Sitting of 14 November 2002

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

  Business of the House
  Mr. Eric Forth: May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the business for next week?
  The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Robin Cook): Mr. Speaker, you informed the House yesterday of the subjects for debate on the Queen's Speech. The business thereafter will be as follows:
  MONDAY 18 NOVEMBER TO WEDNESDAY 20 NOVEMBER—Continuation and conclusion of the debate on the Queen's Speech.
  THURSDAY 21 NOVEMBER—Motion to take note of various European documents relating to fisheries policy followed by a motion on the membership of the Committee of Selection.
  FRIDAY 22 NOVEMBER—The House will not be sitting.
  The provisional business for the following week will include:
  MONDAY 25 NOVEMBER—There will be a debate on the UN Security Council resolution on Iraq.
  TUESDAY 26 NovEmBER—Second Reading of the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill.
  WEDNESDAY 27 November—Second Reading of the Health (Wales) Bill.
  THURSDAY 28 NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Bill.
  FRIDAY 29 NOVEMBER—The House will not be sitting.
  The House will also wish to know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver his pre-Budget report on Wednesday 27 November.
  I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for the next two weeks will be:
  THURSDAY 21 NOVEMBER—Debate on further education.
  THURSDAY 28 NOVEMBER—Debate on the report from the Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee on the 10-year plan for transport.
  Mr. Forth: I thank the Leader of the House for letting us have the future business.
  Will the Leader of the House clarify an element of one our new procedures that has just started—written ministerial statements? The Order Paper contains a list of 10 such statements. I have checked with both the Table Office and the Vote Office, and also the Library, and I have found that the only place where I can locate
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  one of those written statements is the Library, where there is indeed a brief written ministerial reply on bus fuel duty rebate and biodiesel. I have searched in vain for the other statements.
  I wonder whether it is a coincidence that 10 written ministerial statements are conveniently to be made on a Thursday and that, as we speak at 11.36 am, only one of them has appeared in the House that I can find. Is there to be a proper procedure for such statements? Will the House be apprised of them at a proper time during the day, so that hon. Members can decide what they wish to do with or to them, or do I detect some sort of jiggery-pokery, in which a flood of statements will appear as late as possible on a Thursday when the House is not sitting on the Friday, so that they cannot be taken up by hon. Members for several days? I hope that we can be assured that that will not happen, that the Leader has a tight grip on this matter and that he can guarantee that the system will be dealt with properly, so that the House can properly deal with such matters.
  Has any progress been made on additional time for Northern Ireland matters and questions in particular, as well as for questions to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister? Those two Departments cover huge areas of responsibility. The Deputy Prime Minister's portfolio is appropriately broad and Northern Ireland matters are now dealt with directly by five Ministers in this House. Is the Leader of the House aware of any progress in allocating more time to hon. Members to question Northern Ireland Ministers and the Deputy Prime Minister?
  Will the Leader of the House also tell us whether we will get a resolution ensuring that the House can approve the proposed dates for private Members' Bills and other matters relating to the workings of the House? I gather that it is difficult to make progress on such matters, including ten-minute Bills and others, until a resolution is passed by the House. I hope that he can give me some encouragement or further information, as everybody is very anxious to get on with things.
  I should like to refer to a tantalising phrase in the Gracious Speech:
  "My Government looks forward to considering the report from the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform."
  You will recall, Mr. Speaker, as will all hon. Members, that House of Lords reform was going to be one of the great flagships of this Government. We were told that the Government were outraged by the fact that the House of Lords was undemocratic and unaccountable. We were led to believe that the exciting new Labour Government would reform the upper House. However, five or more years on, we are simply told that they look forward to considering a report from a Joint Committee. That conveys no urgency except in the sense of mañana. I hope that the Leader of the House will tell us what is in the Government's mind. Will the issue be left to drift rudderless between a Joint Committee and both Houses, or will the Government act? We are entitled to know. Has the matter been shelved because the Prime Minister likes an all-appointed House and finds it convenient to continue to deal with it?
  Did the Leader of the House watch "The Project" on television recently? I wonder whether he was disappointed that he did not feature much in the triumph of new Labour. Perhaps he will provide an

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  opportunity for screenings in the House, so that Labour Members can ascertain whether they featured in it and gain inspiration from it to assess the way in which to get on in the new Labour party. That programme performed an important public service and could provide a similar service to Labour Members of Parliament.
  Mr. Cook: I welcome the fact that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) is in his place and asking questions. Given the Conservative party's reduced strength, it is perplexing that it is not fielding one of its best performers in this year's debate on the Queen's Speech. It is the first occasion since I entered the House on which the shadow Leader of the House has been excluded from the Queen's Speech line-up. We enjoy hearing the right hon. Gentleman so much that I hope that it will be not only the first occasion but the last, and that the party will restore him to the Dispatch Box when we discuss the next Queen's Speech.
  The right hon. Gentleman was characteristically quick off the mark to condemn the absence of the other nine written statements a mere six minutes into the sitting. I shall make inquiries as soon as we leave the Chamber and try to ensure that the other statements appear at the House's convenience. However, I robustly resist the perhaps unintentional implication that Thursday is somehow a second-class day in the House's proceedings. I thoroughly enjoy my Thursdays; they are one of the highlights of the week. I therefore have no difficulty in defending the practice of putting down a statement on a Thursday. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where are they?"] We are now 11 minutes into the sitting, and there is a long way to go. We are in a better position than in the old days of the planted question. None would have been answered by now, yet one written statement has already been provided.
  On the questions rota, I am conscious of the desire for more time to discuss some subjects. I am acutely aware of the need to provide adequate coverage of Northern Ireland affairs. My difficulty is familiar: although I have demands for more time for some subjects, I am short of demands for less time on others. Unless we can find room, it is difficult to expand the time for some subjects without that being at the expense of others.
  On private Members' Bills, I am happy to assure the right hon. Gentleman that the motion is on the Order Paper under "Remaining Orders and Notices". It sets out dates, and I believe that the ballot will be held next Thursday. I am conscious of the importance that hon. Members attach to proceeding on the matter, and we want to make good speed.
  I am not a member of the Joint Committee, but I am informed that my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) is writing its interim report even as we sit. We anticipate receiving it before Christmas. It will set out the options for reform and I hope that the House will have an opportunity to choose between them on a free vote. I am bound to say that that is a much better way of proceeding than for the Government to state that they had decided not to wait on the Joint Committee but to go ahead with their proposals. If we had done that, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst would have denounced us
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  for not waiting for the report. It is a bit rich of him to complain that we have not made enough progress in five years. I remind him that we have broken the hereditary principle in the Second Chamber. That had not been done in the previous 100 years. And the right hodn. Gentleman opposed that when we tried to effect it in the previous Parliament.
  I regret that my onerous duties and my responsibilities to the House and on the Queen's Speech prevent me from watching television as much I would wish—
  Andrew Mackinlay: My right hon. Friend will not buy a TV licence.
  Mr. Cook: I am pleased to assure my hon. Friend that I am up to speed on that.
  I am always delighted when the media pass over me; it is my ambition to appear gratuitously in the media as little as possible. I am happy to say, and it may help to put the right hon. Gentleman's comments in perspective, that I am advised that that programme's ratings. plummeted between the first and second episodes, which shows once again that the public outside often have greater wisdom than the official Opposition.
  Mr. Paul Tyler: The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) referred to a sense of mañana in relation to House of Lords reform. In Cornwall we have the expression "dreckly", which is like mañana only without the sense of urgency. As it has taken 90 years to reach this point, during which for a considerable portion of time there was a Conservative Administration, the Opposition cannot be redeemed from the accusation of being slow off the mark on the issue of House of Lords reform.
  The Leader of the House may recall—I hope that he does—that this was the first time that the Queen has referred in her Speech to pre-legislative scrutiny, and I pay tribute to the Leader of the House and our Committee for that. How are the candidates for pre-legislative scrutiny to be selected? For example, we already know about three draft Bills—on housing, nuclear energy and corruption, the last of which I think is intended to encompass some form of company law—but is it also intended that some issues that have been addressed in the recent past but are not in the Queen's Speech, such as mental health and company pension legislation, may also be candidates for pre-legislative scrutiny during the coming Session? In addition, is it intended that some of the most complicated Bills, such as those relating to antisocial behaviour, planning, and criminal justice, which has huge implications, may be candidates for pre-legislative scrutiny?
  Will the Leader of the House address the point that consultation by Government, before we come to legislation, is no substitute for consultation by Parliament when we start to have the proposals put before us? By what mechanisms will measures be selected for pre-legislative scrutiny and agreed?
  Mr. Cook: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for introducing "dreckly" to the parliamentary lexicon. I am sure that it will come in useful on occasions when we require further time for reflection, and I shall bear it in mind.

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  I welcome the hon. Gentleman's appreciation of the fact that the Queen's Speech for the first time reflects the value of pre-legislative scrutiny, and he will know the importance that I attach to that. I hope, during the next week, to have consultations with him and the shadow Leader of the House to discuss the shape of the year, and in the course of that we may discuss what may be appropriate candidates for draft Bills and publications.
  The Mental Health Bill has already been published in draft, there is now quite a degree of public debate as a result of the proposals in the draft text, and the Departments are reflecting on that. We intend to bring that forward as an official Bill at some point in the course of the Session, but it is obviously important that the present stage be spent reflecting on the reaction to the draft Bill.
  I would not myself have thought that it would be sensible for us to produce the two important Bills that form the core of this Session on crime and antisocial behaviour as draft Bills. Those are Bills that we shall want to make progress on so that we can ensure that we modernise the criminal justice system so that it adequately reflects the needs of the victim and meets our objective of trying to ensure that our citizens can walk the streets in safety. We cannot therefore hold out any prospect of having those Bills in draft, but I hope that by the end of the Session we will have seen a significant increase in the volume of draft legislation.
  Mr. Barry Sheerman: May I ask the Leader of the House for some help in dealing with the Executive in relation to how they organise debates involving Select Committees? The Education and Skills Committee was apportioned a debate next Thursday to deal with higher education and higher education finance. We wrote a report, many months ago now, on that subject and, for understandable reasons, the Government have consistently asked us to delay the deadline and we have reasonably said that we understand the situation and will do so, so we are not being unreasonable there. But at 10 o'clock today we were told that the debate we were to lead next Thursday on higher education has been substituted not by a Select Committee debate, but by a Government debate on further education from which my Committee will be excluded in any official role. Moreover, there is no hint of any compensation of another day on a future occasion. That seems a strange way for the Executive to treat this legislature and House of Commons.
  Mr. Cook: This seems to be exactly the sort of occasion on which the word "dreckly" may come in handy. If I may say so, my hon. Friend is aware that the Government are committed to producing a higher education funding review and, as I understand it, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has committed himself to publishing that review early in the new year. Plainly, it is sensible for everybody—the Select Committee and Members of the House included—for the debate to be held in the light of the Government's review, which will contain a number of options on which the House and my hon. Friend's Committee will wish to comment. In the meantime, I
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  assure him that nobody is excluded from next Thursday's debate. Indeed, I very much hope that his Select Committee will play a vigorous part in it.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: May we have a statement from the Deputy Prime Minister on the Government's attitude to the outcome of major planning inquiries? The Dibden bay inquiry is coming to its conclusion after a full year of examining an extremely controversial proposal to build a massive container port on the edge of what is about to become a new national park, so surely it would be invidious if the planning inquiry found against building the port only for the Government to overrule that finding for political reasons. If we can have a statement, that would be most valued; otherwise, any such overruling would make nonsense of the planning inquiry process and all the money spent on such inquiries.
  Mr. Cook: I am surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman suggest that the Government have overruled the outcome of the inquiry. Before he waxes too indignant in denouncing the Government for taking a course of action, he at least owes them the courtesy of waiting until they have taken it. The Government have a high respect for the planning inquiry system, but we are of course concerned that the current system involves unnecessary delay for developers and objectors, which is why we will have lots of opportunity during this Session to discuss the planning process.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: Regarding the business for Monday 25 November and the United Nations and Iraq, will any substantive motion be tabled to enable Members—every one of us—either to endorse or not to endorse military action in the middle east that could open Pandora's box?
  Mr. Cook: As I announced, the debate will be on the UN Security Council resolution on Iraq. I anticipate that it will take place on a substantive motion on that theme.
  Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory: I go to Brussels almost every week, sent by the House as one of its two representatives on the convention on the future of Europe. I listen to the Government representative making some pretty remarkable policy changes, such as his recent acceptance that the charter of fundamental rights should become legally binding, which would have huge constitutional and legal implications and, indeed, implications for the power of the House.
  Will the Leader of the House therefore organise a debate on the convention in the Chamber, because the Standing Committee on the Convention, welcome though it is, represents only an opportunity for me and others to exchange views with other Members? The Government are not represented in those discussions. Will he organise a debate on the convention, which reports next year, so that the Government can bring the House up to date on their new-found policy positions?
  Mr. Cook: First, I understand that a working paper on the charter of rights has been brought before the convention. There are a number of options and we

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  certainly accept that paper as a basis for further discussion, but no selection has yet been made among those options.
  I very much welcome the right hon. Gentleman's new-found enthusiasm for regular visits to Brussels and I hope that they have a cultural impact on his approach to the rest of the continent; but on accountability, the Government have innovated in the House by setting up the Standing Committee on the Convention, which has enabled him and his colleague who represents the House on the convention to report on it. They represent the House and are present as Back-Bench Members, as it was thought appropriate on all sides that the matter was one for Back-Bench participation. Of course I understand the interest in the subject and I very much welcome the interest that the right hon. Gentleman is showing in the future of Europe. I shall certainly try to find an opportunity for it to be shared with the wider community.
  Andrew Mackinlay: May I invite the Leader of the House to reflect on the representations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) about Select Committees? One of the reforms that he can leave as a legacy as Leader of the House is guaranteeing and reserving slots for Select Committee debates, and handing stewardship and decisions as to which subject should be allocated to the Chairman of the Liaison Committee. That would be fair and would offer a guarantee. Days for Select Committee debates are entitled to as much deference as those days that are offered and made available, rightly, to the Opposition parties. It should not be a matter for the Executive to decide. I hope that he will reflect upon that.
  The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs recently had a slot in Westminster Hall on the war against terrorism but so much water had gone under the bridge since its report was published that we did not discuss the report; it was no longer directly relevant. I hope the Leader of he House will consider that point.
  Can the Leader of the House give us some opportunity to discuss the running of this place? Some things are not a matter for the Leader of the House but are delegated to Committees, and we have no opportunity for asking, probing and making representations. By way of example, there is a clutter of statues of Prime Ministers in this place. Soon there will not be enough room to stand up—and they were not the greatest parliamentarians. I want to see statues of Daniel O'Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell, Bradlaugh and the Red Clydesiders. That is who we should be recognising.
  What is more, those red-and-white and green-and-white tents on the Terrace would never get planning permission. It is gross hypocrisy on the part of this place. Barry and Pugin did not design this building with those tents. It is time they came down.
  Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend is in revolutionary mode this morning and I will take that as a bid for a plinth to be reserved for him in the Members Lobby.
  I take seriously the importance of making sure that we debate those reports that are recommended by the Liaison Committee. My hon. Friend will have heard
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  that in my statement I committed us to having a debate on the report by the Select Committee on Transport on the 10-year transport plan. As I recall, that report did not necessarily make comfortable reading for the Government, which shows that we are not afraid of having robust debate when Select Committees publish critical reports.
  On the arrangements for the statues outside, my hon. Friend may wish to pursue that matter with my hon. Friend the Member for one of the Newham seats—I forget which one.
  Andrew Mackinlay: West Ham.
  Mr. Cook: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) is Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Works of Art and has ambitious ideas for bringing other Prime Ministers into the Members Lobby, on which there may be divided views. I am sure that we could have a very entertaining full day's debate, if I can find the time, on the respective merits of Lady Thatcher and Daniel O'Connell for a plinth in the Members Lobby.
  Sir George Young: Given the powers that the Government now have to carry Bills over from one Session to the next, and given the ambitious programme announced yesterday and our desire for certainty, can the right hon. Gentleman take the House into his confidence and say which of those Bills he anticipates being introduced late in the Session and subject to carry-over?
  Mr. Cook: As the right hon. Gentleman will recall, we committed ourselves when the resolution was passed on 29 October to consultation with other parties and I look forward to having those discussions in the next week. I am sure that hon. Members who come to them will wish to share what is said with their parties. At the present time, I would not wish to go further than what was said in the Queen's Speech.
  On the issue of carry-over, the right hon. Gentleman rightly points out that carry-over will be a meaningful concept only for those Bills that may be introduced late in the Session. It is rather early in the day to name which Bills may be introduced then.
  Rob Marris: I was pleased to note in the Gracious Speech that legislative proposals will be brought forward on the Cullen inquiry proposals. I was disappointed to note that no proposals have been brought forward on corporate manslaughter. Can the Leader of the House indicate when legislative proposals on corporate manslaughter are likely to be before the House?
  Mr. Cook: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point because it gives me the opportunity to correct some of the reports that I read in the media saying that the fact that such proposals are not in the Queen's Speech means that they have been dropped from the Government's programme. The House has just heard the Queen's Speech for the second Session of a four-year Parliament. The absence of any particular measure from that Queen's Speech does not mean that it has been dropped from the legislative programme for a full

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  Parliament. I hope that the House will not fall into the trap which so many of those in the media wish to dig for us, in implying that anything that comes in the third Session is of third order priority. It is a full Parliament. Each year, we will have a full Session— [HON. MEMBERS: "You said four years."] It will be a full Parliament of possibly five but certainly four Sessions. Perhaps at next week's business statement the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst may like to ask for the date of the next general election; he will get the answer "directly".
  On the question of corporate manslaughter, I advise my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) not to despair of the prospect that legislation may well be introduced in a future Session.
  Pete Wishart: Given that only four out of the 19 Bills announced in the Queen's Speech apply to Scotland, will the Leader of the House and his right hon. and hon. Friends who represent Scottish constituencies continue to troop through the Lobbies and vote on issues which have no relevance to their constituencies and absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the people they are supposed to be down here to represent?
  Mr. Cook: On this there is a clear difference of view between the hon. Gentleman and myself. I come here as a full member of the UK Parliament and I fully intend to carry out all my responsibilities in that role. On the question of Scottish legislation, the hon. Gentleman wanted devolution; he now has it. The Scottish Parliament has passed well over 40 Acts—far more than we might have anticipated in the context of Westminster—and the volume of Scottish legislation that can now be passed by that devolved Parliament fully underlines the value of devolution and the extent to which it can respond to the needs of the people of Scotland.
  Mr. John Battle: May I urge my right hon. Friend in this new parliamentary Session to make time for a full debate on compensation for victims of asbestos pollution in Britain? In recent months, the voluntary liquidation of asbestos polluting companies has meant that hundreds of victims in Armley in my constituency are denied compensation awarded to them by the courts. Furthermore, some major insurance companies are now claiming that they had not covered those companies in the first place. Can we have a full debate with a full Government response to tackle this matter before many more claimants, tragically, die?
  Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend raises a serious matter. I fully understand the gravity of the issue in his constituency for those individuals, and their relatives, who are affected by companies going into voluntary liquidation without meeting their obligations. I certainly appreciate the importance of this matter and will draw it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I also encourage my hon. Friend to find ways in which he can
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  pursue the matter to the benefit of his constituents. It sounds as if it is exactly the kind of issue for which we created the Westminster Hall debates.
  Mrs. Angela Browning: Will the Leader of the House encourage a Treasury Minister to make a statement to the House on EC insurance directive 73/239, which is of particular importance to Lloyd's names? The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the European Commission has now commenced infraction proceedings against the Government. Before these proceedings started, the Government declined to put into the public domain exchanges between the Government and the Commission on the ground that the discussions were then informal. Now that the matter is in a formal arena, with infraction proceedings having started, both the Government and the Commission have invoked the EC privacy rule. It is about time that hon. Members were able to question Ministers about the proceedings that are now under way.
  Mr. Cook: I am always open to invitations to encourage my ministerial colleagues in the Treasury and will draw to their attention the remarks of the hon. Lady, but I would be very unwise to make any comment without first consulting the Law Officers and the legal advice that has been received by the Treasury.
  Dr. Brian Iddon: My right hon. Friend must be aware by now that many hon. Members have been receiving unsolicited and highly offensive pornography via the parliamentary network. The worst comes via a method called HTML—or hypertext markup language—which means that if that e-mail is accidentally opened, page after page of highly offensive material is displayed on the screen without any mechanism for switching it off. For more than six months now, many hon. Members have tried to stop this through the usual channels, but have failed. Can my right hon. Friend lend a hand and ask the network to purchase the necessary filters that will stop this?
  Mr. Cook: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend about the offensiveness of the material. We should remember that this is not simply a matter for Members of the House who may be exposed to the material. It is also a matter for those who work for us, such as secretaries and assistants who may encounter it more frequently, many of whom find it to be highly offensive. I am pleased to say that this matter was discussed at this week's meeting of the Speaker's Panel and I understand that the decision has been taken to acquire the necessary filter mechanism to make sure that hon. Members are protected and that our constituents are protected from the misuse of channels of communication that are there to enable Members to respond to their correspondence and to serve their constituents promptly.
  Mr. John Bercow: I thank the Leader of the House for his gracious letter welcoming me back to the performances of the business statement repertory company, which are certainly a parliamentary highlight of the week. Further to the Leader of the House's reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), may I reiterate the request for an early debate on Lords reform as the prelude to the

