commission even more of a whole-time job than otherwise it would be.
Lord Rooker: The noble Lord, Lord Renton, is absolutely right. In the debate on Second Reading we dealt with the whole Bill. Many issues were raised, some of which were not contained in the Bill. References were made to the provisions of Part 2

243
covering the independent police complaints commission to which I responded, although I accept that I spent only a small part of my speech on it.
There is no question that there has been a good degree of consensus in the Committee about the proposal for a new complaints commission. However, no one has made a speech formally setting out the power of and the work to be undertaken by this authority. At times I have tried to use my extensive notes to put points on to the record in order to make it absolutely clear that the commission will not be the Police Complaints Authority. That was clearly indicated earlier, given the powers conferred under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
The commission will be a powerful organisation, independent, in charge, able to initiate its own activities and able to conduct investigations in a way that the Police Complaints Authority has never been able to do.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 24, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 25 [Conduct of the Commission's staff]:
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 177:
Page 23, line 38, leave out "may" and insert "shall"
The noble Viscount said: I am aware that the Minister has referred to the Secretary of State's discretion in his remarks on Amendment No. 167, but this amendment refers to the commission's work itself.
The commission's work will form an important part of a properly functioning police service. People who complain about the police or police officers who are complained against must be able to feel that they have some remedy if there is a miscarriage of justice. Thus there needs to be a comparable complaints system in respect of commission staff. I should be grateful for the Minister's comments as regards whether this should be left to the discretion of the Home Secretary. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I rather suspect that the noble Viscount will be quite pleased with what I am about to say; I hope so. Amendment No. 177 seeks to place an obligation on the Home Secretary to make regulations providing for a complaints system for IPCC staff. I can announce to the Committee that we have every intention of making those regulations. For that reason, I am happy to advise the Committee that we shall accept the amendment. The noble Viscount, with his eloquence at this late hour, has achieved a direct hit.
I do not imagine the noble Viscount was being remiss in not moving his other two amendments in the grouping, but I must assume that he had intended to do so. However, I have to say that I cannot be so accommodating in respect of Amendments Nos. 178 and 179.
Amendment No. 178 is not appropriate as the regulations will either set out the process as a whole or apply the provisions on complaints against police officers for IPCC staff with or without modification or
244
a mixture of both—I hope that that makes sense. It would be inappropriate to tie the Home Secretary's hands over the way in which the regulations are to be drafted.
Amendment No. 179 probably arises from a grammatical misunderstanding. The regulations will not "apply to" the provisions made by or under Part 2. However, they may "apply" any provision made by or under Part 2 to complaints against commission staff. I suspect that that will clarify any misunderstanding over the drafting.
It is a case of two to one on this grouping. I offer my congratulations to the noble Viscount.
Viscount Bridgeman: I was quite right not to push my luck and I am grateful to the Committee for overlooking the fact that I did not move the other two amendments in the grouping. I am most grateful to the Minister.
Lord Elton: Will the Minister use this opportunity to illuminate the situation in regard to the words,
"(including provisions modifying this Part)"?
I may not have followed what he said, but it appears to me that the Secretary of State has here a kind of internalised Henry VIII power to alter the provisions we have just agreed to. I notice that the clause is listed in the report of the Select Committee for the scrutiny of delegated powers as having had a suitable level of parliamentary scrutiny, but I cannot see in the clause where that scrutiny is. Can the Minister tell me what form the order will take? Will it be a negative or affirmative order, or what? If he would rather tell me that in time for the Report stage, at this late hour I am perfectly content for him to do so.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: If the noble Lord is happy for us to check and think about that, we shall make sure that he and other noble Lords involved in the debate know about our decision before Report stage.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 178 and 179 not moved.]
Clause 25, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 26 [Transitional arrangements connected with establishing the Commission etc]:
Viscount Bridgemanmoved Amendment No. 180:
Page 24, line 10, after "Part," insert "after consultation with the Police Complaints Authority and, if appropriate, the Commission,"
The noble Viscount said: In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 181 and 182. Clause 26 is oddly worded in that it seems to give the Home Secretary the power to order the transfer of property from anyone at all. It is presumably intended to allow the transfer of property from the existing Police Complaints Authority—or, possibly, a police authority—to the commission. I should be grateful if the Minister could clarify this point. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: I hope that my noble friend Lord Bridgeman will forgive me. I had rather hoped that he

245
would not move Amendment No. 180. As he has, I must express some doubt about its value. I do not think that we need to elaborate the rather complex procedures that will follow with a further requirement that the Police Complaints Authority, and, if appropriate, the commission, should be consulted. I do not see the need for that. However, I agree with him that we should leave out,
"including provision modifying this part".
Amendment No. 182 is a wise one.
Lord Elton: With some apology I should tell the Minister that he will find my query much easier to understand if he realises that I was addressing it to this group of amendments and not to the previous group. I apologise.
Lord Rooker: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I hope that what I am about to say will help him. The effect of Amendment No. 180 would be to place an obligation on the Home Secretary to consult the Police Complaints Authority, and, if appropriate, the independent police complaints commission, on any commencement order bringing the provisions of this part into force.
It is quite unnecessary for such an obligation to be placed on the Home Secretary in regard to this power. The power is limited to making transitional provisions and savings. It is likely that the Home Secretary would consult the Police Complaints Authority and, if appropriate, the new police complaints commission, in any case.
Amendment No. 181 seeks to remove from the Home Secretary the power to modify this part in making these transitional provisions. However, such a
246
power is standard and should be retained. It is limited to transitional arrangements and may well be helpful in facilitating the process of bringing the provisions in this part of the Bill into force. The Delegated Powers Committee had no objection to the Home Secretary being granted this power.
Amendment No. 182 is also not appropriate. It may be necessary for some property, rights or liabilities to be transferred to the independent police complaints commission. The provision as it stands achieves this. The power can be used only in connection with the establishment of the independent police complaints commission. It would not be appropriate—nor is it intendedv—to transfer property from police authorities to the new independent police complaints commission.
Viscount Bridgeman: I am grateful to the Minister for his reply to this amendment and to Amendment No. 181. I note what he says about Amendment No. 182. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 181 and 182 not moved.]
Clause 26 agreed to.
Clause 27 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 183 not moved.]
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I beg to move e that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes past ten o'clock.

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  Ruminants: Feeding of Mammalian Protein
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  Illegal Importation of Food
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