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  publication of a Bill for a democratically elected second Chamber, such Bill to be published within the next 12 months and on the understanding that a second Chamber that enjoyed political authority and democratic legitimacy alike could offer the prospect of restraining the insatiable legislative appetite of this House?
  Mr. Cook: I welcome back the hon. Gentleman and say that his Front Bench's loss is the business statement's gain. Listening to some of his colleagues who are sitting beside him, I am not sure that he has found the most plausible way of getting back to the Front Bench. I detect a degree of dissent to his proposition.
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: Not at all.
  Mr. Cook: I am delighted to see that there is division on both sides of the argument among the Opposition on the matter. I can assure the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) that there will be debates on the issue and that when we receive the Joint Committee's interim report, the matter will have to be debated extensively and voted on in this House. Whatever reform we propose for the second Chamber, it must provide that Chamber with the legitimacy to work as our partner in a modern and effective Parliament.
  Dr. Evan Harris: The Leader of the House is in the process of devising a statutory instrument to provide for pension sharing in the statutory public sector pension scheme concerning Members of this House. He may remember that, in proposing that measure, I was at pains to point out that there were other statutory public sector pension schemes with much less well paid people who were desperate for the change. Will he accept that when he publishes that statutory instrument, there should be a rider, bringing it into force only after the same provisions have been made for pension sharing for unmarried partners for the less well paid members of those public sector pension schemes?
  Mr. Cook: We have had exchanges along these lines before. The hon. Gentleman, with passion, tabled his amendment during our debate on the report on pay and pensions of the Senior Salaries Review Body in the summer of 2001. The House was persuaded by his amendment that we should amend our pension scheme accordingly, and voted accordingly. However, the House was voting on our scheme. The hon. Gentleman does not make it any easier for us to implement his amendment by constantly saying that it should be implemented only if it is applied across the whole of the public sector.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: The Government will shortly announce their conclusions on local government finance, an incredibly important matter to all of our constituents. So far the House has had only four hours to discuss these proposals and each Member was limited to eight minutes. Will the Leader
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  ensure that when the Government finally make their decision on the matter, the House will have a full day's debate so that we can talk about the way in which this affects services in our constituencies?
  Mr. Cook: I am conscious of the interests of the House in the matter, which is precisely why we provided not only one day for debate—which, unfortunately, for reasons beyond our control, was then narrowed by the statements that were necessary on that day—but another opportunity for the debate to continue. The fact that Members were confined to eight minutes was a reflection of the substantial interest in the issue and the very large number of hon. Members who wished to take part. We seriously tried to provide the opportunity for the House to express its view before final decisions were taken.
  Of course I shall reflect upon what the hon. Gentleman said on the question of what time there might be to debate the matter in the future, but I remind the House that there is strong competition for debating time in the months immediately in front of us. As a result of the bold and ambitious legislative programme that the House heard yesterday, there will be a large number of Second Reading debates over the next few weeks and it is important that we give them priority.
  Mr. Andrew Lansley: Will the Leader of the House find time for an early debate on the law on human organs and tissues, so that Ministers can explain why there was no commitment in the Gracious Speech to legislation on the subject? He will recall that, on 30 January 2001, the chief medical officer said in response to the Alder Hey and related reports that the Human Tissues Act 1961 should be amended as a matter of urgency. The issue is extremely important to my constituents in Addenbrooke's hospital organ retention support group, and it is disappointing that Ministers have not seen fit to act in this Session.
  Mr. Cook: Without giving a specific commitment on the legislation to which the hon. Gentleman refers, let me remind the House of the clear convention relating to the Queen's Speech, that we will certainly implement all the measures set out in it within the current Session, but that that does not mean that all the measures that we will introduce were heralded in it. He may want to reflect on the sentence,
  "Other measures will be laid before you."
  Norman Lamb: When can we expect a ministerial statement on the United Nations panel of experts' report on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? The report talks of a multi-billion dollar corporate theft of the country's resources and names 12 British-based companies and individuals for violating Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development guidelines on ethical matters. Some of the companies feel strongly that they have been named without evidence, but in respect of others—I mention John Bredenkamp in particular—there appears to be pretty damning evidence. The Government have said that they have asked for further information from the UN and that a substantive response is expected. When can we expect to see that?
  Mr. Cook: The hon. Gentleman refers to what is one of the great tragedies of international relations: the fact

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  that the Congo has immense wealth but that its mineral resources are being used to keep the country in a state of conflict, which impoverishes it, rather than to develop it in the interests of its own people. We have tried to work hard to get momentum behind the peace process, and there has recently been an encouraging withdrawal from the Congo of troops from neighbouring countries. It is important that the commercial sector, as well as neighbouring countries, plays its part in ensuring that the wealth of the Congo is used for its people and not exploited to deprive them.
  I shall certainly draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development and ensure that we communicate with him as soon as we have that further information from the United Nations.

  Fire Dispute
  12.12 pm
  The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. John Prescott): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the present national fire service strike. The Government believe the strike to be wrong, unnecessary and unreasonable. I last made a statement to the House on Tuesday 22 October, when I set out the history of the dispute and undertook to keep the House informed.
  The House will recall that the Fire Brigades Union's claim, made on 28 May, which remains in place, is for a 40 per cent. no strings attached pay increase for firefighters, a 50 per cent. pay increase for control room staff, parity of pay for retained firefighters, and a review of the 1978 pay formula that has governed firefighters' wages for the past 25 years, since their last strike.
  At the national joint council meeting on 2 September, the employers finalised their offer of a 4 per cent. increase and requested a joint appeal with the FBU for an independent review of fire service pay and conditions. The union rejected the offer and the review, so the employers made their request direct to Government, and three days later, on 5 September, the Government set up an independent review under Sir George Bain. The union refused to participate in the review or even discuss its terms of reference, and indeed attempted to discredit it-and continues to do so. On 18 October, it announced a programme of 36 days of national strikes due to start on 29 October.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions and I held a series of meetings with the Fire Brigades Union on 24 and 25 October. Those discussions resulted in the cancellation of the first two 48-hour strikes, and the first eight-day action was converted into the present 48-hour stoppage. Negotiations between the local government employers and the FBU resumed on 30 October. Because the FBU was not prepared to wait until mid-December for Sir George Bain's report, we agreed to bring forward a position paper on 11 November. Sir George's final report will be available in a few weeks' time. I am extremely grateful to Sir George and his team for their efforts, and I look forward to their final report.
  Sir George's position paper was made available to the FBU, the employers and the Government on Monday morning. The paper is comprehensive, practical and forward-looking. It is already deposited in the Library, and I urge all Members of the House to read it carefully. It sets out a vision for a single, more broadly based and modernised service, with multiple roles offering a wider range of services and expertise. It proposes a reward structure in which individuals are valued for the contribution that they make. It encourages a more diverse work force, with a wider range of career paths, responsibilities and skills, and makes it clear that pay and modernisation must go hand in hand and be consistent with the Government's public sector pay policy.
  The paper recommends an increase in the pay bill of up to 11 per cent. over two years, subject to necessary and long overdue modernisation. The employers and the FBU met for further discussions on Tuesday morning, and the employers tabled a revised offer. That

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  offer proposed an immediate increase of 4 per cent., backdated to 7 November, and—subject to the modernisation proposals set out in the Bain report—a further 7 per cent. increase in 12 months' time, in November 2003.
  At the moment, a qualified firefighter earns £21,500 a year. Under this offer, a qualified firefighter would earn £23,960 a year, and a leading firefighter would earn £25,656. However, in London, where London weighting allowances apply, a qualified firefighter would earn £28,268 a year, and a leading firefighter would earn £29,964 a year—just a few pounds short of the £30,000 a year demanded by the FBU. This compares very well with nurses, teachers and other public servants.
  Sir George has always made it clear that his position paper was not designed to end the strike, but to provide the negotiators with a menu of options for negotiations, which would put in place substantial reform in exchange for substantial pay increases. The Government remain convinced that the Bain review is the key to resolving this dispute, and to providing the basis for a modern fire service that is equipped to deal with modern demands. Unfortunately, when the employers tabled their pay offer on Tuesday morning, the FBU walked out, and at 6 o'clock last night it started a 48-hour strike. Under any reasonable circumstances, the FBU would be sitting down with the employers and discussing the Bain proposals. Instead, 18,000 members of the armed forces, supported by the police, are on the streets today, taking the place of the firefighters. They are using the standby fleet of green goddesses, and sophisticated rescue apparatus and cutting equipment.
  I am sure that the whole House will want to express its appreciation for the services of the armed forces— [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—the police and others who are actively engaged in providing cover during this strike. However, this is an emergency service, not a replacement service. No matter how professional our armed forces are, and no matter how much they train, it is clear that they could not provide the same level of service that we normally expect-particularly where major incidents such as a terrorist attack or a rail crash are concerned.
  I have spoken to the general secretary of the FBU again this morning. He is unable to sign up to an agreement setting out how his members would respond in the event of a major incident. He has assured me that his members would consider responding to catastrophic incidents if called to do so. I have no doubt that individual firefighters would want to help; indeed, we saw some of that last night. However, we cannot run a system on the basis that assistance might be available after precious minutes have been lost, and with ambiguity about what kind of incident firefighters would respond to.
  So it is with huge regret that I inform the House that we have no agreement with the FBU on the availability of its manpower in respect of major incidents. The FBU has not given an undertaking to abide even by the spirit of the 1979 Trades Union Congress code on the provision of emergency or essential services, which it signed up to in 1978. I believe that this adds to the wrong and irresponsible decisions that the FBU has taken. The
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  Government, and, I am sure, the House and the general public, regret that decision to strike without any further discussion of the Bain proposals.
  It is with great sadness that I have to inform the House that overnight there have been four terrible fire-related deaths. I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House are with the families of those who died. Those deaths and the death of Leicester firefighter Bob Miller on 31 October tragically serve to remind us of the daily danger posed by fire, and of the vital work that firefighters do.
  On average, more than 11 members of the public die each week in fire-related incidents. I have to report to the House that we have received reports of a large number of hoax calls, which means that our already limited service is stretched even further, putting even more lives at risk. That is wholly unacceptable. It is hard to understand the mentality of people who do that at any time, let alone during a fire strike at a time of heightened sensitivity.
  Let there be no doubt, however: the Crown Prosecution Service will take action against anyone caught, making hoax calls. Yesterday, it was estimated that in the Strathclyde area as many as 300 hoax calls were made, and I think that the public hope that hoax callers will be dealt with very severely indeed.
  Against that background, talking, negotiation and discussion are better than the withdrawal of labour. I continue to believe that Bain is the right way forward. During the past 24 hours, we have heard in the media that the general secretary of the FBU has an alternative vision for modernisation. It would have been better if that vision had been put to the Bain review to form part of its debate. Even now the union has an opportunity to make an input. Sir George's position paper is not a final report. It has been put forward at this stage to help the negotiations.
  The employers have made it clear that they stand ready to continue discussions at any time. Would not it be better to negotiate? Would not it be better to sit down again? An 8-day strike can lead only to more deaths, more injuries and more distress.
  It is clear that our joint obligation—the Government, the employers and the firefighters—is to provide the highest level of safety. That is our job. We have an obligation to work towards it: all of us—the Government, the employers and the unions. If, once this 48-hour strike is over, we then face an 8-day strike—yet to be confirmed—the Government may have to review many of the issues which until now we have kept off the table.
  We have bent over backwards to be fair and reasonable. We have been met with action that is wrong and unjustified, and puts lives at risk. Faced with that, the Government will do what we have to do to protect the public. I say, "Talk, don't walk."
  David Davis: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for that statement and for prior sight of it. I am sure that the whole House will want to join him in expressing sorrow at the deaths of four people in fires overnight and at the death of firefighter Bob Miller, and in his outrage at the action of hoax callers who put the lives of other people at risk. I also

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  associate the Opposition with the Deputy Prime Minister's expression of gratitude for the actions of the armed services in protecting the safety of the public.
  There was much in what the Deputy Prime Minister said about the actions of the FBU and its unwillingness to negotiate with which I agree. Today, however, I want to focus on the most important thing: the consequences of the strike for public safety and the steps that are being taken to minimise the risk to life.
  The Deputy Prime Minister told us that yesterday and this morning he spoke to the head of the FBU about the willingness of firefighters to assist in the event of a major emergency. I need hardly remind the House that with Britain under heightened threat of terrorist attack, it is imperative that all possible measures are in place to protect the public.
  It is clear that individual firefighters do not want to see unnecessary deaths. However, in a major emergency speed is essential, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out. Minutes matter. Seconds saved can preserve lives, so organisation, command and control are vital to get firefighters to the scene of the emergency rapidly and to co-ordinate them with other emergency services. It is simply not good enough merely to consider assistance in the event of catastrophe—I think that was what the Deputy Prime Minister said. He has already referred to this, but what exact proposals for such command and control did he put to the FBU and precisely what was the response?
  Before the strike began, we called on the Deputy Prime Minister to ensure that troops had access to modern fire engines and to the latest firefighting and rescue equipment.
  Unfortunately, the Government proved unhelpful. In fact, they came up with a series of spurious reasons why it would not be possible to give troops the best equipment, which would safeguard them and the public against the inevitable dangers of the strike. They said, for example, that it would take three months to train soldiers to use the equipment. That is wrong. The Retained Firefighters Union said that it would take two weeks to train troops to drive a modern fire engine, learn the basics of using specialist cutting equipment and master the use of breathing apparatus.
  Will the Deputy Prime Minister now confirm to the House that Ministers were mistaken in their answers? Will he also confirm that there is no practical reason why troops should not be using today's firefighting technology rather than the antiquated kit of 50 years ago?
  The Government have also claimed that the only modern fire engines are effectively sidelined because they are locked away behind FBU picket lines. What the right hon. Gentleman has not said is that throughout the country there are many reserve and training fire engines that could be released for use by troops. I can disclose to the House that the House of Commons Library has told me that there are about 400 reserve and training fire appliances at the national training centre and in fire brigades up and down the country. Why does he not bring those into the service of the military and use them to supplement the 800 green goddesses that are now in the front line?
  The Opposition want the Government to take all available measures to protect the public. Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm—I think that he has
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  said this—that that is also the Government's policy? Or is there some ambiguity in the Government's stance, as appears to be the case? The Prime Minister said that allowing troops access to modern firefighting equipment would "inflame the dispute". Now, the firemen are on strike. Fire stations throughout the country are closed and longer strikes are planned until Christmas. Tube stations are closed. In London, there is a risk of wider knock-on disruption from the strike. The Government have given us several reasons for not giving the military the most modern equipment. Can the Deputy Prime Minister reassure the House that the real reason for keeping life-saving equipment under union lock and key is not a misplaced sympathy for the sanctity of the picket line?
  The right hon. Gentleman said today that his principal responsibility is to protect the lives of the public. One chief fire officer has already asked the Attorney-General whether the strike action contravenes section 240 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. That law states that strike action that "wilfully or maliciously" endangers human life is illegal. The Attorney-General replied on 25 October that that matter required "constant review" and that he had not formed a concluded view in the context of the ongoing negotiations. He did not consider it in the public interest to act at that time because
  "discussions were taking place…with the hope of resolving the dispute without industrial action"
  Now that industrial action has started and given that there have been fatalities, will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Attorney-General to revisit that issue? If there is the possibility that the strike can be stopped under current legislation, will the Government use their powers to seek an injunction?
  Strike action may take other forms. The Health and Safety Executive has said that rail services can still run despite the strikes, and yet Bob Crow of the RMT has threatened to advise his union members not to work. Today, we learn that there has been serious disruption on at least three underground lines in London, causing misery for commuters. What action will the Deputy Prime Minister take if trade unions in vital services disregard the advice of the HSE?
  The right hon. Gentleman has given us an account of the run of this negotiation. Now is not the time to rehearse his role in the failed negotiations that led up to the strike. I simply give him notice that we will return to the Government's handling of those negotiations at the earliest opportunity.
  The lives of innocent members of the public are at risk today. At the peak of the last national strike, three people died every day. The elderly, children and the disabled—the vulnerable in society—are the most exposed to these risks, so all possible steps must now be taken by the public and by the Government to protect the public.
  I recognise that there are also wider issues at stake. A new climate of industrial militancy has returned to haunt the country. Trade union bosses, emboldened by the employment legislation passed by this Government, are set on inflation-busting pay increases, not just in the fire service.

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  Labour Ministers boast about modernising Britain. Today, we are seeing the true face of Labour—the strike-torn landscape of the past, not the future.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The statement of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) may have satisfied his Back Benchers, but it is not the sanctity of picket lines that governs me, but the sanctity of life. For every day—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. There will be no shouting across the Chamber.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: We have just heard the terrible facts—four people have died during the dispute. I thought that that might have impressed upon the right hon. Gentleman the challenge that we face in trying to avoid a dispute. Every day that we prevent a strike from happening, lives are saved. I have to make a balanced judgment, in all the difficult negotiations, about the sanctity of life, which, as I say to the trade unions and the right hon. Gentleman alike, has always governed my approach to this matter.
  When the 12-day strike was proposed, in the form of two 48-hour strikes and one of eight days, my strategy was to avoid that happening. We achieved that for 10 of the strike days proposed, but failed in respect of the last two. That was not entirely my fault, but I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that avoiding the strike for those 10 days saved unnecessary loss of life. The sanctity of life governs my approach, not the sanctity of the picket line; that suggestion has more to do with the right hon. Gentleman's politics than the national interest.
  I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's support at the beginning of his remarks. We are agreed on those points and have had discussions. It is right for him to point out where he disagrees with me and not to criticise me about the delay. However, as I pointed out, the negotiations did not break down until 1 September, and within three days I had set up an inquiry despite the view of the trade union. Therefore, I think that I acted within an appropriate time scale.
  Let me deal with some of the essential questions that the right hon. Gentleman raised. He reminded us of the heightened tension that exists because of the possibility of emergencies. I am of course concerned to reach an agreement with the union. The command and control is known as gold command; it applies to emergency situations with floods or on the railways, and the agreement between the police and the firefighters is still in place. We have a communications structure. I asked the Fire Brigades Union to have people with the appropriate skills using the proper vehicles going out if incidents occur. It was not prepared to give me such an agreement. I could accept nothing less than an agreement that its people would be available. The union argued that its pickets are following the 24-hour watch system and that the same people who would be on watch are on pickets and could get straight on to the vehicles. I cannot and will not accept that we have to leave it to a debate at the fire station about who turns out for a particular incident. The House would never have accepted that proposal had I come here with it. That is why I rejected it, with great regret.
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  I have to take into account what the commanders in the armed forces told my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence about equipment. They made it clear that under these circumstances they would prefer to use the green goddesses because the technique is familiar and the same for all of them. The armed forces do not have the training to use the many different types of fire engine vehicle that are available. [Interruption.] I have to take the advice of the commanders, whose obligation is to see that their soldiers work in safe conditions. They do not want their men to work with unfamiliar vehicles. [Interruption.] That is the advice given to me. Two weeks' training is not adequate, whatever is said.
  I informed the House that it took 12 weeks to be adequately trained on this equipment. There was some controversy about that, so I followed it up to see exactly what it was, and I was shown the sequence of events. That does not mean to say that it is impossible to train a person to do one particular operation, like driving the vehicle, in less time, and that is under way. Before the right hon. Gentleman asked his questions, I had already asked whether vehicles were available at the stations or various centres. The estimate was that there were over 100. There are various estimates. Some vehicles are operating, some are not. [Interruption.] I am not disputing what the right hon. Gentleman said about the Library; I am just saying that there are a number of different estimates depending on whether the vehicles are operating, their condition and so on. It is a matter of judgment. There are certainly more than 100. We have made a number of them, and training, available to the emergency command. Days ago they were distributed.
  I have had responsibility for the fire service for less than 12 months and I am astounded— [Interruption.] Wait for the point. I am astounded that we have not been replacing the green goddesses with modern machines. For 20 years, the Opposition were in power—[Interruption.] —and if they had replaced the vehicles at a rate of 200 to 300 a year we would have had the modern fleet that we are talking about. That is the reality. We would have had the equipment and the training. [Interruption.] Each can make their point on that. The vehicles should have been replaced. I have no doubt about that. We will accept our responsibility for the few years when we did not replace them. Will the Opposition accept their responsibility for the 20 years when they were in charge? No, of course they will not.
  I was asked what legal actions could be taken in these matters. Yes, the Attorney-General was asked to review this by one of the fire brigade authorities and he was reviewing whether an action could be taken. When he was first asked we were in negotiations with the unions, which decided to call off the strike. So on the first occasion the Attorney-General was actively involved. I know that he has been having discussions or an exchange of correspondence with the Opposition about this particular point. An action could be taken now. He has been considering how it would apply. Even an application under this injunction in these circumstances would probably be being processed by the court when the strike was over.
  I want to bring home this point, which is a consideration of mine and hon. Members can reject it if they like. If the strike is 48 hours, I want those fire engines working from minute one after the strike. If the

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  legal actions that the right hon. Gentleman is talking about are taken under these circumstances, or had been taken under the previous circumstances, we would face the difficult question of whether such vehicles were available or whether we had inflamed the strike. These are difficult decisions. The right hon. Gentleman can be indifferent to them. Do not forget, whatever the solution is, lives are saved if firemen can be prevented from going out on a long strike. That may be a matter of complete indifference to him, but it is not to me. I am constantly making that judgment.
  The right hon. Gentleman raised some points about the RMT. What is happening is quite unacceptable when the Health and Safety Executive has made it clear that it is safe. The accusation is that it is possible that 20-odd stations may create certain difficulties. The transport authority has taken action to close them. What is unacceptable are the actions taken on the Piccadilly line and others, causing disruption when the Health and Safety Executive, an independent body set up by this House, has said that operation is safe. That cannot be condoned. It is unacceptable.
  In conclusion, I have to make a balanced judgment about the 48-hour strike. All the options to which the right hon. Gentleman referred and which have been discussed between us are under continual review. What may be acceptable for a 48-hour stoppage, in the balance of judgment, may not remain acceptable in the balance of judgment for an eight-day dispute. It is all under review. Whatever I have to do, I will do it. Be clear about that.
  Mr. Edward Davey: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for that statement, and for providing a copy in advance. I join him in sending condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones in the tragedies of the past 18 hours. I also pay tribute to firefighter Robert Miller, and pass on my party's sympathies to his family and close colleagues as they come to terms with their loss.
  The Deputy Prime Minister said that the strike was wrong, unnecessary and unreasonable, and that the FBU should end its action and return to the negotiating table. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches fully agree with that. Does he agree that the dispute is about modernisation as much as pay? Does he share my deep regret not only that the FBU leadership has blocked reform in recent months, but that it has been a major obstacle to modernisation for more than two decades? Will he reassure the House that the Government will urge the employers to stand firm in negotiations, and to insist that any pay settlement is inextricably linked to radical reform of working practices, as Bain set out?
  Will the Deputy Prime Minister also reassure the House that, if the FBU were to call off the strike and agree to negotiate about real modernisation, the Government would find ways to fund conditional increases, over and above the offer proposed by Bain? Does he agree that, although new working practices can improve the quality and standard of protection for the public, the financial savings will be limited, especially in the first year or two? Would not it be sensible, therefore, for the Government to front-end funding to win a pay deal so that we can secure back-end savings and long-term reform?
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  Does the Deputy Prime Minister share my view that it is unacceptable for London tube drivers to take unofficial secondary action, and will he condemn that? Will he confirm to the House once again, especially for the benefit of those on the Conservative Front Bench, that our armed forces are not seizing control of fire appliances at fire stations because military commanders have asked specifically not to have to do that? Is it not disgraceful that party political points are being made over this issue? However, will he keep the matter under review with those senior military personnel? If circumstances change, does he recognise that their judgment may need to be reviewed?
  Finally, will the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House what action he intends to take to support the police in tracking down hoax callers? Given the fabulous efforts of our armed forces and police, and the risk to public safety, is not it right that anyone caught making hoax calls should be punished severely?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: That is how a serious Opposition make a contribution to the debate. Anyone who reads Hansard will be able to contrast the two approaches that have been adopted. People will make their judgment accordingly. That is why the Conservatives are going down and the Liberals are going up.
  I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for his supportive remarks, and for his call to the FBU to return to negotiations. The general secretary of the FBU has said that the union has proposals for modernisation and that they have been put forward, but they were not put forward to Bain. If those proposals are available, and if the general secretary agrees with some of the Bain report's implications, why does he not put them on the table? Even if he decides to go for an eight-day strike—and we must be clear that no one wants that—there would still be seven or eight days in which he could sit down and talk, talk, talk. He should put as much energy into talking as into the walking that is happening at the moment. He should come down to London from Edinburgh and begin meetings with employers to talk about the FBU's modernisation proposals. I do not see anything wrong with that, and it is what the public would expect. We could then see the true nature of the FBU's proposals, and compare them with Bain's. I hope that that is what the general secretary will do, and indeed I appeal yet again to the union to take that approach.
  I certainly make it clear that modernisation will have to happen. The general secretary of the FBU has told me that the union has its own modernisation proposals, and that the union is not scared of modernising. To that, I say, "Fine, then pay can be related to modernisation." We have to negotiate that.
  As to whether extra money should be made available, I set up the Bain inquiry because there were so many disputes about what could be saved through modernisation, and about what efficiency meant. The Bain report makes it clear that all its recommendations have been agreed within the industry, but that they have failed to be implemented. That is a serious matter, but Bain makes it clear that it is possible to negotiate on these matters and that pay rises can be paid for through modernisation. There is an issue about the forward and back funding of the rises. I understand the point that the

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  hon. Gentleman makes, but the firefighters should go in and negotiate. If they do not agree with Bain, they can walk out again, if they want, but they should at least talk to him about their proposals and his proposals. That is why we always have inquiries in this country—to arrive at an objective judgment. Governments are bound to take account of that objective judgment. That is our position.
  As for whether 11 per cent. is adequate, I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that it is a very generous offer because the firefighters are a special case. We have connected it with the modernisation proposals. I ask him to take into account the consequential effect on public pay. It is all right to say, "What is a fireman worth?" but why should a nurse not say, "What is a nurse worth?"? If nurses walked out of the wards, there would be more deaths and accidents than when firefighters walk out. There is a special obligation. That is why we treat certain groups in a special way. I cannot ignore the consequences for public pay by simply offering 11 per cent. We have already seen that some of the firefighters at airports are now saying, "If they can get a rise, why shouldn't we have it?" The effects are complicated, and the Government have to justify what they are doing. The issue is not solely about firefighters, although the offer is generous, but about public pay.
  What the hon. Gentleman said about the military is right. We have to take the military into account. The hoax calls are deplorable; I hope that we catch more hoax callers. However, hoax calls do not happen only during disputes. Many firefighters face the problem all the time. They have to rush out with machinery and risk their lives because someone has made a hoax call. Something like 8 per cent. of all call-outs are hoaxes. That is unacceptable.
  I have made clear my view about the underground.
  Glenda Jackson: I thank my right hon. Friend for making it so clear that his approach to this regrettable dispute is firmly based on the sanctity of life, in marked contrast to that of Conservative Members who, despite their newly found concerns for the frail, the vulnerable and the elderly, were perfectly prepared to let them die from hypothermia winter after winter when they were in government. What discussions is my right hon. Friend having with London Underground to ensure that there is a better than adequate contingency plan to provide services to Londoners should the regrettable secondary action continue among some drivers?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for her remarks; I agree with them. Discussions have taken place between London Underground and my right hon. Friends the Minister for Local Government and the Regions and the Minister for Transport. I have had some exchanges with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and across the Government about the matter. The action by London Underground staff is unacceptable and unjustified.
  Mr. Henry Bellingham: Will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in paying tribute to the excellent work done by the retained firemen in my
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  constituency in Terrington St. Clement, Massingham and Sandringham? They do a superb job. Does he agree that there is an argument that they should have access to some of the modern equipment in the main stations in the vicinity? Will he consider that point?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I do not know the exact circumstances to which the hon. Gentleman refers. The retained firefighters are mainly in rural areas such as he represents. I give credit to the people who assist the fire brigades. They have agreed not to go out on strike, and they want to meet the need for fire services. Something like 60 per cent. of areas have some retained firefighters. The retained firefighters are divided; some are members of the FBU, some are not. They have made a conscious decision through their organisation to keep on talking rather than go on strike. That is certainly helping in the area that I represent, and I offer my thanks to them.
  Lynne Jones: The people who should be condemned today are the hoax callers, not the firefighters, who feel that they have no alternative but to take this strike action. I spoke to firefighters in my constituency and urged them to wait for Bain. I was surprised at the support that I received, but now they feel deeply angered because Bain has dismissed without explanation their fundamental case that there should be recognition of the increased sophistication and complexity of their role since their pay formula was agreed 25 years ago. Does my right hon. Friend understand that there can be no basis for negotiations unless that omission is recognised? I agree that there is need for reform, but we must understand that the impressive nature of our fire service is due to the interdependence and camaraderie of our firefighters. That must be defended at all costs.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I do not disagree with what my hon. Friend says about solidarity among firefighters at the fire station. I think we are all aware of it. I am a great admirer of firefighters: I think they are exceptional, and last night, notwithstanding the dispute, some wanted to go out and help. However, I am facing a dispute between employers and employees, and little information is available to allow a judgment on the competing claims.
  I set up the Bain inquiry. It would have been helpful if the fire workers had given the inquiry their evidence on all these complex issues. Instead, they attacked the inquiry and members of it, and said that they would not accept what it said. It was not merely a case of their not presenting the complex arguments. Then, when the inquiry's report was delivered, they refused to discuss it. I cannot accept that there is no forum for them to make their case. Other fire workers said, "Let us wait for the Bain report," but it was not discussed because their colleagues were not prepared to accept it.
  These fire workers wanted a 40 per cent. increase in their basic pay. As I have made clear time and again, that is not possible. The fire workers have not deviated: they have said that it must be 40 per cent. or nothing. When I said that in the event of a dispute lives would be endangered, they said, "It is not our responsibility. The Government and local authorities are responsible for safety." That is a very dangerous argument, and the fire workers should think carefully before going too far along that road.

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  The fire workers have been given one opportunity, and we are now giving them another. If they have modernisation proposals that they could not give to Bain and did not want to discuss, let them put those proposals to the employers, and start talking. We know that if they talk rather than walk, more people will live.
  Mr. Crispin Blunt: The Deputy Prime Minister's remarks about the sanctity of life will be received with some interest by members of my old regiment, the Light Dragoons, who are now deployed in Cleveland. They have been training for months in preparation for the strike, and we now discover that between 100 and 400 vehicles are available for them and the rest of the Army to train on—at a time when they might have done better to train in preparation for enforcing the United Nations Security Council resolution.
  It is contemptible of the Deputy Prime Minister, and particularly contemptible of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), to hide behind loyal comments from senior members of the armed services, and for the Deputy Prime Minister to use them as justification for not being prepared to cross a picket line and make those vehicles available to members of the armed forces. It is disgraceful that he should argue that the Army should have spent millions of pounds of taxpayers' money to produce 800 new fire engines on an MOD estate just because he and his Ministers were not prepared to cross a picket line. He should not seek to hide behind the armed forces in this outrageous way.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I would have expected the hon. Gentleman, given his military experience, to understand what I said. I said that I would take the advice of the military commanders, who say that our responsibility is maximum safety for the soldiers in this difficult situation. They have concluded that it is better for training to take place on the green goddesses than for extra fire engines to be used.
  Incidentally, 400 vehicles are not available. Some are being taken apart— [Interruption.] As I have said, we have agreed with the military that they will train some of their people to use these vehicles. Some have already been distributed, while others are available to those in emergency command to distribute as they see fit. We are reviewing the situation constantly and want to improve on it, but when a military commander tells me that he is concerned about his members I think very carefully before ignoring such advice. I suspect that when the hon. Gentleman was in the Army he would not have ignored it either.
  Ms Joan Walley: I have enormous respect for the specialist work that firefighters do throughout the country.
  It is clear that at some stage a negotiated settlement will be necessary, and I thank my right hon. Friend for the work he has done so far. I also thank John Monks of the TUC for his attempts to bring people together in the dispute. Now that we face such a serious situation, nothing is more important than getting people back
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  around the table. Let us look at what can be achieved. Let us concentrate on where Bain gives grounds for agreement, rather than on the disagreements. I understand that that there is agreement in respect of community fire safety, the fire cover review and personal development plans. Will my right hon. Friend take account of this appeal to the FBU and to him to bring all the parties together to prevent further strike action?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for her remarks. The essential point is that the issue will be determined by continuing negotiations. I think that we are all aware of that. I have always felt that we have tried to keep open all avenues for negotiation, as that is the way forward. Indeed, getting a cancellation of 10 of the first 12 strike days was a contribution in that regard that a lot of people, including the FBU, worked to achieve. I am grateful to them. She was right to point out that the FBU agrees with a number of aspects of modernisation, even though it has not put that to the Bain committee. I can only reiterate what I have said: immediately after the dispute—I agree that it is unlikely to call it off now—the union should go straight into negotiation. I shall make it clear to the employers and the general secretary of the FBU, as I have been doing from time to time, that the way in which people reach a settlement is by talking.
  Mr. Edward Garnier: May I thank both my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) and the Deputy Prime Minister for the sentiments that they expressed about Mr. Bob Miller, my constituent who died a little while ago in a fire in the city of Leicester? Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the strike, which I happen to think is misguided, I have in my constituency another family without a father and a wife without a husband. We should all bear that in mind when we get overexcited about some of the issues under discussion.
  I should like to make a practical suggestion to the Deputy Prime Minister. Will he discuss with the Lord Chancellor whether it would be appropriate for the Lord Chief Justice to issue sentencing guidance on cases involving hoax callers so that those who are caught making a hoax call, and those who contemplate making one, realise that they will be given an exemplary custodial sentence, irrespective of whether the defendant is under or over 18?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The whole House will recall the loss suffered by the family of Bob Miller and tributes have been paid by the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister. That loss emphasises the dangers of the situation and reaffirms my dedication to avoiding any dispute if that is at all possible. That is a matter of balanced judgment and I have given mine to the House today.
  With regard to the Lord Chancellor and discussions about the matters to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, there is no doubt that we want to ensure that exemplary sentencing takes place. We have already had some discussions with the Attorney-General. The Lord Chancellor is actively aware of that, and those at this morning's Cobra meeting talked about re-emphasising that aspect and using exemplary

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  sentencing against people caught in that situation. I shall take on board what the hon. and learned Gentleman said.
  Mr. Michael Weir: Does the Deputy Prime Minister accept that the problem with the Bain inquiry appears to be that the union has had no confidence in it from an early stage, due to statements allegedly made by members of the commission? Does he accept that, if the FBU has proposals for modernisation, it makes sense even at this late stage to see whether a commission can be re-formed in which all parties have some confidence? That may be the way forward in this dispute.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I have to refute the suggestion that members of the Bain committee made comments that were anti in any way. In fact, the opposite was the case. It was recorded in the press that members of the FBU, including the general secretary, approached one of the independent members appointed by the TUC and made some remarks, had some exchanges and then publicly launched an attack on the committee. That was a deplorable action and I have made that clear to the FBU.
  I do not think that there are any other examples of comments made by the committee members against any of the parties to the dispute. Indeed, they have done a wonderful job in a very short time to give us advice on how we can make a judgment about modernisation in relation to efficiency and pay. I congratulate them on that work. The employers accept it and the Government accept the framework for negotiations and discussions set out by Bain, but the suggestion that another body should be set up because one party opposes it—it has done so bitterly throughout the process—would be a vote of no confidence in George Bain, which he does not warrant. We have the menu and he has produced what he thinks we can consider in relation to improving efficiency. If the FBU has a suggestion that it could not give to the committee, it should come and give it to the employers and start discussing it.
  Mr. Kevin Hughes: I am sorry that the FBU has decided to go ahead with the strike. I believe that there will be a negotiated settlement and that the only way in which to negotiate it is to get round the table. Not many days ago, Andy Gilchrist told my right hon. Friend to put down the megaphone and pick up the telephone. It is now Andy Gilchrist's turn to put down the megaphone and get back round the table.
  It is disgraceful that FBU leaders will not reach an agreement with my right hon. Friend about cover for major incidents. I cannot believe that ordinary firefighters in my constituency and throughout the country will sit back and do nothing in a major emergency. If the FBU leaders will not sit round the table and reach an agreement, will my right hon. Friend make a direct appeal to ordinary firefighters?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for his supportive remarks. I read in the papers that Andy Gilchrist had suggested that I picked up the telephone and put down the megaphone. That sounds a little strange from Mr. Gilchrist, but I shall not go into
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  that. The purpose of one call was to discuss his suggestion that there was not enough safety cover to deal with serious incidents. He was worried that all his members would come running and that there would be no control system. We met the FBU on 21 October and said that we would set up the control organisation. We have done that, and we now have to ask, "Where are your members?"
  As we now know, Andy Gilchrist cannot give an undertaking that members will be available. He confirmed that in a conversation this morning. I stress that the organisation is there. As Andy Gilchrist continues to remind us, his members are humanitarians. If, therefore, they come to help—and I am sure that they will—the organisation is in place. That is not satisfactory for planning emergency provisions, but we have to operate within those limited circumstances. I have appealed to other fire workers, and I have clearly stated, "Talk, not walk". I hope that they will hold more debates about the matter after the 48-hour strike and before they commit themselves to a dispute of a further eight days.
  Patrick Mercer: I listened with interest to the Deputy Prime Minister. The armed forces are working not only with green goddesses but with advanced equipment such as breathing apparatus and rescue tenders. However, does he agree that the armed forces knew at the end of July that this situation would occur? Is it not therefore a disgrace that advance training did not start then so as better to preserve the sanctity of life?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The military people advised me that training did begin then. It was a tremendous operation to give 18,000 people some sort of training. We take advice and tell the armed forces when a dispute is likely to occur. We acted on the assumption that there would be a dispute, while doing everything possible to try to avoid it. The armed forces were aware of the proposed dispute and they undertook the training.
  I am glad that the hon. Gentleman commented on what I perhaps failed to mention. People refer to 850 green goddesses, but there are as many as 400 other specialist vehicles with specialist teams. They act as back-ups to the green goddesses and have special cutting equipment and breathing apparatus.
  I stress that we took the advice of the military on training, and I believe that we were right to do that.
  David Winnick: I recognise that a 40 per cent. claim was never realistic, but does my right hon. Friend accept that the firefighters have very strong feelings and that they have not taken action lightly? They believe that they are underpaid and undervalued, and we should bear that in mind. Leaving aside the Tories' anti-union rhetoric, which one would expect and which almost resembles a Daily Mail editorial, to what extent does my right hon. Friend believe that there is a possibility of reaching a realistic pay settlement that is higher than that offered by the employers but far short of 40 per cent.?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I do not doubt the firefighters'

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  strength of feeling. It can be seen on television and when one meets them. They feel wronged, but if they feel that they have been paid so poorly why did they agree to the pay formula in 1978? Their general secretary said about that formula:
  "Our wages remain ahead of other essential public sector workers precisely because we have maintained the formula."
  If it was so bad over all those years, why did the general secretary say that in July 2000? I am not saying that he may not have a case, but it cannot be said that they have been subjected to decades of poor pay, as he seems to suggest, otherwise they would have sought to change it.
  We cannot always assume that the firefighters' income is their basic pay, and that may be an influencing factor. The shift system means that they have days off when they can pursue further employment. I do not condemn that in any way, but when considering a fire worker's pay I might have to ask about his total pay. I do not have the necessary evidence, so I asked George Bain to look at the circumstances. He compared firefighters' wages with those of other public sector workers, and he took into account the fact that they have the best pension in the public sector, with retirement at the age of 53 or 55 on two thirds of pay—it sounds like MPs' pensions, but I leave that aside-and payments for medical prescriptions and eye and dental treatment. Presumably, those are all considerations when assessing the rewards of the job. If they did not have an overtime ban they could have been using some of that payment to supplement their pay. They chose not to do so, but they cannot now blame us and say that the formula that they agreed and the payments that they have been receiving have been so wrong for so long.
  I accepted that the firefighters had an argument, so I set up the Bain inquiry, which will be reporting in mid-December and will give us more information. However, the one thing that I have found in this strike is the lack of any adequate information about pay and conditions and the efficiency and effectiveness of working practices. That is what George Bain will provide, and it is right that he should so. It is called modernisation. If the firefighters wish, they can get a lot more money for that, but they must negotiate.
  Mr. Michael Fallon: Will the Deputy Prime Minister give the House an assurance that if military commanders request the use of specialist equipment that happens to be stored inside fire stations, the Government will not stand in their way?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: It is important that military personnel should have access to specialist equipment. They are doing the job and facing the risk. That is why we have an extra 400 vehicles providing specialist equipment. In addition, some of the equipment on the red fire engines will be made available if they so wish. For example, red fire engines have ladders that extend to two floors, whereas those on the green goddesses extend to only one. Those facilities are available, and they can make a judgment about them. We will try to give them the best possible equipment, but the constraint is not so much the vehicles as manning them with specialists, as we have been discussing.
  Mr. Barry Gardiner: My right hon. Friend will know that there have been rumours that the
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  Government intervened earlier in the dispute to stop a 16 per cent. increase. Will he take this opportunity categorically to inform the House whether that happened? Does he agree that last year, after 11 September, the firefighters were universally regarded by the public, certainly in Britain, as among the greatest workers, and that they still are regarded as great heroes by the public—but that they think they are lions led by donkeys?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: No, I certainly would not agree with the last comment. I believe in negotiation, and perhaps that is better done by lions. I have no doubt that people regard fire workers with great awe and admiration. Sometimes I read that train drivers or building industry workers are at more risk, and it is true that more of them have died, but the difference between them and the fire workers is that fire workers walk into danger and do not run away from it. That is the special nature of their contribution and that is why we admire them. They act for the community—I need push that point no further. The public have a growing concern about the strike, but none should doubt our admiration for the fire workers.
  With regard to what has been said about the 16 per cent. offer, I should make it absolutely clear that that is a load of rubbish put out by the FBU. It knows it and I have talked to it and we have agreed on that, but there is an element of propaganda in these situations.
  Let me put it on the record that I did ask the local authorities about this matter when I first read of it. Indeed, on 8 August, when I first met the FBU general secretary, he asked me whether I had intervened to stop an agreement on 16 per cent. I told him, "Absolutely not." Of course, I then went to the employers and said, "Did you make any offer in any way of 16 per cent. to the fire people?" They said, "No, but in the earlier discussions we had looked at getting 16 per cent." That is all about hey diddle diddle in the middle—£25,000 instead of £30,000—so we can see how they probably arrived at that figure in the current state of negotiations in Britain. They said that it would cost so much; the full claim would cost £450 million. Even if that were halved, there is not the money for such funding in the local authority settlement.
  I made it clear to Andy Gilchrist on 8 August, "If you're asking for 40 per cent., if you're asking me if the Government are involved, and if you continue asking for 40 per cent., by definition the Government are involved because local authorities have to ask me whether they can have the extra money." For that reason, we have made it clear that we will not provide that extra money, which offends against the policy and agreements in the local authority settlements. However, there are no strings to negotiating within that framework, which has produced the figure of 4 per cent.
  The fire people were never, ever offered 16 per cent. Some employers suggested round the side, "Look, we were going to try to give you 16 per cent., but the Government stopped us." There must be a definition: there was no intervention whatever from me, but it may be that people felt it was easier to say that the

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  Government would not provide the money. It was never offered, though. I never intervened and I was never actively involved in such an offer.
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the effect of section 240 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992? It says:
  "A person…who wilfully…breaks a contract of service…knowing or"
  believing
  "that the probable consequences…will be…to endanger…life or cause serious bodily injury or…expose valuable property…to…serious injury"
  is committing a criminal offence. May I also remind him that the Attorney-General has a right to seek an injunction? May I ask what the right hon. Gentleman is doing to enforce the criminal law, and thus give substance to his assurance that he is trying to save lives?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: Lawyers always seem to talk in a very pompous way when they get on to the law—and the right hon. and learned Gentleman is well known for it in the House. I will take the advice of the Attorney-General on these matters, as he has been looking at them. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right to point out exactly what the law is—often, lawyers parrot the law and assume that it will solve everything if I go outside and say, "The law says this and everything is okay." Parliament is here because we know the difficulties; people do not necessarily accept those propositions. I prefer the negotiated way.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about the sanctity of life. If I avoid disputes instead of— [Interruption.] Just keep your ears open and listen instead of shouting out.
  Mr. Desmond Swayne: How about an answer?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I am giving the answer. The Opposition are entitled to ask the question and I am entitled to give the answer.
  I have made the choice to try, through negotiations, to prevent disputes rather than inflame them, but I do not ignore the fact that the Law Officers—in this case the Attorney-General, as I said in my statement—are considering all those options. He was first asked to do so when I was trying to get the union to cancel the strike. That is a classic case. Which would the right hon. and learned Gentleman have preferred—using the law or cancelling the strike?
  Mr. Swayne: So what is the answer to the question?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Swayne, you must be quiet. You must restrain yourself.
  Mr. Kevin Barron: As the vast majority of industrial disputes are settled around a table by negotiation, sometimes after many painful weeks for both sides, will my right hon. Friend confirm that he will
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  keep open the option for the FBU to participate in the Bain inquiry, if it chooses to do so, to represent the wishes of rank and file firefighters?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I understand my right hon. Friend's point, particularly considering his background and experience in these matters, which involve the conflict of the law, industrial rights and all the rights that we are talking about. I would like to avoid such conflict and I will do everything I can to do so, but I will not ask the FBU to do that.
  I made it clear that the FBU should give evidence to Bain, but the union has demonised the inquiry, as it does not think that Bain can do the job. I do not ask the FBU to join the inquiry now—take the proposals to the employers and negotiate with them. They are the ones who implement firefighters' conditions and they are the ones who are responsible for finding agreement.
  The FBU should negotiate with the employers. I appeal yet again to the union and say, "If you don't want to go through Bain, show us your alternative by going to the employers with your modernisation proposals." Andy Gilchrist has been saying such things constantly on television. Start talking; less of the walking.
  Mr. David Heath: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the alarming gaps in fire cover in some parts of the country? I do not expect him to know the details of the geography of my constituency, but the town of Frome and the villages around it are being served by a green goddess based in Yeovil, which is an hour's drive away, if a vehicle is available. I am told that nearer green goddesses stationed in Bath or Trowbridge cannot attend fires in Somerset because they cannot cross brigade borders. Is that correct? If so, can he do something about it?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman raises the inadequacies of a system that does not provide a full fire service, and the whole House is aware of that. We constantly review that system as incidents develop and we will keep in mind the point that he has made.
  The hon. Gentleman makes a point about retained fire workers—
  Mr. Heath: Green goddesses.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I am sorry. On green goddesses crossing lines, we will take the hon. Gentleman's point into account. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman to see exactly what the position is. I take the point that he makes and shall see whether I can get him better information.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. There are still hon. Members wishing to question the Deputy Prime Minister. I am mindful of the Modernisation Committee's recommendation that one hour should be allocated for a statement, but in view of the serious nature of this statement I intend to allow questions to continue. However, I need the co-operation of hon. Members. They must put one question to the Deputy Prime

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  Minister. They must not enter into a speech. Even so, hon. Members may be disappointed as I may not be able to call everyone.
  Mr. Harry Barnes: At the close of my right hon. Friend's statement, he said to the Fire Brigades Union, "Talk, don't walk". In his statement on 22 October, he said that negotiations should take place with the employers. Today, he has said that they should take place with Bain and the employers. However, the most successful negotiations were those on 24 and 25 October, in which he was involved. Is that option still open?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I take your point, Mr. Speaker, about modernisation. I cannot be critical; I voted against a number of the proposals.
  On negotiations, I am saying that the union can go to the employer. I was not actively involved in the negotiations in the sense of deciding what should be offered or rejected. I simply pressed both parties to go back to the table. The one contribution I made was because of the difficulty of making an assessment about efficiencies. I needed an independent body because both sides were giving conflicting evidence. Hence I set up the Bain inquiry. It was not due to report until December, but I got it to agree to be ready by 11 November. I was not involved in those negotiations in any way.
  Negotiations did take place. There was an improvement in some of the conditions that were offered, but the employers said when the report came out that they would have to recognise the Bain proposals. That is their right. They just said, "Let us negotiate on that." Now, if they have the fire brigades' modernisation proposals, perhaps they can get back to the table and do as I said. There should be talk, not walk.
  Mr. Simon Burns: As firefighting is both an emergency and an essential service, once this dispute is over will the Deputy Prime Minister consider, either through legislation or by voluntary but binding agreements, putting firefighters on a par with the police, the armed forces and other key workers and seek an end to strikes in that sector?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: It is true that, particularly in those sectors, people do not want strikes. They are different. They threaten life; there is no doubt about it. That is why those sectors arrive at those conditions. However, the agreement on pay has meant that we have had 25 years without a strike and that should not be ignored.
  Mr. Burns: Local strikes.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: Yes, there have been a few local ones, but in the main if one can use negotiation instead of the law, that is useful. However, as I have said, we will review all—I mean all—circumstances arising out of the dispute.
  Mr. Stephen McCabe: I agree with my right hon. Friend and share his hope that there will be a sane and negotiated settlement. A great
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  many of my constituents hear all these pay claims and would love to have a contract that allowed them to be paid for the hours that they sleep while they are at work. Should we not address that?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: When many of our constituents read about what is being offered, they find it difficult to understand why it is being rejected. Indeed, most of the television representation is from London fire stations and London firefighters, who now get £28,000, £29,000 and almost £30,000, so it is difficult to understand why they are rejecting the offer. All we can do is to make the case that we think that it is a fair offer, that they should seriously consider negotiating, and that they should take into account the pay increases that we are agreeing to give to the nurses, which has to be a comparison. After all, they treat the firefighters when they are injured in their dangerous occupation.
  Mr. Michael Jack: Has the Deputy Prime Minister assessed whether firefighters are vulnerable to action under human rights legislation in the event of loss of life or damage to property? In the event of an eight-day strike, is he considering calling a state of emergency?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: All these matters of liability, involving not only people who may have suffered damage, but those who are playing a part in the dispute, are constantly under review. When it comes to human rights in one form or another, there must be a balance. It is claimed that the right to go on strike is also a human right that should not be denied. I am doing my best to find the proper balance.
  Mr. Clive Soley: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, for the first time in more than 20 years, public sector pay is increasing faster than private sector pay? In those circumstances, if all public sector workers were to address their problems in the same way as the FBU has done, the only losers would be the public sector, although the Conservatives would continue to smile about it.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I am sure that that is a serious threat. On public sector pay, we can claim that there are now 200,000 more workers in the public sector and that their pay is increasing faster than those in the private sector, although to be fair about that, it may have occurred over a longer period, rather than in the past year or two. However, I do not think that any previous Government could have claimed that since they came to power, public sector workers had had wage increases far in excess of inflation in order to help them catch up with the private sector. I am bound to say that that does not seem to register in any of the pay claims. There comes a time when the Government have to do what they consider fair, and that is where we are at the moment.
  Mr. John Baron: Given that the Army will be overstretched, early detection of fire will be even more critical. Will the Deputy Prime Minister discuss with Government Departments the possibility of committing extra resources to social services in order to

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  ensure that smoke detectors are installed in the homes of the elderly and vulnerable, particularly those who live alone?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The Government have been following that policy for some time, but as the hon. Gentleman has raised the matter, I shall revisit it and see whether we can do more. Tragically, one of the deaths recorded last night was that of someone in those circumstances who informed us of the threat to his life by telling the authorities that there was a fire. We have to recognise that the fact that the vehicle took quite a long time to get there undoubtedly contributed to his death. That is all the more reason why the firefighters should be talking not walking.
  John Robertson: Can I tell my right hon. Friend how disgusted and ashamed I am as a Strathclyde Member of yesterday's 300 hoax callers? As people are saying in Glasgow, they are nothing but scum and should be treated as such. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Army firefighters crossing picket lines will only intensify the situation and we will fall into the trap of some trade unionists and Conservatives who wish to make the dispute worse?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: What my hon. Friend said about the 300 hoaxers expresses how we all feel, although I could not possibly say that. To be fair, only Strathclyde has made a judgment about that; I am sure that every part of the country is afflicted by hoax callers. We have made it clear that we condemn them and we need to stiffen up the approach of the courts in dealing with these people when they are caught.
  Mr. George Osborne: Not a single green goddess is stationed in my constituency today, putting the lives of my constituents at risk. The Deputy Prime Minister said today that if the Government faced an eight-day strike, they might have to review many of the issues that, until now, have been kept off the table. Does that include giving the Army access to the modern firefighting equipment that lies idle in my constituency today?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman could not have been listening to what I said. I have made it clear that the constraint on the use of the vehicles is not simply a question of access. It is the judgment of the armed services that we could not train enough people to man all 3,000 vehicles, even if we could acquire them. We have tried to get a proper balance, and the hon. Gentleman should bear in mind that any system of fire cover does not prevent lives from being lost. Some 10 or 11 lives are lost on average a week. In those circumstances, we must do our best to try to avoid any further deaths. However, the Army officers and command structure have given us their advice and we are doing our best to provide them with the best equipment. They agree with the balance that we have at the moment.
  Mr. Mark Todd: I spent two hours with a dozen south Derbyshire firefighters on
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  Monday evening. Is there not one message that we can give to them as trade unionists—that no sensible trade union enters a dispute without a clear exit strategy, something that appears to be sadly lacking in the FBU at the moment?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I must admit that, as an ex-trade union official and negotiator, I know that one tries to keep a back door open. I thought perhaps that the FBU had one, but as we went on, we heard that the claim was 40 per cent. or nothing, do or die. It is clear that we cannot and will not pay that and that the money will not be available. It is a matter of judgment as to what can be arrived at in negotiations. The union has been made an offer, but it has kept on demanding 40 per cent. I hear from the television that the union might come down further. It may be referring to the preferred option that I supposedly intervened to give, but I never intervened. If the union is in the mood to negotiate on modernisation—the union has said that in the last 24 hours, and we have not heard that before—it must get back to the table with the employers and discuss it. Don't walk, talk; that is still our position.
  Mrs. Angela Browning: The last time the Deputy Prime Minister made a statement on the fire dispute, he said clearly that the reason why military personnel could not have access to fire appliances was an operational one because they were needed for day-to-day use. Today, he has explained on several occasions that the Government are not seeking that access on military advice. When was that military advice given—months ago, when the dispute was flagged up, or since he last made a statement to the House?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: We made clear the position on appliances months ago and also on what advice the armed services gave us. There are two connected points in the hon. Lady's question. The first is the availability of the vehicles and whether there is any further constraint, and the other is whether we barge in and take over the vehicles. That seems to lie behind some of the questions—a sense of, "Let's go in and grab them." However, even if we did, we would not have the people to man them. We have to make a balanced judgment. If the union had called off its strike, our people would not have been threatened. I agree that there is now a dispute and I am asking the union to come back to the table. At the end of the day, our policy has saved lives. The sanctity of life is the issue, not the sanctity of the picket line, although that seems to be behind most of the inquiries.
  Gareth Thomas: I agree entirely that the FBU's claim is unreasonable, and that view is now shared by the majority of my constituents, although there is widespread admiration for the work of firefighters. Should not the FBU return to the negotiating table at the earliest opportunity, in the interests of public safety and common sense, to resolve this matter with more modest and realistic expectations of what it can achieve?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I agree, and, I hope that that has been the core of my message today—that the union should get back to the negotiating table. That is

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  what has pushed me through the last few weeks. I see hopeful signs during the dispute, as some have talked about a claim of less than 40 per cent. and about fire brigade modernisation. That provides us with an opportunity to go back to the table. The employers and the union should each find out exactly what the other is saying. They should not talk about confusion and make accusations about each other. They must go in, clear it up, negotiate and talk, not walk.
  Shona McIsaac: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the high concentration of oil refineries, power stations, chemical plants and other dangerous installations in my constituency. I hope that he will appreciate the concerns of residents living in their shadow. What more can be done to persuade Humberside fire brigade to react if there is an incident at one of them?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes a fair point about an area with which we are both familiar, because our constituencies adjoin the Humber, where many of the chemical and petrol complexes are sited. I have no doubt whatever that if a major incident occurred, many fire workers would turn out. The Flixborough incident many years ago is a good example. I have no doubt that many of them would say, "Let's get out there and do it." They did it last night. I cannot accept, however, that I should have to ring up some local committee to find out whether they are going to turn out. I could not come to the House with such a proposal. I say again to the Fire Brigades Union that it has an obligation to allow those who want to attend an incident to do so. There should be an agreement about that. I understand that an agreement was reached in Northern Ireland about how stations might be manned in certain circumstances, but the national body's intervention put an end to that 24 hours later. That is not acceptable.
  Our responsibility—that of not only the Government but the whole House—is to maximise safety. We have the responsibility to defend our citizens, and I want to make it clear to the Fire Brigades Union, the House and everyone else that whatever we have to do to meet that requirement, I will do it and I will be accountable to the House for it.

  Fire Dispute
    BILLS PRESENTED
      HEALTH (WALES)
      Secretary Peter Hain, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Blunkett, Mr. Secretary Milburn, Mr. Secretary Murphy, Mr. Secretary Smith, Mrs. Secretary Liddell and Mr. Don Touhig, presented a Bill to make provision about Community Health Councils in Wales; to establish and make provision about the Wales Centre for Health; and to make provision for the establishment of, and otherwise about, Health Professions Wales:And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed. [Bill 1].
      EXTRADITION BILL
      Mr. Secretary Blunkett, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Secretary Straw, Mr. Secretary Murphy, Mrs. Secretary Liddell, Secretary Peter Hain and Mr. Bob Ainsworth, presented a Bill to make provision about extradition:And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed. [Bill 2].
      REGIONAL ASSEMBLIES (PREPARATIONS)
      Mr. Secretary Prescott, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Blunkett, Secretary Margaret Beckett, Mr. Secretary Darling, Mr. Secretary Milburn, Ms Secretary Hewitt, Mr. Secretary Clarke, Mr. Nick Raynsford and Mr. Christopher Leslie, presented a Bill to make provision for the holding of referendums about the establishment of elected assemblies for the regions of England (except London); for reviewing the structure of local government in regions where the holding of a referendum is under consideration; for implementing the recommendations of such reviews; for the Electoral Commission to give advice in connection with the establishment of assemblies; for payment of grant in connection with the activities of regional chambers; and for incurring expenditure in preparation for assemblies and in connection with the transfer of functions to them: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed. [Bill 3].
      COMMUNITY CARE (DELAYED DISCHARGES ETC.)
      Mr. Secretary Milburn, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Smith, Secretary Peter Hain, Mr. Paul Boateng and Jacqui Smith, presented a Bill to make provision requiring social services authorities to make payments in cases where the discharge of patients is delayed for reasons relating to the provision of community care services; and to enable the Secretary of State and the National Assembly for Wales to require certain community care services provided by social services authorities to be free of charge to persons receiving those services: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed. [Bill 4].

      WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE
      Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Orders Nos. 107 and 108,
      That—
      (1)the matter of the Government's legislative programme as outlined in the Queen's Speech as it relates to Wales be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for its consideration;
      (2)the Committee shall meet at Westminster on Thursday 21st November at five minutes to Nine o'clock and at Two o'clock, to take questions under Standing Order No. 103 (Welsh Grand Committee (questions for oral answer)), and to consider the Government's legislative programme as outlined in the Queen's Speech as it relates to Wales under Standing Order No. 107 (Welsh Grand Committee (matters relating exclusively to Wales)); and

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      (3) at the meeting—

      (a)the Chairman shall interrupt proceedings at Four o'clock; and

      (b)at the conclusion of those proceedings a motion for the adjournment of the Committee may be made by a Minister of the Crown pursuant to Standing Order No. 108(5) (Welsh Grand Committee (sittings)).—[Mr. Heppell.]

      Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day

  Debate on the Address
  [SECOND DAY]
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [13 November],
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as
  follows:
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament. — [Mr. Foulkes.]
  Question again proposed.

  Health and Pensions
  1.33 pm
  The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): The Queen's Speech has at its heart a commitment to public services. Government Members stand for public services because we stand for a fairer society. For us, public services are social justice made real. On the national health service, we stand where we have always stood—for an NHS that is paid for by all and available to all, and provides patients with care that is free, based on the scale of their need, not the size of their wallet.
  The NHS plan that we published two years ago sets out how we can build on those values to implement our programme of investment and reform for the health service. The Bills in the Queen's Speech drive forward the reforms, just as the Budget drove forward the investment. Just six years ago, spending on the NHS was falling in real terms. By 2008, it will have doubled in real terms. There is a similar story for social services. Whereas just six years ago, real terms spending there was rising by just 0.1 per cent. a year, it is now set to rise by 6 per cent. a year. Britain today has the fastest growing health care system of any major country in Europe.
  The Budget laid to rest the decades-old fallacy in this country that somehow or other we could have world-class health care on the cheap. We cannot. A cheap health service delivers what the Conservatives delivered: cuts of 60,000 hospital beds, cuts of 23 per cent. in nurse training places and of 25 per cent. in general practitioners in training, and 400,000 more people waiting for hospital treatment at the end of their term in office than at the beginning. If we want world-class health care, it has got to be paid for. We on the Government Benches believe that it is right to ask people to pay a little more in tax to get a lot more into the national health service.
  The Opposition imposed a three-line Whip against extra health spending—not a soft three-line Whip, but a hard one. Amazingly enough, there was not a single Tory rebel in sight.
  Mr. Peter Lilley: No one denies that the Government have accelerated

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  expenditure, but can the Secretary of State confirm that the number of in-patient operations has grown more slowly since 1997?
  Mr. Milburn: I think that I am right in saying—if not, I shall correct myself in writing to the right hon. Gentleman—that the number of hospital operations has grown by about 500,000 since 1997, the number of people seen in out-patients has grown by well over 1 million, and the number seen in accident and emergency has grown by about 500,000. However, the right hon. Gentleman must not become fixated by what happens in hospitals alone. I do not know about his constituency, but in mine, for example, procedures that used to take place in hospital are happening in the community, in out-patient departments, in GPs' surgeries, or in health centres. It is of course important that the appropriate care be given in the right place, but if he believes—I am sure that he is not falling for this fallacy—that national health service treatment is purely about hospital treatment, he has got it sadly wrong.
  Conservatives often call for extra investment in their local health services, and I am prey to interventions from right hon. and hon. Members on such matters. However, if they are going to argue—as they do in interventions, Adjournment debates and questions—for more money for their local health services, they have to explain why they voted against more money for the whole health service. Conservative Members are not stupid—that is the preserve of the Liberal Democrats—and they know that resources deliver results. Why have we got 40,000 more nurses working in the national health service than in 1997? For the simple reason that we put the money in. Why are 10,000 more doctors working in the NHS? Because we put the money in. Why is the biggest hospital building programme in the history of the NHS happening, and why are there more, rather than fewer, beds in hospitals for the first time in 30 years? Because we put the money in.
  Gregory Barker: No one doubts that, in keeping with the Secretary of State's comments, the taxpayer is paying a great deal more for the NHS than when Labour came to power in 1997. However, can he tell us why, after five years, 1 million people are still on NHS waiting lists?
  Mr. Milburn: If I were the hon. Gentleman, I would exercise caution in two respects. First, when the Conservatives were in office for 18 years, they managed to increase waiting lists by 400,000. We have been in office for five years, and we have cut hospital waiting lists by 100,000. Secondly, it is no good his arguing that what is needed is more investment in the national health service if Conservatives are not prepared to put investment into it. We will not get waiting lists or waiting times down unless we grow the capacity of the NHS.
  The hon. Gentleman must have read—I have read it, for heaven's sake—the Conservative policy document that was launched last month, entitled "Leadership with a Purpose". If ever a title expressed the triumph of hope over experience, that was it. The document states in bald terms:
  "Conservatives do not support the tax and spending increases the Government has announced."
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  The hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and hon. Friends should be extremely cautious about arguing for more money for the NHS, unless they are prepared to vote for more money for the NHS.
  It is true that waiting times for hospital operations are still too long, but it is worth recalling that the number of patients waiting more than 12 months for NHS treatment is down by 40 per cent., compared with March 1997. A year ago, the maximum wait for a heart operation was 18 months; today it is 12 months, and by next April it will be nine months. That is still too long, but the trend is in the right direction and, most importantly, during the past few years death rates for cancer have fallen by 6 per cent. and for heart disease by 14 per cent.
  The Conservatives often say that they are opposed to our targets to reduce waiting times for treatment, yet they also know that waiting is the public's No. 1 concern about the NHS. By and large, once people get into the system they are satisfied with the quality of their treatment. Why? Because the doctors, nurses and other staff provide a high quality of service. It is the wait for that service that is the problem for far too many people. Does anyone seriously believe that waiting times would be falling so consistently had it not been for those targets?
  We know what the Conservative strategy is. The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) expressed it eloquently when he said that the Conservatives have to persuade the public first that the NHS is not working, secondly, that it never worked, and thirdly, that it never will work. However, for millions of our fellow citizens the NHS is working. It is delivering high quality care for millions of people every week.
  We should be candid about two things, however. First, although there is progress, there is a long way to go. Turning around decades of neglect is not a battle for the short term; it is one for the long term. We have a 10-year NHS plan for one simple reason: it will take time and effort, as well as sustained resources, to deliver the world-class health care that we all want.
  Secondly, investment alone will not deliver. The NHS needs reform as well as resources. Why? Because the world has changed and the NHS must keep pace.
  Mr. Edward Garnier: Will the Secretary of State remind me which year of the 10-year plan we are in?
  Mr. Milburn: I think that I answered questions from the hon. and learned Gentleman when I introduced the plan in the House. We published it in July 2000, so I think that he can work out where we are.
  Mr. Frank Dobson: Not without a fee.
  Mr. Milburn: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend—at least, I am at this stage.
  Sometimes, people in this country pretend that we are the only ones having to confront change—that our health care system is the only one to face changes in demography and an ageing population, the enormous possibilities but new pressures brought by new drugs and treatments, and the rise of a more consumerist set of

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  public expectations. However, those waves of change are washing over every health care system in the world. That is why health care reform is at the top of the political agenda in almost every developed country.
  The NHS is in a better position than most to confront those pressures. In a world where health care can do more but costs more than ever before, it is an enormous strength to have an NHS providing services that are free, and based on need, not on ability to pay.
  The NHS provides what some call the security—what Nye Bevan called the "serenity"—of knowing that we all pay in when we are able to do so, so that we can all take out when we need to. The health of each of us depends on the contribution of all of us. That is the great strength of the NHS. Those values and principles are as strong for Britain today as when the national health service was first formed.
  We must be honest, however; there are weaknesses, too, in the organisation of the NHS. In 50 years, health inequalities—the gap between rich and poor in terms of health outcomes—have widened rather than narrowed. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics just last week show that a boy born today in Manchester will live on average ten years less than a boy born in Dorset.
  Uniformity in provision has not produced equality of outcome, nor has it produced equality of opportunity. Too often, the poorest services are in the poorest communities. If we want an NHS that is more tailored to the needs of local communities and more attuned to different local problems of poverty and deprivation, we have to move away from monolithic services and centralised control.
  Different communities have different needs.
  Mr. Paul Goodman: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Milburn: In a moment.
  Overall, levels of infant mortality in our society are falling—thankfully—but in some of the poorest sections of society they are rising. In parts of London, 100 languages are spoken, which puts pressure on the NHS. In a city such as Bradford, the incidence of heart disease among Asian men and women makes the work of the NHS there different from its work in other parts of Britain. Fairness rightly demands that standards in heart or cancer services should be broadly the same in one part of the country as in another. That is why we have put in place a national framework of standards.
  Mr. John Bercow: Given that one of the weaknesses of a national pay bargaining system is that it inevitably fails to take into account higher costs of living in parts of the country where there are staff shortages that we need to tackle, will foundation hospitals have absolute discretion and control over pay? If not, how and to what extent will that freedom be circumscribed?
  Mr. Milburn: I will deal with foundation hospitals in general in a moment, but pay is a very important question, and not only for those hospitals. Today, NHS trusts have discretion and have had it for many years.
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  Indeed, many exercise it. When trusts are recruiting an anaesthetist or a nurse, there will often be an element of local discretion in their pay.
  As the hon. Gentleman is aware, we are negotiating with the trade unions that represent the 900,000 health workers—nurses, porters, cooks, cleaners, scientists and technicians and so forth. This is the fourth year of our negotiations for what we call the agenda for change pay system. Those negotiations are going well. I hope that we can reach fruition before too long. At their heart is the simple idea that in a national system in which people rightly demand equity we need a broad national framework for pay so that people have some certainty about the sort of pay that they are likely to receive. However, as the hon. Gentleman and all right hon. and hon. Members know, different parts of the country have different housing and labour market pressures, so there needs to be some local flexibility in that national framework. That is what we need—a national framework and some local discretion.
  I expect the first generation of NHS foundation hospitals as well as subsequent generations to want to take on board the agenda for change agreement, provided that we can reach it. They will therefore be able to exercise discretion and flexibility, but there will be a broad national framework too. We will see where we get to with the negotiations. I am not pre-judging the outcome and there is clearly some way to go, but we are making progress.
  Dr. Brian Iddon: I am pleased about my right hon. Friend's statement on dealing with constituencies with real health need. He will know that I have been campaigning for five years on behalf of my constituency, which started second from bottom in terms of being furthest from target. Although we have had a lot more money—I praise the Government for delivering that—we are still in that position relative to all other health authorities. Will he assure my constituents that we will target the real need that exists in certain constituencies—for example, in Manchester, which he just mentioned?
  Mr. Milburn: I cannot assure my hon. Friend about that particular case. As he knows, the formula is still under review. However, when we make allocations to primary care trusts later this year, those will be based on a new formula that will give greater recognition to the problems of health need and health inequality of which he is all too painfully aware—and so am I. We have to get the balance right between recognising that there are different labour markets and different pressures, which the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) mentioned, and acknowledging that there are different health needs and big health inequalities. The formula will need to address that balance.
  Mr. Dobson: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that after the 1997 general election we found that places such as Bolton and Tower Hamlets were far behind the notional sums to which they were entitled under the national formula, whereas Surrey, for example, was far in advance of its notional sum?
  Mr. Milburn: My right hon. Friend's memory is serving him extremely well. That is precisely the case

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  and, as he knows, in the past couple of years we have adjusted the formula to recognise, first, that the current formula does not properly respect the health needs of different local communities—parts of Greater Manchester and the surrounding areas, for example, have benefited from that change—and secondly, that we also face labour market pressures in different parts of the country. Incidentally, those pressures are not confined to London. We made those adjustments pending the full-scale review of the formula.
  Dr. Jenny Tonge: Is the Secretary of State not being rather stupid himself in assuming that the inequalities of health in the population are due solely to the provision of health care? Surely they are as much to do with poor housing, environment and education, which are also the responsibility of the Government.
  Mr. Milburn: I am almost deeply wounded by the hon. Lady's accusation. [Interruption.] The party of the vulnerable knows how vulnerable I feel.
  The hon. Lady is clearly right to say that there are background causes for health poverty. Poverty is one, poor housing another and a bad environment a third.
  Mr. Eric Forth: And lifestyle.
  Mr. Milburn: The right hon. Gentleman is right; lifestyle is another issue. However, the hon. Lady is wrong in one fundamental respect. My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who intervened earlier, could also have said that when we considered these issues, there was inequality not only in outcomes but in access to service. People in the better-off parts of Leeds, for example, have three times the access to heart surgery that those in the poorest parts have, despite the fact that the incidence of heart disease is higher in the poorest parts.
  That is because there is, unfortunately, an iron law about the provision of public services. People who are more articulate and better off—the middle class—tend to do better out of the public services than working-class people. We must put that right. I do not believe that national standards or uniformity of provision will, on their own, necessarily address the very different problems in various communities. National standards are beginning to deliver results to reduce unfairness in areas such as cancer, heart disease, care of the elderly and mental health. In the next few weeks, we will publish similar plans to improve diabetes services.
  While I am on the subject of mental health, let me say that we will press ahead with reform of the mental health laws. The laws today are rooted in the 1950s. We need to strike a better balance between safeguarding the rights of individual patients and protecting both patients and the public. The draft Bill that we issued for consultation, after we had consulted following a Green Paper and a White Paper, has produced around 2,000 responses. When we have finished considering them, we will bring forward the Bill during this Session.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Bill will not concentrate solely on the understandably controversial
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  matter of people with untreatable personality disorders, but will also pay attention to an issue that has worried many of us—that people who have to have in-patient care for serious depression are put cheek by jowl with people who are seriously psychotic? In other words, there should be separate therapeutic environments for people with very different types of mental disorder.
  Mr. Milburn: The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. Inevitably, all the headlines will be about one aspect of the Bill; that is understandable. However, the Bill in its entirety is not about that issue. It is about how, from a system fundamentally based on 1950s legislation, to get a better balance between safeguarding individual patients' rights, and protecting the community as well as individual patients. It is absurd that, although most treatment takes place in the community rather than in hospital, because the current legislation does not allow compulsory treatment for the minority of patients who need it in the community, doctors must wait until they become so seriously ill that they are a threat to themselves or to others before they are admitted to hospital for compulsory treatment. That is palpable nonsense, and it is not good for the patient or for the community. That is what we must change. We will consider the responses extremely carefully. Make no mistake, reform must happen in mental health services, just as it must across the whole national health service.
  National standards make a difference. Through the Commission for Health Improvement, the very real variations in performance that exist in the NHS are being tackled. Indeed, as the Queen's Speech made clear, we will now strengthen the system of national inspection so that there is more information, not just about health services in the public sector, but about health services in the private sector too. Wherever NHS patients are treated they have not just the right to a common ethos and a common system of inspection, but a right to know that standards are high. Our objective is to have good services not just in some places, but in all.
  Laying down national standards does not by itself raise standards. That can happen only when staff feel involved and communities are more engaged. The top-down, centralised structure in the NHS has too often inhibited local innovation. Too often when I talk to front-line staff, they feel disempowered. Local communities feel disengaged. Individual patients have little say and precious little choice.
  In today's consumer age that structure is no longer sustainable. Therefore, our reforms are designed to shift the balance of power in the NHS so that standards are national, but control is local.
  Mr. Andrew Lansley rose—
  Dr. Evan Harris rose—
  Mr. Milburn: I give way to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley).
  Mr. Lansley: While the Secretary of State is talking about national standards and access, will he tell the House to what extent the intention that there should be specialist stroke units in each district general hospital, which was the April 2002 target, has been met? In

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  addition, will he reiterate the intention that all stroke patients should be treated in specialist stroke units by April 2004?
  Mr. Milburn: The hon. Gentleman is referring to the national service framework for elderly care services. He is right that the intention is to have specialist stroke services by April 2004 in all parts of the country. We have made progress towards that, and I know that it is happening. We have two years to go, and we are making good progress. We have to learn from the stroke services that are being set up. I visited a specialist stroke service in the Freeman hospital in Newcastle, and I know what a difference it makes, not just to the care of the patients but to the morale of staff, who feel that they can use their specialist skills for the purpose for which they were designed—is to make sure that older people, in particular, get the quality of care that they need. We have made a start and I am confident that we will achieve our ambitions.
  Dr. Harris: The Secretary of State talked about the importance of reform, and in these exchanges he has given the impression that only his party supports reform, and the Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties do not. I am happy to accept that the onus is on Opposition parties to recognise, as I do, that radical reform of the health service is necessary. Having started with insults, if he remains to hear my contribution, which he does not usually do— [Interruption] —he will have an answer. The Secretary of State cannot start by insulting parties and then slope off before they are given a chance to respond. I accept his challenge that before criticising the reforms proposed by the Government, Opposition parties have to have their own proposals. That would be a test of effective opposition, and I hope that he will remain to hear what is offered on the menus today.
  Mr. Milburn: As for my attendance at the hon. Gentleman's speeches, there are questions of decorum and good taste. I have heard him speak in this place and say different things almost in the same sentence to the same audience. I will stay and listen to him today. How is that? I must have nothing better to do.
  Mr. Kevin Hughes: Now that my right hon. Friend is coming to the part of his speech about reform, will he take time to explain to the House how the introduction of foundation hospitals will not lead to a two-tier service? In addition, if foundation hospitals are going to improve services, will he say why they are to be introduced only in those areas where existing hospitals already give their communities good service?
  Mr. Milburn: I will answer my hon. Friend's question, but I hope that he will let me get to the relevant section of my speech. If he wants to intervene then, I shall be happy to allow him to do so.
  As I have said, we want to have national standards and local control. Next year, local PCTs will control three quarters of the NHS budget. They will have three-year budgets so that they can plan and deliver a better
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  balance between prevention and treatment, and between services in the community and services in hospital. They will also be free to commission services from the most appropriate provider, regardless of whether that provider is in the public, private or voluntary sector. That will permit a greater diversity of provision and greater choice for patients.
  In our country, of course, there has always been choice in health care, but it has been the exclusive preserve of those who can afford to pay. Equity demands that that choice is available to all, not just to some. People should not have to opt out of the NHS to get high quality treatment. They should be able to get choice on the NHS.
  We have made a start, with heart patients now choosing where they should be treated. Our plan is to extend choice to all NHS patients. The more that hospitals do and the more patients they treat, the more resources they will get. Those local services that are doing less well will get more help, more support—including financial support—and, where necessary, more intervention. They will not be left to sink or swim. Conversely, those doing better will get more freedom.
  Mr. Hilton Dawson: Will my right hon. Friend assure me that everything that he has said about improving the quality of health services can be read across to the social care services? Will the important measures that he is introducing to extend devolution and local decision making refer to both health and social care, and to crucial partnerships at local level?
  Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point, and perhaps I have been remiss in not making it clear that a common set of principles should apply to all our public services. We want to raise standards everywhere, not just in some places. That is why we instituted national standards and systems of inspection, and why we made available the help and support that we now give. When the Government came to office, we had no way of generalising good practice. There was no mechanism by which we could tell the best clinicians and managers to take the lessons that they had learned from their working environments to other organisations that needed help, so that those organisations could learn the same lessons. However, that is what we do now.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) will also be aware that the response should always be the same where there is consistent management failure, be it in the private or the public sector. In such cases, we should change the management and bring new people in. The purpose of the new franchising proposals is to bring in new management. In those places where we have adopted it, that approach is beginning to produce results.
  The same disciplines must apply in the social services as much as in the health service. That means that help, support and, where necessary, intervention are available in those areas that are not doing very well. Conversely, there are also incentives to improve, which brings me to the issue of NHS foundation hospitals.
  NHS foundation hospitals will be part of the national health service. They will treat NHS patients according to NHS principles and to NHS standards, but they will

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  be controlled and run locally, not nationally. Indeed, they will draw on traditions that many Labour Members will recognise— the traditions of the co-operative movement and of friendly societies and mutual organisations in this country and abroad. NHS foundation hospitals will be owned and controlled by local communities, replacing central state ownership with a modern form of local public ownership.
  How will that work? People living in communities served by a hospital will be its members and, therefore, its owners. Staff will also be members. Local people will elect representatives to serve as hospital governors. Those directly elected hospital governors will make up an absolute majority on the trust stakeholder council. The council in turn will hold the management board that is responsible for the day-to-day work of the hospital to account, elect the chair and non-executive members of the board and approve the appointment of the chief executive.
  For the first time since 1948, the public will be genuinely at the heart of our key public service—the national health service. This reform will help bridge the democratic deficit that has for too long kept the public out when they should have been brought in. I will shortly publish a prospectus setting out more details on NHS foundation hospitals, but I can tell the House one more thing today.
  Some people have concerns that foundation hospitals are about privatisation. That is simply not true. NHS foundation hospitals will be there to serve NHS patients, not to make profits or to distribute dividends. To prevent any future Government pursuing a privatisation agenda in the NHS, there will be a legal lock on the assets of NHS foundation trusts to protect them from the demutualisation that we have seen in the building society sector in recent years or any future threat of privatisation. Our reforms are about giving life to the Labour ideal of common ownership, not resurrecting the corpse of Tory privatisation. Our aim is to bind NHS hospitals ever closer to the communities that they serve. In that way, NHS foundation hospitals will be part of the NHS and will always remain part of the NHS.
  Mr. Gareth Thomas: As someone rooted in the co-operative traditions to which my right hon. Friend refers, I warmly welcome the proposals for foundation hospitals, not least because they offer the prospect of replacing local quangos, which are too often not accountable to local people, with democratically elected boards. Will my right hon. Friend be sympathetic to those local communities that are unhappy with the way in which their local hospital is run when they come to him asking for their hospital to be made a foundation hospital?
  Mr. Milburn: I sympathise with my hon. Friend's point. I am aware of the views he has expressed and the measures that he has tried to take forward in the House to bring co-operation and mutualisation out of the last century and into this one. We have an opportunity to do that now through the NHS foundation hospital model. I want to deal with my hon. Friend's question and that asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes).
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  We will start with the best performers; the first generation of foundation hospitals will be drawn from existing three-star trusts. Forty per cent. of the three-star trusts are in 25 per cent. of the most deprived areas in the country—places such as Bradford, Hackney, Liverpool or Sunderland. I do not know whether those hospitals will want to apply for foundation trust status, but I do know that, as more hospitals improve, more will become foundation trusts. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, there will be no arbitrary cap on the number of foundation hospitals, so the charge that the policy is about creating a two-tier health service is simply not correct. This is not elitism; it is localism. It is not privatisation; it is a genuine form of public ownership. It is aimed at getting the best health care for the public by giving more control to the public.
  Glenda Jackson: I am particularly concerned about localism. My right hon. Friend has previously given examples of how, for example, working class areas do less well than middle class areas in obtaining access to national health services. How will everyone's vote be equal? In my constituency, there are huge disparities of wealth and for many people English is not their first language. How can we be assured that foundation hospitals will genuinely reflect local issues? That is central if we are to make a success of them.
  Mr. Milburn: The ballot box will be the great equaliser. In the end, whether people obtain access to services is at least in part dependent on their background and, sadly, their class, but their ability to exercise the vote is dependent on their willingness to exercise it. Everyone will have an equal vote and an equal say, and they will be able to determine who serves as a hospital governor. For the first time we can ensure—within the framework of the standards we have set, and with a common NHS ethos and a common system of inspection—that hospitals genuinely serve the needs of the local community.
  I know that many Members will have their doubts, but I fundamentally believe that we have an opportunity to construct a new model that is consistent with the values and principles of the national health service, while giving more control to those who need it: the staff on the front line, and the communities that they serve.
  Mr. Peter Mandelson (Hartlepool): My right hon. Friend does indeed seem to be describing an entirely new and imaginative model for the entire public service. Would he characterise it as the end of old-style, centralised, Morrisonian nationalisation as we know it?
  Mr. Milburn: I do not really want to intrude on family matters, but I think that it does mark a break from the past, in terms of structure but not of values. Values endure, and I believe that the values of the national health service are fundamentally right—although views differ in different parts of the House.
  It is clear from what happens in other European countries that it is possible to have both diversity of provision and the right values for care. We can have a range of service providers, but the service that they give to public health care can be based on a common set of values. I think that that is right, not because diversity

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  should be an end in itself but because alongside the national standards for the delivery of equity must be local services that meet local need. If we are honest, we will acknowledge that over the last few decades that has not been possible, and that we must change the structure and the organisation.
  Mr. Goodman: If a foundation trust falls in the Government's rankings from three-star to two-star status, will it remain a foundation trust?
  Mr. Milburn: As I have said, in due course we will present a prospectus that will deal with issues such as that. I can say, however, that if foundation hospitals are part of the NHS family and are delivering services to NHS patients, they must abide by the same disciplines as other NHS hospitals. That means that they will receive ratings, and will be subject to the same inspections as other parts of the NHS.[Interruption.] If the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) would stop chuntering and start listening, it might be helpful to all of us. If he wants to intervene, I will happily give way.
  Mr. David Tredinnick rose—
  Mr. Milburn: I will have my dose of complementary therapy in a moment. First, let me deal with the question from the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman).
  The expectation must be that as we are going to introduce the new arrangements in phases, and as the phases will begin with the best performers, foundation trusts will maintain—with greater freedom—a high level of performance.
  Mr. Bob Blizzard: Where foundation hospitals are operating in the way described by my right hon. Friend, fully accountable and responsive to local communities through the ballot box, will money from the Department of Health go to them directly rather than through local primary care trusts? Would that not make foundation hospitals more accountable to the community than PCTs?
  Mr. Milburn: No. I think it right to have one form of commissioning. As I said earlier to the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, we must ensure that all the growing resources for the NHS do not end up in the hospital sector. Hospitals will not be able to do what they need to do—reduce waiting times for treatment, improve the quality of care and so on—unless there are good services in the community, and in primary care as well. That is why we need strong local commissioning of services, which is the purpose of PCTs. They must be able to decide where resources should go in order to benefit the local community. Some will go to the hospital sector and some to the community sector; most, I expect, will go to the public sector, although some may go to the private sector. But alongside the providers must be commissioners of services.
  Mr. Tom Levitt: I am attracted by the model that my right hon. Friend has described, but what exactly does he mean by "accountable to local people"?
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  There is no hospital trust in my constituency, and the four major hospitals that serve it are outside not just the constituency but the region. How might my local people be involved, at some time in the future, in this form of local democracy?
  Mr. Milburn: I hope that when my hon. Friend sees the prospectus, he will agree that our proposals will achieve that.
  Different trusts serve different populations, and not all trusts are the same. The Royal Marsden is a specialist cancer hospital. In a sense it does not really have a local community; its community is the community of patients whom it serves. They come from all parts of the country, because it is a tertiary centre. In my part of the country there is a very local trust that serves a distinct set of local communities. I do not know about my hon. Friend's area.
  We must establish some principles for governance, but the governance structures must be flexible enough to take account of different needs and different local communities. That is why we will not lay down hard and fast rules, apart from saying one simple thing: if direct elections are to take place and if the mandate is to come from the local community, there must be an absolute majority of people from the local community serving on the stakeholder council, so that the public drive the changes that are necessary.
  Rob Marris: When British Rail went through its botched privatisation we experienced fragmentation and then, following redundancies brought about by the privatised railway companies, a shortage of engine drivers in particular. Wages went through the roof. If we are to have local autonomy with regard to foundation hospitals, how will the Secretary of State avoid fragmentation and a consequent wage explosion when there is a shortage of health professionals?
  Mr. Milburn: We will avoid fragmentation by means of the national framework of standards that we have established over recent years. Much of that framework, incidentally, was opposed by the Opposition. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras introduced legislation to create the National Institute for Clinical Excellence and the Commission for Health Improvement, and when we started to establish national service frameworks, both moves were opposed, because the Opposition genuinely want a free market in health care. We do not want that. We want national standards, and equity in the system.
  My hon. Friend asked about wages in a constrained labour market. That applies to many, although not all, professions in the NHS, but even today there is an element of local pay bargaining. As I tried to convey earlier, we must have—and can have—a national framework, while respecting the fact that different local labour markets face different pressures. For instance, there is a problem at the John Radcliffe hospital, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. That is largely because of local housing costs. It is different in my constituency.

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  Unless we can enable employers to act, we will never be able to tackle the different recruitment and retention problems.
  Mr. Jim Cunningham: Is my right hon. Friend saying that the new structures will replace the trusts?
  Mr. Milburn: Yes, in a word. As we said in the NHS plan, the more performance improves, resources bite and reform takes hold, the more autonomy will be earned throughout the health service. This is a big change, but I believe it is the right change.
  That brings me to the final measure in the Queen's Speech, the delayed discharges Bill. I believe that we owe a duty to today's generation of older people, because it was they who built and sustained public health and social services in our country. They deserve dignity and respect in old age, but being trapped in hospital when they want to be cared for at home denies them both. Delayed discharge from hospital is a serious problem. Since we put in an extra £300 million last year to deal with it, rates have fallen by more than 20 per cent., but even today, 5,000 older people are needlessly in hospital when they are ready to leave.
  The Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Bill, which we have introduced today, brings fundamental reforms to deal with that problem once and for all. Under the current system, for as long as the elderly person remains in hospital, for good reasons or bad, they remain there at the cost of the national health service. Under the new system, when the patient is ready and able to leave hospital, the cost will pass to social services. Where social services fulfil their responsibilities, we will look to give them extra rewards. Where they do not do so, they will have to pay the hospital for the costs that it incurs in providing care for the patients.
  The interests of older people are not served by a blurring of responsibility. The costs of care should fall where they belong. The Bill will help to ensure that the money that we have made available to social services is spent on them, so that capacity can be built up and not cut.
  Mr. Stephen Pound: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. A decent, well—performing social services authority such as the London borough of Ealing will find itself being charged £2.2 million a year, on its anticipated figures, through the £120-a-night charge, because of forces beyond its control. I am sure that he has considered the fact that, in many cases, the beds that are needed to move people away from hospitals providing acute care are simply no longer available in the community.
  Mr. Milburn: I understand the capacity problem, but we will again have a problem if we think that the only way of caring for older people is placing them in residential care homes. Of course, the care homes sector is extremely important, but it is worth listening to what older people themselves say about where they would like to be cared for. Overwhelmingly, they would prefer to be cared for not in a care home, but in their own home.
  I understand the difficulties in different parts of the country. That is precisely why we provided in the Budget for a doubling of social services investment from
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  this year to the next. That is not a 5 or 10 per cent. rise, but a doubling in the resources available to social services. However, social services must fulfil their responsibility. If my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) stops to think about it, he will recognise the current problem. The hon. Member for Woodspring may stand up in a minute and say that what is happening is all about fining social services, but I disagree with that language. If he wants to use it, I say to him that social services are effectively fining the health service, because the costs are incurred in hospital, which cannot be right. Partnership works only when the health service and social services each accept their responsibilities, so we need an incentive for them to do so. That is what the Bill provides.
  The reform programme set out in the Queen's Speech draws on the traditions of social and community ownership that I believe inspired the founders of the national health service. It sticks firmly to the principles on which the NHS was founded, but places a new premium on local accountability for local services. Reform cannot be achieved by holding on to the structures of the last century; it has to be shaped by the expectations of this century. Reform means investing not only extra resources in front-line services, but power, trust, ownership and control.
  We on the Labour Benches have had the courage to raise the resources; we must now have the courage to make the reforms.
  2.23 pm
  Dr. Liam Fox: W. H. Auden once said that
  "propaganda is a monologue that seeks not a response but an echo."
  Sadly, for too long in the Government's approach to health, propaganda rather than substance has been the main currency. That is a very useful ploy when it is advanced by someone as plausible as the Secretary of State, but rather than getting a rational analysis of the current state of health care in the United Kingdom, we tend to be bombarded with statistics that too often seem to patients and medical professionals to belong to some sort of parallel universe rather than to Britain's NHS in 2002, the Labour party's sixth year in office.
  As was obvious in the Secretary of State's remarks about foundation hospitals, the Government seem increasingly to make up policy as they go along in a series of knee-jerk reactions that occur when they are worried about their lack of delivery. Before we drug ourselves on yet more Government promises, let us take a rational view. We can see the clarity of thought and the intellectual cutting edge that Labour brought to health policy when it was elected in 1997 by looking at its manifesto. Indeed, it is very clear:
  "New Labour is a party of ideas and ideals but not of outdated ideology. What counts is what works. The objectives are radical. The means will be modern".
  That is the sort of psychobabble that we have all become used to in recent times. The manifesto says that Labour
  "will not return to the top-down management of the 1970s".

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  [Interruption.] There is no point in Front Benchers shouting; they can make their point later. The manifesto also says:
  "The key is to root out unnecessary administrative cost, and to spend money on the right things".
  It goes on to say:
  "under the Tories, the administrative costs of purchasing care have undermined provision and the market system has distorted clinical priorities. Labour will cut costs by removing the bureaucratic processes of the internal market."
  So has Labour returned to top-down management, cut administrative costs and dealt with distorted clinical priorities? When it came to power, there were 190,000 beds in the NHS; now there are 186,000—a reduction. There were 173,000 administrative staff; now there are 188,000—an increase. We now have more administrators than beds. When Labour came to office, the cost of administering the NHS was £270 million; the projected cost of administration for 2003–04 is £360 million—an increase in cost.
  What about distorting clinical priorities? In the wake of the recent story that a senior surgeon at St. George's hospital in London had been told not to accept urgent surgical referrals from outside the London catchment area, the BMA warned that the performance targets had a distorting effect on clinical priorities. It said:
  "This is a stark example of the perverse pressures which waiting list targets can create. Of course we want patients needing routine surgery to be treated promptly, but this must not be at the expense of life saving surgery for patients with complex injuries."
  If the concept of the NHS is to have any practical meaning, surgeons with highly specialised skills must be able to offer their expertise outside the narrow catchment area of their own hospitals. However, the Government's centrally driven ideals are interfering with delivery locally and, worse, interfering with clinical priorities.
  The problem for the Labour party is that, for far too long, it has believed its own propaganda. Essentially, its message in 1997 was, "There is nothing basically wrong with the NHS; if only those wicked Tories would spend more money on it." For five and a half years, they have therefore thrown more money—billions and billions of pounds—into the NHS, but what do we have in return? Despite a 10.8 per cent. funding increase between 1998–99 and 2001, hospital admissions have risen by only 0.9 per cent, as has been pointed out. Finished consultant episodes have risen by 2.3 per cent. The Secretary of State spoke about the maximum waiting time for a coronary bypass, but the average waiting time for a coronary artery bypass graft is now two weeks longer and there are still more than 1 million people on the waiting list. Some 80,000 fewer people are receiving domiciliary care. Emergency readmissions are increasing and have risen by 23,000 in the past two years. The Audit Commission, which is hardly an organ of the Conservative party, stated that in 1996, 73 per cent. of hospital patients in accident and emergency were seen by a doctor within an hour. That figure has now fallen to 53 per cent. Similarly, 90 per cent. of patients were admitted within four hours, but that has now fallen to 76 per cent. Some 60,000 fewer care home places exist than when Labour came to power in 1997.
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  Those are the things which are causing the real difficulties for patients and which the Secretary of State is trying to get away from. Perhaps worst of all, 77,000 operations were cancelled last year—a 54 per cent. increase on 1997–98.
  How can it be that such a big funding increase is taking place while things are getting so much worse at the front end? That is the question that the Secretary of State has to ask. If the public could ask one question, it would be: "Why is it that, with all this spending, our hospitals are so dirty?" It is this Government's sixth year in office, but 5,000 patients a year will die of the infections that they contract while they are in hospital. That is the equivalent of three Clapham rail disasters a week, which puts things into perspective.
  Mr. Dawson: What does the hon. Gentleman think of the commitment to clinical priority and need of a consultant who told one of my constituents that he could not perform his operation on the NHS for approximately 10 months but that he could fit him in in the next fortnight if he wanted it done privately? What would he say to the consultant heart surgeon who responded to a question from me about waiting lists by stating, "We are dealing with more people, older people and sicker people than ever, with techniques that we were never able to use before."
  Dr. Fox: The hon. Gentleman makes some important points. First, there will always be a difference between waiting times in a publicly funded service and those in a private service. That happens in every other country. The Secretary of State said today that the two sectors would continue to exist side by side. However, we should get proper value in the NHS for the consultant time for which we pay. All hon. Members would agree with that.
  One problem, especially with cardiology, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, is that management determines theatre time according to the maximum waiting time targets rather than according to clinical need, because funding depends on it. A reason for consultants' hostility to the Government's proposed contract is their fear that that trend will continue and worsen.
  The hon. Gentleman made valid points, but the answers are much more complex than he suggests. Even if we accept the general points, pretending that a specific case is generic is typical of the Government's approach to health care.
  The Government believe that they must always present the health care system in as rosy a light as possible. If they cannot distort what is happening, they change the presentation of the overall figures. One in eight hospital managers admits to distorting targets to fit the Government's NHS figures. One manager recently said:
  "All chief executives in the region contrived to make the same 100 per cent. return to the Department of Health on absence of waits in A&E. This was done with the encouragement of the regional director because we all agreed the requirement was meaningless."
  What sort of ethics is that on which to run a system?
  Let me cite another example. The Government knew that their target of 2,000 extra GPs by 2004 would not be met, and they therefore merged two targets. They now say that 15,000 new GPs and consultants will be in place by 2008.

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  Delays for cancer treatment as opposed to diagnosis remain lengthy despite the Government's continual bragging. The number of patients who start radiotherapy within the Government's four-week target fell from 68 per cent. in 1998 to 32 per cent. in 2000.
  Some Ministers are experts at breaking promises. For example, £50 million was promised for palliative care but only £4 million has reached the hospices. What is more, and worse, the Minister of State, who is not in his place, had the gall to launch the scheme in his constituency, but its hospice has not yet received any money.
  The cumulative effect of centralisation, distortion and downright deception is shown in the plummeting morale of those who heroically work to keep the NHS running. The deprofessionalisation that they suffer is obvious in a growing crisis in the work force. For example, 24 per cent. of nurses on the UKCC register are over 50 and therefore eligible to retire soon. One third of all new entrants in 2001 were from outside the United Kingdom. NHS Professionals, which was set up to end the reliance on commercial nursing agencies, is in financial crisis, with up to £10 million in unpaid bills. It also relies on the very agencies that it was meant to replace.
  The Royal College of Nursing claims
  "there are around 20,000 nursing vacancies still—roughly the same as the number of agency nurses working in the NHS on a normal day…A third of new graduate nurses are not registering to practise".
  What about nurses who leave the UK? A total of 6,021 left in 2002. That is the largest number for 10 years. Most headed for Australia or New Zealand.
  Despite a Government pledge to recruit 2,000 extra midwives by 2004, the number has fallen since the target was set. The Royal College of Midwives said that there are now 45 fewer midwives than when the Government set the target.
  James Purnell: Is not the hon. Gentleman's problem his inability to say that he would match our spending? Will he deny the widely circulated rumour that he asked the shadow Chancellor for such a pledge in order to solve the problem, but that his request was turned down?
  Dr. Fox: I would not discuss with the hon. Gentleman any confidential conversations that I held with my colleagues. On expenditure, we will set amounts that are appropriate to our plans. The Government have set expenditure that is appropriate to their plans. Clearly, they are not delivering. The hon. Gentleman falls into a common trap for Labour Members. They believe that simply throwing money at the problem will solve it. One cannot solve the problem of a lack of professional people by throwing money at it. People have to be attracted into the professions. Demoralisation throughout the NHS makes recruitment and retention more difficult.
  If nurses are demoralised, let us consider consultants. They have become increasingly disillusioned by the restrictions on their clinical freedom, manipulation of waiting lists and the burden of red tape. Let me give one example. Professor Irving Taylor, professor of surgery at University college London listed the various bodies
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  that assess, appraise and validate his performance and activity. Nationally, they are: the General Medical Council, the UK Council for Regulation of Healthcare Professionals, the National Clinical Assessment Authority, the National Care Standards Commission, the Commission for Health Improvement, the National Patient Safety Agency and the cancer accreditation teams.
  The bodies in Professor Taylor's hospital are: the clinical governance committee, the continuing professional development committee, the professional advisory panel, the clinical audit committee, the annual consultant appraisal, the junior doctors' hours action teams, the pre-registration house officer and senior house reviews for postgraduate dean, and the specialist registrar review for postgraduate dean and Royal College of Surgeons.
  The university organisations are: the internal quality assurance committee, the staff review and development committee, the annual university appraisal, the quality assurance agency, the research assessment exercise, the peer review of teaching and the research governance committee. Twenty-two different bodies examine his professional life. Yet the Government were going to cut red tape.
  Glenda Jackson: I am intrigued by Conservative party policies. Does the hon. Gentleman argue that he could attract more professionals to the NHS by reducing the amount of money that they would be paid? Does he claim that he would increase professional standards through training? When the Conservative party was in office, it reduced training places for nurses and doctors. Is reducing wages and educational opportunities the way in which to attract more professionals and to increase competence?
  Dr. Fox: The hon. Lady is making Conservative policies up; we will determine the genuine policies. We can attract people to any profession if they are given professional satisfaction, the freedom to value their vocation and are allowed to use the skills that they have developed without interference by someone who has little understanding of what they do well.
  I shall give an example of the way in which to demoralise nurses. A nurse with whom I worked for a long time, and who must have performed thousands of ear syringings tells me that she now has a 12-page protocol for ear syringing. Someone else is trying to tell her how to do a job that she has performed for many years. That is the way in which to demoralise and fail to retain professional people. We have experienced the effects of deprofessionalising the teaching profession. Surely we do not want that to happen in the nursing and medical professions.
  Mr. Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Dr. Fox: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
  One of the other problems is that consultants have had pressure put on them to remove the longest waiters from the list irrespective of clinical urgency, and that has been done by failing to treat an increasing number of people waiting for under six months, resulting in the bunching up described in the recent King's Fund report.

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  Consultants were also outraged by the sheer clumsiness of the handling of the proposed new contract. In particular, they were upset by the Department of Health's presentation, which made it clear to them that management would use the new contract to instruct doctors what to do and which patients to see. That became a headline issue as a result of the infamous "slide 9" of the Department of Health's presentation. Everyone in the profession talked about it. It was big news. It appeared in the medical press. Yet the day after the contract was rejected, the Secretary of State said that he had never heard of it. That makes him either the most clueless or the most disingenuous Secretary of State that we have had for a long time.
  But if anyone thinks that we have problems with consultants, they should look at general practice. One of the biggest problems—
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Eagle): Tell us what you would do.
  Dr. Fox: The Minister may not have gathered that we are debating the Queen's Speech. The reason why we come to the House of Commons is to discuss the Government's programme, which is what we are doing today, and point out the flaws in the Government's approach, which are all too easy to find.
  One of the biggest problems with the Government's approach was summed up in the words of just one hon. Member when he said that it is all about schools and hospitals. The Prime Minister is the one who is most responsible for putting forward the idea that hospitals matter and nothing else, irrespective of the fact that 90 per cent. of our patient contacts take place elsewhere. To the Prime Minister it is all about hospitals, reinforcing the idea that it is the secondary sector that is important. What about the GPs, district nurses, midwives, practice nurses and all the therapists that my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) is for ever going on about? All those people are important parts of the health care system and need to be recognised.
  Mr. Tredinnick Mr. Tredinnick rose—
  Dr. Fox: There are times when looking ahead is the best policy. I will give way later—much later.
  When it comes to the national plan, for the Government to meet their GP targets they had to recruit an extra 2,000 GPs between 2000 and 2004. The net increase throughout the country in 2000 was 18, and in 2001 it was also 18, according to the Government's own figures in a written answer. GPs increasingly look to early retirement to escape from the burden of red tape and paperwork imposed by the Government. It is frightening that fewer GP trainees—those junior doctors who have undergone GP training—are deciding to go into a full-time career in general practice.
  We have a particular problem that will hit us when the crisis of south Asian retirement arrives. Most hon. Members will understandably not be aware of that problem, but one in six GPs practising full-time in the NHS qualified medically in a south Asian medical
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  school and two thirds of them will retire by 2007. It is unlikely that doctors who qualify in south Asia will be a source of general practice recruitment in the future. The posts from which south Asian qualifiers are retiring will be the most difficult to fill because they are often in the practice areas of highest need. So the biggest problem will be in the areas of greatest need and often the areas of greatest social deprivation.
  The Secretary of State keeps telling us that the money that the Government are putting into the NHS will buy us more GPs and consultants. Where does he think we will buy them from—from GP Argos or the GP supermarket? There are not huge numbers out there waiting to be employed in the NHS. We will have to encourage them into the service.
  Management is not immune to demoralisation. The Government's bungling approach to the NHS has resulted in the paradox of a system that is under-managed at the front end but over-bureaucratised from the centre. In other words, those at the sharp end are not allowed to manage because of endless interference from the centre. Is any of that the Government's fault? No. On "Newsnight" the Secretary of State said:
  "We have national standards in place, if we have poor performance that is because of poor management"—
  never poor policy.
  Mr. Dobson: Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that if the Government cannot find additional GPs and consultants it is because for 20 years the Tory Government did not recruit enough people into medical schools and postgraduate training?
  Dr. Fox: It does not surprise me that the right hon. Gentleman fails to understand the essential point, which is that doctors undergoing GP training are not becoming full-time GPs because they find it an unattractive part of health care. That is the problem, and it is a cultural problem within medical employment. As long as the Government make things more and more difficult for GPs by increasing the amount of red tape, paperwork and restrictions that they face, that problem will continue. All that adds up to a picture of a Government who do not really understand that in a free society people cannot be forced into professions; they have to be attracted to them.
  One other area that must worry us is the recent trend in the number of those applying to study medicine. Applications fell from more than 13,000 in 1996 to under 10,500 last year. We have seen a slight increase in the headline figure, but most medical experts have expressed worries about the quality and qualifications of applicants this year.
  I said that I must give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth, and of course I must.
  Mr. Tredinnick: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to me, as he put it, much later. Surely the health service shortages that he is addressing must also be addressed from another angle, and that is by bringing in those who do not work in the health service but who are medical practitioners. Does he not agree that properly regulated herbal therapists, acupuncturists and homeopaths, for example, could ease the burden on doctors tremendously? Are not foundation hospitals a

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  great opportunity for new initiatives in terms of spreading the burden of the delivery of care—initiatives about which we have heard nothing from the Government?
  Dr. Fox: As my hon. Friend is well aware, I think that we should be using all our medical professionals at the ceiling of their ability and skills, to ensure that we are using all our health professionals in the most appropriate way. Moreover, we must be able to prove that any expenditure on such solutions from the public purse is of equal validity and worth to that of other treatments in mainstream medicine. With those two provisos, I have no problem whatever with what my hon. Friend says.
  That brings me to the issue of foundation hospitals, which my hon. Friend mentioned. That is one of the relatively few areas in which, if we drew our policies on a Venn diagram, the Secretary of State and I would find that there was quite an intersection. The concept of foundation hospitals is a good one and the policy is in a direction with which an incoming Conservative Government would be comfortable. We were therefore delighted this morning to hear that the current wave of foundation hospitals will be only a start and that the programme will be rolled out to encompass the whole of the NHS where possible. We want all hospitals to be foundation hospitals. If the principle is that they will provide better care to patients in the locality, all patients should be able to access such improvements. We should like to see the hospitals free, self-governing, independent and very much on the not-for-profit basis that the Secretary of State mentioned. We want to see an enabling state that will ensure that our health care is provided but does not see itself as a monopoly provider.
  There are contradictions and confusions in the Government's approach, however, and there was certainly a strong feeling among Opposition Members that the Secretary of State had not previously considered many of the questions put by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
  One of the most important issues affects my constituency. As has been said, local communities must hold trusts accountable, but what happens in constituencies such as mine that have no hospital trust? Which trust do we hold accountable? Those issues lie at the heart of the workability of the Government's scheme. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) raised the question of star ratings. If a hospital trust goes from three stars to two during the transition process, will it be ineligible for that transition or will hospitals simply not be subjected to star rating at all when they become foundation hospitals? Will the convenience of the system be put before the quality of rigour that the Government claim for the policy?
  Clearly, there is huge tension in the Government between the so-called modernisers and those in No. 10 and the official voice of the Chancellor, Ed Balls, who gave the Chancellor's clear view when he spoke to The Guardian recently:
  "We have to have the confidence to accept that there is a limit to how far you can apply market principles.
  The NHS and our public services depend upon an ethic of public service and a commitment to the services. In an area like health or education, if you go down the marketising route, you run grave risks with that ethic of public service."
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  We all know exactly what that means in the code used by the Chancellor to fight turf wars with his Cabinet colleagues.
  The briefings that we have received from the Secretary of State in the House differ from the reported briefings to chief executives across the health service. According to the Health Service Journal, the Government said in their latest briefing that
  "foundations in five to 10 years would be the norm rather than the exception in the NHS."
  To me, that implies a rather faster rolling out of the programme than that suggested by the Secretary of State today. The chief executives who went to the briefing by the Secretary of State and the Department of Health report hearing
  "that freedom over pay and conditions would be 'absolute' for foundation"
  hospitals. Again, that emphasis is rather different from that which the Secretary of State gave us today. In fact, he had already moved in that direction when, in January, he told the Daily Express:
  "To argue that we should simply pay everybody the same regardless of labour market conditions is absurd."
  I absolutely agree, and if he is willing to hold that line in the light of the undoubted reservations among those on his own Benches, he will have our particular support.
  We need to move quickly, because of the points raised by many Labour Members on the risk of a two-tier system. The British Medical Association has laid the position out clearly:
  "These freedoms ought to be available to all hospitals. Our prime concern must be to avoid creating a two-tier service in which patients who live near to Foundation Hospitals or are vocal and assertive in pressing to be referred to them, receive better services than those who are treated in other hospitals."
  That is the essence of the point made by the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson). The BMA continues:
  "Similarly, if Foundation Hospitals have more ability to borrow money with the result that there is less opportunity for other hospitals to obtain the resources they need, inequity will result."
  That will be a worry throughout the system, and it can be resolved only by not moving to a foundation model or by accepting at the outset that, in time, all hospitals will move to that model.
  I hope that we get clear confirmation that all NHS hospitals will be foundation hospitals, because there is a worry for many of us who have been considering some Government reforms constructively, not least the relationship between primary care trusts and the aim of passing more money and more freedom down to them. There is a rumour, which I hope that the Secretary of State will dismiss now, that there will be new arrangements for foundation hospitals whereby PCT funding will be locked into contracts for five to seven years, thereby negating everything that the PCTs are supposed to be doing: exercising greater freedom over what they do with their funding and, according to the Government's release of a few weeks ago on NHS flows, money moving with the patient.
  If the Government are saying that the freedom of PCTs will be sacrificed to give an element of stability to foundation hospitals, that is a significant policy change and the Secretary of State should tell us right now

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  whether the reports are correct or incorrect. That is vital to today's debate in the House. I take his silence to confirm that many of those rumours are correct.
  Glenda Jackson: The hon. Gentleman has already told the House that the Conservatives welcome the idea of foundation hospitals because of the freedom that it would afford them, but, with respect and given his previous contributions, the freedom to do precisely what? He has already argued that money is not achieving any improvements in the NHS, that there are insufficient nurses and doctors and that there is far too much red tape. Given that that is his position, what will the foundation hospitals afford his party the freedom to do?
  Dr. Fox: Making a mistake once is understandable, but making it twice—giving way again—is plain stupid. The hon. Lady must ask those questions primarily of the Secretary of State, as it is Government policy to introduce foundation hospitals. I have told her that I agree with the principle.
  We studied foundation hospitals overseas and I asked what their most useful freedom was. They said that it was the freedom to borrow externally, because they can make quick decisions about investment, most notably in diagnostics, where patient treatment bottlenecks tend to occur. Such hospitals can also set their own pay and conditions to deal with recruitment and retention problems in their locality, and they can determine information technology strategies in line with their local health community.
  There are three freedoms, for a start, that I would have thought most hon. Members agree with. The Government are right to move down that route and we shall support them, but we shall not support their proposals on the problem of delayed discharge, or bed blocking as it is known. The Secretary of State is quite right—he intends to fine local authorities. The Government say that they got that example from Sweden, but they could not have spent much time examining it, as they would have discovered that there are huge differences between the model employed in Sweden and that being used in the UK.
  The Government would have found that Swedish local authorities are responsible for social care as well as hospital care, so they can affect the patient flows that result in bed blocking and delayed discharge. The problem in Britain is that the PCTs are responsible for patient throughput and patient flows, but local government is to be made financially liable for delayed discharging. In other words, local government will be punished for something over which it has absolutely no control. The proposal is preposterous. Have the Government thought about what it will mean on the ground? It will result in the worst perverse incentives in general practice.
  Imagine a hard-pressed GP trying to get an elderly patient into a care home on a Friday afternoon—it is difficult to get a place. Under the Government's proposal, patients in an acute hospital will necessarily get first call on any care home beds that become available, so there will be an incentive for doctors to
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  admit patients to acute hospitals as they will get first call and be most likely to get a care home bed as a result. That is a crazy policy, and its effect will be exactly the opposite of what the Government expect. If anything, it may worsen delayed discharges in the health system.
  The Government have proposals on mental health. The Secretary of State told us on this morning's "Today" programme, as he has just told the House, that the Bill will return during this Session after the consultation has been considered. He said that the number of consultations is one reason for the delay, but it cannot be that hard to understand the point that nobody supports the Bill. All the consultations are hostile, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Mind, SANE, the BMA, the Royal College of Nursing, the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrat party, many Labour MPs and most Labour peers are all totally against what is proposed. The Bill is not a mental health Bill, but a personality disorder Bill dressed up to look like a mental health Bill.
  If the Government bring the Bill back in its current form, they are as stupid as they are arrogant. It is stigmatising, regressive and an affront to our civil liberties, and we shall join forces inside and outside Parliament to stop it, as it must not become the law of this country.
  Where the Government's programme will improve health care and coincides with our views, we will support it, even if the Government cannot muster support on their own Benches, but we will continue to expose the distortions of the truth, the propaganda and the spin that is this Government. Some things are for sure: they will tax more and more, they will spend more and more but they will disappoint and fail to deliver. The real losers, sadly, will not be the politicians but the patients.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I remind the House that a 12-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches will apply.
  3 pm
  Mr. Stephen Byers: This is my first contribution in the House from the Back Benches for more than eight years. I no longer have the convenience and comfort of resting on the Dispatch Box, sometimes using it as a means of physical protection, or the tumbler of water always ready. I have to admit that there have been times when I have addressed the House in the past 12 months when something stronger than water might have been helpful.
  On the Back Benches, I have the time and opportunity to reflect on the direction of the Government and the way in which they should respond to meet people's needs and aspirations. I have the opportunity to challenge the Government if they slow the pace of reform and modernisation that will be vital if we are to introduce policies for the common good of the people of our country.
  The Queen's Speech and the Budget are perhaps the two timetabled items in the parliamentary calendar that say everything about the Government of the day. They identify priorities and reorder the programme of the

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  Government. They should underpin the values and principles of the political party that has been elected to office at that time.
  In government, it is often a race against time. It is worth reflecting on the fact that when the period of the Queen's Speech is over and the programme is put into place by the autumn of next year, half the lifetime of this Government will be over. In the autumn of 2003, we will probably be less than two and a half years from the next general election, so it is a race against time for the Government, with people's expectations rightly raised.
  This Queen's Speech gets it broadly right. Stressing the need for a strong society based on rights and responsibilities is what people want. We need to push forward with our reform of public services, so that they are more responsive, meet the high standards that people want and give them choice.
  This stage of a Parliament is often the most challenging for a Government. Vested interests regroup, voices call for consolidation and some even argue for a change and reconsideration of our objectives and direction, but this is not the time to stand still, cling to the comfort blanket of the status quo and opt for a quiet life by leaving things as they are.
  We live in a world whose chief characteristic is change. Force of change outside our country is driving the need for change within it. Our people have new ambitions, different priorities and raised expectations. If the Government or indeed any political party fail to reflect that reality, they will quickly become redundant and their ideas will become dogma.
  That is why the Labour party has changed. That has been reflected in the Queen's Speech. We have made changes, not to betray our principles as the Labour party but to fulfil them by being in office, not to lose our identity as a political party but to keep our relevance to the people of our country. I appreciate that for many in the Labour party that has been a difficult and sometimes painful process but in this modern world—I think that the Conservative party may be learning this—to fail to embrace change is to condemn oneself to almost permanent Opposition.
  It is vital that, in government, we continue to make the changes necessary to ensure that we keep in touch and reflect the needs and aspirations of the British people. To achieve that in office will require as much fresh thinking, new ideas and courage as was necessary during the 1990s to make the Labour party electable again. That is why I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, who, in making the proposals for foundation hospitals, has shown how fresh, new thinking to identify and meet the needs of the present day can be embedded in the values and principles of the Labour party that was founded over 100 years ago.
  We need to change the political landscape so that it reflects our values and principles. We need to seek a new political consensus to sustain us in office. That consensus must recognise that social justice and economic efficiency are two sides of the same coin—they are not in conflict with each other; one feeds off the other. Opportunities should be extended to our people so that everyone can achieve their full potential with their talents. Rights must be coupled with responsibilities. It should be recognised that an
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  individual does best in a strong community and a society of others, and that greater investment is needed to improve public services, which must be reformed and modernised to meet the demands of the 21st century. That is the consensus around which we can unite as a country and that is reflected in the Queen's Speech.
  We like as a Government to say that we are for the many and not the few. We must show that that is more than just a political slogan or a convenient soundbite and put real substance on it. That is a challenge for the Government.
  There are a number of ways to meet that challenge. It is important because it identifies a key political division, a divide between political parties. The Conservative party, although it may say otherwise, will always be the party that wants to pander to an elite. That runs deep in its history and I do not believe that it is ever going to change. We, however, based on our history as a political party, recognise that there is too much wasted talent, too much inequality, and that people with potential are being wasted.
  It is a challenge for the Government to change that, to ensure that we can deliver for all our people and to liberate those individuals. We do it for them and for our country because we all benefit. We will not have a strong and robust economy if we have a weak and divided society. That is why all people have a part to play.
  The Government need to deal with the difficult issue about inequality of assets and wealth. We have done a lot to tackle the inequality of income. We have introduced the national minimum wage, the working families tax credit and the child tax credit. All that will make a difference. It will take many people out of the daily grind of poverty, but we now need to turn our attention to a far more difficult issue: inequality of assets. By that, I mean people who have no savings, who do not own their own home and who do not have investments in shares and so on.
  That is important because an increasing number of people in Britain are without assets and the position is getting worse. The new divisions that we have to tackle are between the asset-excluded, the asset-poor and the asset-rich. In 1996, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research, 10 per cent. of the UK population had no assets. Now 20 per cent. of those aged between 20 and 34 have no assets. Figures given to me just this week by the House of Commons Library show that in 2001, more than 50 per cent. of the population had savings of less than £1,500. We have to find ways of ensuring that all people can have assets that they can call their own.
  The Labour party manifesto in 2001 contained two proposals that could make a real difference. The first was the introduction of equity shares for tenants in social housing and the second was the creation of a child trust fund through an endowment paid by the Government. That is sometimes referred to as a baby bond. The lump sum would not be means-tested. It would be paid into an account on birth and drawn down at the age of 18. Every person from whatever background would have access to their own opportunity fund at the age of 18. The cost would be significant as an endowment fund of £1,000 would cost some £700 million in benefit, but I consider that it should be a priority. Equity shares should also be pursued.

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  As I said earlier, the Queen's Speech gets it broadly right. It addresses the need to reform our public services and rebalance our criminal justice system so that people recognise their rights and responsibilities. It meets the challenges of the day. The public want it and it is now the Government's responsibility to deliver. I am confident that they will discharge that responsibility.
  3.12 pm
  Dr. Evan Harris: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers), whose speech reflected the usual tone of Queen's Speech debates—that new thinking is the order of the day, as well as more profound reflections on the topics in the Queen's Speech. In contrast, Front-Bench Members are forced to deal with the detail of the proposed measures and with party political differences. The right hon. Gentleman was correct in his view that the Government need to think about reform and to have fresh ideas, and that requires courage. However, the same applies to Opposition parties. It is a particular challenge to Opposition parties, who could just about get by simply criticising the Government. That is tempting in many ways, but democracy—particularly with a lower turnout—requires us to provide an alternative option where we disagree. I have heard the Secretary of State say, when presented with opposition to some of his reforms, "What was the alternative?" That is a question that he has fairly asked the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. We have now developed our policies and I shall share them briefly with him, as he will probably want to oppose them. The right hon. Member for Tyneside, North referred to the challenge of recognising that times are changing and that there is a need for reform, and that challenge applies to Opposition parties, too.
  Before getting into the detail of NHS reform, I want to say how much I welcome the remarks of the Secretary of State about the mental health Bill. It is wrong for an Opposition party to call for a measure to be withdrawn for further consideration and then to attack the Government for doing just that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) stressed the need for wider legislation on mental health and said that the matter should not be shelved simply because the Government were experiencing difficulties in attempting to tackle what it perceives as an unreasonable risk to the community. The Government are taking the right approach in looking at the consultation and, we hope, bringing back the Bill in a more acceptable form. I accept that we will still have disagreements, but Opposition parties need to recognise that these are difficult issues.
  It is not the case, as the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) suggested that there is no organisation in support of the Government's proposals on people with severe personality disorders who pose a potential danger to the public. The Zito Trust, which was founded as the result of a homicide by someone who was mentally ill, supports those measures. As the Secretary of State said previously, such incidents create difficulties for the Government, who are under pressure to ensure that the public feel safe—and, indeed, are safe. So the
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  disagreement is not over the principle of the need to do something, but whether the need is as serious as the Government seem to state it and whether the particular way in which they wish to tackle it is right. I agree with the hon. Member for Woodspring that it is wholly wrong. Part of the problem is that there is a perception, stated previously by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) that community care has failed so we have to do something. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has had a chance to reflect on that pronouncement, which he made at the Dispatch Box. Many people would argue that community care was never tried properly because it was never properly funded. In that respect, I welcome the resources that the Government are putting in. It would be unfortunate to say that the die is cast and the sentence has been passed even before those resources work through the system.
  Mr. Dobson: We are talking about reality, not about what we might have liked to happen when the Tories were in government. The fact is that there was not enough money to make care in the community work and that was one of the reasons why it failed.
  Dr. Harris: The point that I was trying to make is that saying that because care in the community had failed—mainly due to lack of resources—we needed to lock people up, and that providing care in the community for people who may pose a danger, mainly to themselves rather than to other people, is wrong, seems to be the wrong approach. We should try putting in more resources, because, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, most of the homicides—which have not increased in number over many decades—are due to the failure of services to connect with vulnerable people who need support, not to people being maintained on care plans in the community who then go out and commit these acts. The resources have to be given a chance to work.
  Dr. Fox: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is a fair representation of the position to say that there is an overwhelming consensus that we need to update our mental health laws and that that would be entirely possible in a very constructive spirit, but that the stumbling block is the Government's inflexibility and their insistence on putting severe personality disorders and a specific way of dealing with them at the centre of the Bill?
  Dr. Harris: Thehon. Gentleman is quite right about that. Mental health legislation is rather like measures on adoption and children, in that there should be no need for significant cross-party oppositionitis—[Interruption.]—although some people still manage to disagree on party political issues. It is a good thing for the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) that there will be no need for him to miss out in participating in a mental health Bill now. He has been most assiduous in his work on the subject and I congratulate him on his promotion in the recent shadow Cabinet reshuffle.
  On the general issues regarding reform, there is a temptation to call the Government's latest NHS reform Bill the "re-re-re-reform" Bill as it is the Government's fourth attempt. That is not to say that we are opposed to reform, although we are opposed to serial structural

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  changes when they are the wrong reforms. However, the onus is on Opposition parties to come up with alternative reforms.
  To use the same language as the Government, the Liberal Democrats are proposing decentralisation and democratisation, of the commissioning function in particular. We believe that whether or not it is the case at the moment, the key decisions in the health service should be made by commissioning bodies in charge of the strategy for the health service and what it should or should not provide. It is not a provider issue, but a commissioning or, to use an old-fashioned term, a purchasing issue. That function needs to be more decentralised and more in touch democratically with the local community.
  The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Health, unusually is not here today. I understand that he is away on Select Committee business. He has said clearly that if local authorities can decide what social services to commission, there is no reason why they cannot also decide what local health services to commission. It would do away with the so-called "Berlin wall" if the same local authority committee was dealing with the commissioning of both health and social services. Two further things are needed for that to work. First, there must be tax-raising powers locally so that commissioning bodies have the ability to increase or, possibly, decrease taxes according to what the public want. It would be wrong and inconsistent to call for more decentralisation of responsibility for commissioning without giving those concerned the ability, through fair local taxation, to raise the resources needed, as they see fit, to increase the amount of services that can be provided.
  Secondly, those bodies must be explicit and honest about rationing and what can and cannot be afforded. I know that there are Conservative Members who have come round to this view, most notably the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) while she was shadow Secretary of State for Health. Part of the problem at the moment for those of us who want to see the NHS grow is that people think that that can happen without putting in the resources.
  It would be easier for the Secretary of State and me to promote the idea of paying for a bigger, wider and more universal NHS through fair taxation if the voters knew that because they were not providing enough through that means, certain things were not available. Hiding behind rationing decisions made by organisations such as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence or local clinicians leads to an unfortunate side effect, which is that people do not recognise how much rationing there is.
  We want decentralisation to democratic regional bodies that can look after the strategic role in decision making, and we want the decentralisation of commissioning to local authorities. The problem with primary care trusts is that there is no democratic local representation on them, and that is required. Local authorities need to be informed by a strengthened public health function, bringing together all public health functions including housing and environmental health, which are currently already the responsibility of local
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  authorities. They also need to be informed by the PCTs and by patient stakeholders. However, the responsibility must lie with decision makers.
  I understand that the Secretary of State has to leave shortly and I am grateful that he has listened so far, if only so that he is better able to attack the policies that I have proposed, rather than the personalities involved. We see the need for greater diversity in provision, so we are with the right hon. Gentleman in respect of the Government's proposal of foundation hospitals as new public benefit organisations and their move away from the one-size-fits-all approach to the question of who provides NHS care. We see a role for public benefit organisations, but they must not be top-down. The fact that the Government are centralising as they claim to decentralise is unfortunate. Why force that status on a select group of hospitals? Why not allow local communities—whatever the star status of the hospitals in these sham performance ratings—to choose whether the hospitals are public benefit organisations? There should be no cash incentives or bribes for that status because that would create the sort of inequity that has been referred to already by a number of hon. Members. That is not the way in which public benefit organisations should develop—just as it is wrong that the private sector should have any advantage, such as not having to train the health service workers whom it employs. The private sector should not cherry-pick or poach them from the health service. In the same way, new public benefit organisations should not have advantages handed down.
  The next criterion is that foundation hospitals must be independent from the Department of Health, if the Secretary of State is serious. I question how independent from Department of Health policy they will be. In a press release on 22 May, the Secretary of State talked about NHS foundation hospitals being established as
  "free-standing legal entities, free from direction by the Secretary of State for Health."
  However, he recognises that, by proxy, there are plenty of ways in which the Secretary of State has influence over those hospitals. For example, they will be subject to inspection by the new commission. One of the concerns we have about that commission is that it will inspect on the basis of performance targets that are set by the Department. That is not a truly independent inspectorate; it should be allowed to choose its meaningful performance measures, rather than the distorting, meaningless ones that have been discussed here.
  In the same vein, the Secretary of State will admit—because he has written it in a document—that the hospitals will not be independent because they will be subject to performance monitoring from the commissioners. I have nothing against that, but the right hon. Gentleman has admitted that the commissioners, the PCTs, who are contracting with the foundation hospitals, will have to commission to the targets that he sets. In a document on foundation hospitals that was published in the summer, he talks about:
  "Hard-edged cash for performance contracts with commissioners"
  In paragraph 3.7 of the document, the Secretary of State says:
  "Commissioners will be able to hold NHS Foundation Trusts to account for service delivery and for their contribution to delivering on local health strategies and meeting targets through

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  legally enforceable 'arm's length' contracts. Contracts will encompass both incentives for good performance and penalties for poor performance."
  That encapsulates our two concerns: first, that the Department's centralised target culture will impact on all the hospitals—certainly those that are still under the cosh in terms of targets and even the new foundation hospitals, through the contracts that commissioners will be forced to enforce—and secondly, that there will be cash incentives and fines for sometimes putting patients' needs before politicians' needs by meeting the needs of patients rather than distorting clinical priorities.
  The mark of a sensible politician is to say that a Secretary of State from his party would not be allowed to set these targets. I know that that is tempting when the Secretary of State says that the first concern of patients is the amount of time that they have to wait. However, there is an added onus on politicians and those who provide the service, which is to treat the sickest quickest. The problem with maximum waiting time targets—even in terms of coronary heart disease, which the Secretary of State just mentioned—is that the most urgent patient is the one coming up to the politically imposed deadline. As the hon. Member for Woodspring said, the people who need more urgent surgery—for example, people with left main-stem disease or critical ischaemia, who are at risk of dying if they are not treated within a week—may well find their operations postponed so that the political targets are met first. In those two respects, the Government have still to demonstrate how foundation hospitals will be as truly independent of Whitehall control as the Government's rhetoric suggests.
  There are a number of issues about foundation hospitals on which I would like clarification. First, what will be the constituency for elections to the boards? That point has been made also by the hon. Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt). How truly democratic will the elections be when one will have to elect to be a member of the public benefit organisation? As the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) rightly said, that will mean that the middle classes—who tend to have the luxuries of time and health which enable them to be more involved in these issues—will tend to dominate. How will the Secretary of State tackle the democratic deficit and the mismatch between the accountability of provider organisations and the commissioning organisations—the PCTs—which are professionally run and accountable only, and too much, to the Department?
  Will the Secretary of State answer the question about the disposal of assets of these organisations? For example, he said in a press release on 18 April that the first foundation hospitals would have freedom and flexibility within the new NHS pay systems to reward staff appropriately—I shall come back to that—and full control over all assets and retention of land sales. Some hospitals often have greater land assets than others. That is not because they deserve them; it is a quirk of history. In some areas—for example, the south-east—that land value will be greater than in other areas. Is it equitable that the revenue from those sales is not redistributed according to need, rather than history, as seems to be the proposal?
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  We are concerned about freedom over pay. There is a need to ensure that there can be more local pay flexibility, but it seems rational to avoid cherry-picking by foundation hospitals by allowing local pay only where there is local revenue raising. If communities want to respond to the labour market, they should recognise that they may have to do so through higher local taxes, feeding into higher pay in those hospitals. That is a consistent approach, and must be better than simply giving money to certain hospitals and allowing them to cherry-pick. Not only the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing but the NHS Confederation is equally concerned about that.
  For the commission for health care audit and inspection to be truly independent, it must be allowed—from the beginning, not some way down the road—to set its own targets rather than simply measuring how hospitals jump through hoops set by central Government. I hope that there will be cross-party support, perhaps in another place, to ensure that it has that true independence. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that this is now the fourth reorganisation of inspectorates. The first NHS reform Bill set up the Commission for Health Improvement, which we supported, with reservations on its independence, then the National Care Standards Commission was set up under the Care Standards Act 2000, then the next NHS re-reform Bill amended the provisions affecting CHI, and as soon as the NCSC was set up the Government agreed to merge the inspectorates so that private and NHS hospitals, for example, have the same inspection regime. If media reports that Sir Ian Kennedy has been appointed to head the new commission are correct, I have more confidence that it will be truly independent, but if the statute says that it must do the bidding of the DOH in its performance monitoring, independence will be a major concern.
  It is important to consider the delayed discharges measures. Not a single organisation supports the proposals. If there is no capacity, there is no capacity. Fining hard-pressed local authorities and social services departments for the failure of investment from the time of the Conservative Government until 1999–2000, which marks the end of cuts in real terms for social services, is not only unfair but an insult to those local authorities who work so hard to make ends meet.
  We have already heard about some of the distortions that the fines will create. There will be a distortion of resource allocation, as local authorities seek to avoid losing money overall. In some areas where there is still discretion within the tight standard spending assessment boundaries, some services will be de-funded in favour of social services, because of the double jeopardy created by the fining. There will also be a distortion of resource allocation within social services, as the vulnerable young, the mentally ill and the disabled suffer cuts in their allocations by local authorities desperate to avoid losing money through fines for delayed discharges. There will also be a distortion of resource allocation within care services for the elderly, as money is provided for intermediate care and care packages for elderly people leaving hospital at the expense of other provision for the elderly.
  Dr. Andrew Murrison: Will not fines on social services inevitably be levied on council tax payers,

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  and as the representative of a party that is so keen on local taxation, does not the hon. Gentleman welcome that?
  Dr. Harris: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman asked me that, because we have made it clear that we want council tax to be abolished and replaced by a fair tax. Even if there is a fair tax, such as a local income tax, it is wrong for the Government to transfer responsibility— [Interruption.] The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) asks why local income tax is fairer than council tax. I do not think that the idea of progressivity in taxation, which should be understood by a party purporting to support the vulnerable, has filtered down to him on the Conservative Front Bench. He would find it hard to argue in front of any audience for a property tax in which the highest band is barely twice the level of the lowest, even though the disparities in ability to pay—a foreign concept to him, perhaps—may be much greater.
  The hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) was right to imply that it is wrong for the Government stealthily to transfer central funding responsibilities to local tax payers. That would be so even if there was a fair tax, but it is even worse when there is a regressive tax. Council tax rises, which have been above inflation, have the greatest impact on people on fixed incomes, such as elderly widows and widowers who have been left in larger houses that attract a higher council tax. Council tax rises are already increasing as a result of the reallocation of taxation from central to local government. Central Government take the praise for cutting tax or holding it down, while blaming local authorities—even their own party's—for raising it.
  Dr. Tonge: I am not clear how much the fines are going to be. If the fine is less than the local authority would normally pay for a person in a residential home, there is no point in its trying harder to find a place. Would not it be better to charge the same as the cost of a residential home, levying it in the same way, with the patient having to sell their home if necessary—although that might mean the local authority leaving them there indefinitely—and would it—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order.
  Dr. Harris: The level of the fines is a concern, although not the major concern, and the Government have produced different figures and have not been clear. In a parliamentary answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), said that the reimbursement—the fine—for delayed discharge should be £120 a day in London and the south-east, and £100 throughout the rest of England. That is hundreds of pounds a week.
  The problem is not only the level of the fine but the fact that people will be fined for something that is not in their control. The fines will create resource allocation distortions and we will end up with game playing between hospitals seeking to discharge or get the fine, and local authorities, and indeed carers, concerned about whether patients are fit for discharge. Indeed, we are already beginning to see premature discharge from hospital departments. Between April 2001 and March
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  2002, 122,881 people over the age of 75 were readmitted as an emergency within 28 days of discharge. That is a 14 per cent. increase over the period between April 1999 and March 2000. There was a 5 per cent. increase in the total number of people readmitted as an emergency within 28 days in 2001–02, despite what the DOH document on implementation of the NHS plan says is the Government's intention:
  "Nationally, to ensure that average growth…in the per capita rate of emergency admissions for people aged 75 and over is less than 2 per cent., and that the rate of emergency readmissions within 28 days of discharge does not increase."
  There will be greater conflict between hospitals and social services, and with carers, who have been completely forgotten in this matter. Carers often bear the brunt of looking after people who have been discharged from hospital, not all of whom go to care homes. Carers UK is wholly opposed to the measure, although it would support an honest and sensible approach to tackle delayed discharges.
  In Scotland, a different approach is taken—trying to identify and share good practice. The Government in Scotland, who have a Labour influence, have rejected the approach proposed by the Westminster Government, and I hope that, even at this late stage, the Government will reconsider their approach.
  Although there are some aspects of this legislation that we will support, there are plenty of others on which we will oppose the Government. If they are serious about reform, I hope that they will listen to the concerns raised and alternatives put, recognise the need for true independence for the health care inspectorate, for example, and recognise that, if we are to go down the path of public benefit organisations, equity must be protected. There must be no cherry-picking of staff, and no bribes or incentives. The Government must be consistent. They cannot say, as they did in 1997, that they oppose two-tierism in general practice, and then say that they support it in hospitals. They cannot say that they oppose GP fundholding, and then introduce hospital fundholding. More than anything else, after this Queen's Speech the Government have more questions to answer than they have answered so far.
  Mr. Forth: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier today, I raised with the Leader of the House the question of the new procedure for written ministerial statements. I was particularly worried about the fact that they might trickle out during the day, and that Members might not therefore have proper access to them. There are 10 such statements listed on today's Order Paper. I have just checked with the Library, and one of them was in the Library at 9.30 this morning—demonstrating that that can indeed be done—another arrived at 11.30 am, and six arrived between 12 noon and 1 pm. However, one statement has yet to reach the Library.
  I hope that you agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it is unacceptable for the Government to handle the new procedure in this shoddy way. Members must have a reasonable expectation of when written ministerial statements will arrive in the House and be available for them to deal with as they wish. I hope that at this very early stage, the House authorities will make it clear to the Government and to Departments that we expect written ministerial statements of which notice is given

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  on the Order Paper to be available to Members in the Library in a timely fashion each day, rather than trickling out. The House has already sat for four hours, yet one such statement—from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister—is still not available to Members. I hope that the matter will be looked into.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point of order. There is no rule of the House that says what time such statements should appear. Perhaps it would be appropriate for him to take up this matter through the usual channels.
  3.42 pm
  Mr. Frank Dobson: I am sorry that the Secretary of State has had to leave. As he knows, I go around supporting the Government and their health policies behind his back. As I am going to criticise them today, I thought that I should do so to his face—or rather, because of the layout of this place, to the back of his head—but unfortunately that is not possible.
  When I first heard of the proposal for foundation hospitals, they sounded to me like a bad idea, and the more I have thought about them, the more I have concluded that they are. I believe that, as currently proposed, they would inevitably lead to a two-tier health service, with some hospitals getting better and better at the expense of others that were getting worse and worse. The proposal does not address the most serious problem faced by patients; indeed, it makes matters worse.
  Some NHS hospitals are doing a very good job, some need lesser or greater amounts of improvement, and others are doing really badly. Surely the priority must be to bring the worst up to the standard of the best, and until now that is what the Government have tried to do. They have introduced national standards of treatment for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, the mentally ill and the elderly, they have set up the Commission for Health Improvement to check on standards and give advice on improvements, and they have established the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to try to tackle the problem of postcode prescribing. All those measures were introduced with the opposition of the Conservatives, but with the support of the professionals involved, across the board.
  However, foundation hospitals as currently proposed will not be introduced across the board. The 12 best performing hospitals will be singled out for privileged treatment. They will be allowed to borrow money, both from the City and from the Exchequer, and also to keep the total takings from land sales. They are also promised relief from Government interference through the earmarking of funds. Consequently, they will have more money and be better off. They will be able to attract scarce professional staff from neighbouring hospitals by offering better pay, better working conditions and newer equipment—so they will be doing better at the expense of the rest.
  The situation is probably best summarised in St. Matthew's gospel, chapter 25 verse 29:
  "For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."
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  I doubt whether those who drafted the Authorised Version of the Bible realised that they were introducing the motto for our foundation hospitals.
  The question is: why should the best hospitals be singled out for special and advantageous treatment? If Government interference hinders improvement, why not stop interfering with all hospitals? The argument appears to be that the best hospitals should be rewarded for their performance, but that betrays an obsession with institutions rather than patients. We have only to ask one question to expose the irrationality of the proposal for foundation hospitals: which patients are getting the worst deal, and how do we get them a better one? We know that those who are getting the worst deal are those who have to rely on the worst run hospitals. We also know that they will benefit only if we can narrow the gap between the performance of their hospitals and that of the best hospitals, by levelling up performance. Foundation hospitals will achieve the reverse.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) —I am glad to see him here—talked about consensus. Until now, we have had a consensus on the national health service—just about—and it has been a Labour consensus. However, we are now in danger of setting out to establish a consensus that is basically Tory.
  I cannot see how the current proposals will lead to anything other than a two-tier national health service, with one group of hospitals permanently doing better than the other. Moreover, hospitals will have to start competing again. We said that we would abolish competition between hospitals, and we did—but apparently, we are bringing it back: we are re-introducing the internal market. Indeed, we may be introducing something a bit beyond that. If such hospitals borrow, and their income from the trusts that commission their services is not enough to meet their outgoings on borrowing—all borrowing involves paying interest and, eventually, repaying the principal—they will be increasingly tempted to look for private patients. Instead of advertising for doctors from abroad, perhaps some will end up advertising for patients from abroad, to make up any shortfall in funds.
  This whole idea springs from certain Government advisers' obsession with the concepts of choice and diversity. People like them may want such choice, but I doubt whether most people do. I doubt whether people in Bristol want to choose to go to Gloucester to benefit from a foundation hospital, or whether people in Leicester want to choose to go to Nottingham for the same benefit. What such people want is prompt first-class treatment and care close to home, at their local hospital—but their local hospitals might lose talented staff to foundation hospitals in Gloucester and Nottingham.
  The proposals are likely to widen inequalities between hospitals, and inequalities in health. For example, land values in London and the south-east are much higher than in the rest of the country. If a foundation hospital in the south-east decides to sell off some of its property, it will be able to keep all that money, which will prove a great advantage. That money will no longer be spread across the country. Since 1997, £1.6 billion has gone into the NHS from the sale of property, but it has been shared out throughout the country. Members who

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  represent midlands or northern seats should watch out: some of the money that used to go to their areas will no longer do so if there are many foundation hospitals in the south-east.
  Very recently we have heard the proposal that there should be elected boards. Apparently they are not to be elected by the whole registered electorate of an area, but by a self-selected group of people. I am not sure whether those people will be residents or patients—but patients of which hospital? I was talking to my wife about that this morning. We worked out that during the years when our children were still at home, we had made use of University College hospital, the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital for women, Great Ormond Street hospital for children, Barts hospital, Moorfields eye hospital, St. Mary's hospital and the Royal Free hospital. Will we have a vote in all of them? There is no answer to that. The proposal has not been thought out.
  If that electorate is to choose itself, it could be subject to manipulation, or something that some of us in the Labour party have a long history of resisting—infiltration. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out in another context, there is always the problem of what Tawney described as the "sharp elbows" of the middle classes. It seems to me that their sharp elbows will get the middle classes on to those electoral rolls, and other people will not be there. If there are to be elected boards, they should cover everyone in every part of the country.
  Finally, there seems to be a complete lack of logic in the Government's proposition. If the present arrangements are fundamentally unsound, how did the best hospitals get to be as good as they are, and why are the Government saying that non-foundation hospitals will have to continue to operate under those unsound and flawed arrangements in order to improve themselves? If it is true that the structure is fundamentally unsound, as the Government say, there would be no possibility of improvement under that system for the hospitals that need it.
  I do not believe that the Government really have faith in the foundation hospital idea. If they did, they would choose 12 places at random to see whether the proposal would work not only in hospitals that have been well run, but in those that have been moderately run and those that have been badly run. I do not think that the proposal will work. It will be divisive, and I shall do my level best to oppose it at every stage.
  3.53 pm
  Virginia Bottomley: Now we understand why the Secretary of State had such a pressing prior engagement this afternoon. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak in this debate as, in part, it identifies the Government's priorities. There were many omissions from the Queen's Speech, which worry many of my constituents and my colleagues—most notably, the whole issue of pensions.
  There is rising panic about people's security in old age. In their first flush, the Government rushed in and raided pension funds to the tune of £5 billion. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), my first boss, was appointed to think the unthinkable, but he has disappeared from the Government and we have heard all too little about that. When all are united in the view
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  that one of the greatest priorities is protection and safety for people in their later years, it is extraordinary that there is such silence on the subject.
  The fact that there was no mention of a civil service Bill is a serious error. I was disappointed that the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) did not refer to that issue. I am sorry that I am making that point in his absence from the Chamber, because I welcome him back to speaking in the House. The Government have found it particularly difficult to resolve questions about the boundaries between political engagement and the role of a public servant.
  I commend the Public Administration Committee, whose work on the public service ethos is extremely important. I remind the House that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made an excellent speech yesterday—and my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) made an excellent speech today. The three of us have a shared background: we have spent most of our lives working in the public sector. That contrasts sharply with the majority of Labour Members who have contributed to the debate.
  Those of us who care so much about the public service and its traditions are worried about what is happening to the civil service—the public service—and the degree to which there is a real erosion of its values and principles, so it is disappointing that the Government could not find time to introduce a civil service Bill, especially as the distinguished outgoing Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, made it clear in some of his valedictory speeches that the time had come to do so.
  That point is closely related to the issues that we are discussing today. The challenge for public services is not about policies; it is about delivery, leadership and management. There is confusion at the heart of the Government about the nature of leadership in a public service for which, inevitably and rightly, there is political accountability.
  I ask hon. Members to make a contrast with the way in which the BBC is managed. Nobody thinks that Greg Dyke's speeches are written for him by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The clarity of his role and his relationship with the people who work for the BBC contrast sharply with the problems faced by people in other parts of the public sector. We have heard far too many accounts of bullying, intimidation, blame culture, micro-managing and too many targets. Those are serious issues in the public sector, especially the health service, at present.
  Health service managers are among the best public servants whom I have come across. Indeed, I should have declared an interest earlier, as I currently spend a lot of time in executive search, especially in the not-for-profit sector. Few charities would not give their eye-teeth for someone who had been an NHS manager to lead them, yet in the health service and in this place those managers all too rarely receive the praise and recognition that they deserve. When we get to the point where health service managers are found to have been fiddling the figures to please their political masters, everyone in the NHS and Parliament should take that very seriously indeed.
  I welcome many of the initiatives that have been introduced. The extra money is an opportunity that the health service should seize with open arms. The national

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  service frameworks and, after attempts at modification and improvement, some of the agencies and commissions for health audit and inspection, are making an important new contribution.
  At the same time, however, it is important to let go and to trust the people who are leading the service. For that reason, I entirely disagree with the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). I do not doubt his commitment and I am sure that he does not doubt mine, but we see public sector leadership and management in a very different light.
  I commend to the House Onora O'Neill's Reith lectures. She talked at length about what is happening in the public service, and about the appalling problems created by ever more targets, ever more micro-management and ever more audit. Since the Government came to power there have been 8,000 targets; the NHS plan alone introduced 400 targets.
  The Government were criticised—gently—by Lord Simon of Highbury, who pointed out that Ministers have muddled ideas about accountability and responsibility and that politicians now see themselves not only as accountable for defining the overall direction and main objectives, but also as providing the services. He said:
  "Ministers and civil servants should not, and cannot, be responsible for producing the desired outcomes. That is the job of managers of those services"
  To quote Onora O'Neill:
  "For those of us in the public sector the new accountability takes the form of detailed control. An unending stream of new legislation and regulation, memoranda and instructions, guidance and advice floods into public sector institutions. Many … will have looked into the vast database of documents in the Department of Health website, with a mixture of despair and disbelief. Central planning may have failed in the former Soviet Union but it is alive and well in Britain today. The new accountability culture aims at ever more perfect administrative control of institutional and professional life."
  She then went on to say how that is undermining professional satisfaction and commitment, and that it has become a distraction from the work that needs to be done.
  We have heard a series of such comments. Charles Leadbetter, in the Demos pamphlet, talked of the centralised, micro-targeted approach. Will Hutton has also been making some important points—I hope that the Government will listen to him—about the plethora of institutions at the centre within the health service. There is the modernisation agency and there are different teams within the Government, such as the delivery unit. There is an endless brain drain up the service to the centre, instead of down into delivery on the front line. The perception remains that those who can, think. Time and again, career progression hinges on managing upwards rather than motivating and managing staff to deliver more efficient, high quality services. Plum jobs in the civil service remain in the private offices, and in the policy-making units in No. 10, the Cabinet Office, the Treasury and the Foreign Office.
  We should welcome the opportunity offered by the move to foundation hospitals and see it as a move for the delivery of quality public services not only here but throughout the world. One of the frustrations of coming
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  out of government was hearing the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras blaming public officials or, more likely, blaming those benighted Tory Ministers who had "led the country to rack and ruin" for the past 18 years, only to be asked to visit countries that were emulating examples of the new style of public service management. I am pleased that with primary care trusts and foundation hospitals we are returning to that example. It would be better if members of the Government had the generosity of spirit to recognise the origin of some of their ideas. I do not expect them to be nice to members of the previous Government, but they could have greater generosity of spirit towards people in the service. Ministers getting the credit every time something goes right and officials getting the blame every time something goes wrong is not the way to bring out the best in people.
  Mr. Dobson: Can the right hon. Lady give a single example of my blaming any health service official when I was Secretary of State for Health? I cannot think of one.
  Virginia Bottomley: It may have been after the right hon. Gentleman's time, but when the chief executive of the Bedford trust was fired, it caused a great ripple throughout the service. If he really wants to debate the matter here, I can inform him that many people in the service—including many of his political persuasion—felt that his treatment of Sir Colin Walker was extremely harsh because his ethos and values in the Cambridgeshire and East Anglia area reflected the NHS values of equity, efficiency, access and innovation.
  Mr. Dobson: The right hon. Lady seems to forget that those on the Conservative Front Bench welcomed my decision to sack Sir Colin Walker, because he was doing a bad job.
  Virginia Bottomley: I think that the right hon. Gentleman knows that one reason why I am leaving party politics is that I am less concerned about going backwards and forwards across the House in this vein; I would rather say what I want to say about the delivery of public services and the improvements that can be made in the national health service at a critical time.
  A further omission from the Queen's Speech that is a great disappointment to many people is that of the mental health Bill, which the Secretary of State mentioned today. His failure to mention that Bill to the Queen is extraordinary, given that he managed to slip it out today. My constituents are bemused by the priorities—how we can apparently find more time to bring to a conclusion the question of hunting with dogs when we cannot find time for other legislation is beyond me.
  My constituents would feel that I had failed them if I did not remind the House that 125 people are now waiting more than a year for treatment in west Surrey. They would feel that I had failed them if I did not say that another five criminal justice measures will not help with problems in Surrey and the home counties, where we have to lose even more police.
  The Secretary of State constantly points to equality of outcome. There is a growing inequality of service, whether in social services, policing or the health service.

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  We should welcome the opportunities that foundation trusts will provide to allow greater flexibility in pay and greater responsiveness to local people. I only hope that the Government will think carefully before they encourage the election of trust governors. Sir Cyril Chantler and many others have talked of trusts becoming more like universities. If governors are to be elected, it may bring a whole different agenda to their leadership and management. People are reluctant to become involved in elections at present. I fear that many of the most distinguished trust and health authority chairmen, as well as many chancellors of universities, will not be prepared to stand for election. I welcome the trusts, but I hope that hon. Members will think carefully about their governance.
  4.6 pm
  James Purnell: Pensions are often a dangerous subject. One of our colleagues spoke to members of Age Concern recently and told them that pensions was an important subject because they did not have much time left. After that, the audience gave him a rather hard time.
  The cruel irony of the health inequality figures is that my constituents in the north-west literally have less time to live than people in other parts of the country. Life expectancy in the north-west is about five years lower than the average in the rest of the country. Indeed, The Guardian reported this week that Manchester is the most dangerous place in Britain to live.
  It goes without saying that the national health service is one of the great creations of any Government in this country. Since the 1950s when it was created, however, health has not improved in the north-west according to many indicators. One reason is that we have spent much more money on acute services and hospitals than on primary care. Recently, I met primary care workers from my constituency and I was extremely impressed by their dedication and professionalism. They pointed out that until we have a big shift in resources from curing problems to preventing them, we will not be able to deal with health inequality. I hope that we will see more attention paid to that in these reforms of the health service.
  We will be able to tackle health inequality only if we have a health funding formula that reflects the problems. At the moment, the formula does not reflect deprivation or health problems. I was encouraged to hear the Secretary of State say that the new formula will take that into account when it is published and I look forward to that being the case.
  Unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), I support foundation hospitals, and I make no apology for that. It is a deception to say that we have had only one tier of hospitals. There has been a great variation in the performance of different institutions. If we can have a mechanism that will encourage institutions to aspire to foundation hospital status, it may lift average performance throughout the service and everyone will benefit. Foundation hospitals could also be an engine for innovation, allowing things to be pioneered that are not possible in the rest of the service, which could then spread to the rest of the NHS. I would certainly welcome that.
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  The health service alone cannot tackle health inequality, which is caused by poverty, poor housing and basic lack of information on parenting and nutritional skills, among other reasons. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has done some interesting research showing that many health and educational problems can be predicted by looking at children's birth weight and focusing on those whose weight at birth is significantly lower than average. I therefore find it incredible that Conservative Members seem to be saying that they will not support sure start—I give them the opportunity now to deny that. Sure start is aimed exactly at that problem of inequality—it gives people early parenting advice, as well as nutritional and health advice that can address that very fundamental inequality of opportunity. I am not surprised that no one from the Conservative party has stood up to deny that principle. As on so many other issues, their problem is not so much disunity as having made the wrong judgment on major policy issues.
  The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) refused to say that he would match our spending commitments. Yet again, his defence was that he was not writing the health budget now. However, the Conservatives have already written their budget for defence spending; they have said that they will match the Government's spending. If they cannot say the same for health, the suspicion is that they have a hidden agenda of cuts.
  It is not surprising that the Conservatives have fallen back on the tired idea of encouraging people to opt into the private sector. That is a counsel of despair. They have decided that as they will never be convincing on public services, all they can do is give a very few—the richer few—the ability to opt out of the NHS and go into the private sector. In that way, they are giving up on the right goal of improving public services in general.
  The Conservatives have the same problem regarding spending on pensions. Since the last election, we have spent more on helping pensioners than it would have cost to restore the earnings link. We will continue to do so through the pension credit, which was supported by the Conservative members of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions and also by Lord Fowler. I am not sure whether the Conservative Members who are here will support that.
  Mr. Goodman: Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Select Committee report was critical of the pension credit in some, though not all, respects, especially with reference to take-up rates, to which I will be referring later?
  James Purnell: The hon. Gentleman has a good record of campaigning on these issues. He will know that the Committee welcomed the principle of the pension credit. It made some comments but they were, in my view, mainly on the implementation and the detail of the policy.
  It is quite right that the pension credit is being introduced, because it is targeting the first major problem in pensions—the poverty of current pensioners. The second major problem is that workers are not saving enough, and I want to float an idea for dealing with that.
  There is a growing consensus among some people that we should raise the retirement age to 70 to fund a much higher universal state pension. I do not share that view.

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  The recent YouGov poll showed that about two thirds of people were opposed to raising the state pension age. We must ask ourselves why. It may be all very well for people in sedentary occupations, like ourselves, to work beyond the age of 65, but it is the exception for those in manual occupations to work beyond the age of 60, and many do not work after 55. It would be difficult to persuade them that it was reasonable to wait another five years before they get their state pension. Nor am I attracted to the idea of compulsion. It is illiberal and poorer people would end up saving money towards a pension when they would be better off using it to spend on consumption today.
  I should like to suggest a third way, if I dare call it that, between those two options—that of introducing a presumption to save. As in many 401(k) systems in America, we would have an automatic opt-in. People would automatically be included in a second tier of private saving. We would deduct from their salary a proportion of their income; that would be invested in private pension funds, which would be chosen and regulated as they are in Sweden by an independent pensions agency. Because of the size of those funds and because their recruitment and advertising costs would be low as they would attract members automatically, the pensions could operate with very low charges. In Sweden, they expect charges to be somewhere between $25 and $40 a year. That is significantly lower even than the current limit in stakeholder pensions.
  Under that system, people would have a proportion of their salary deducted to put into saving for a pension. That money would go into safe investments which would be regulated and weighted towards low-risk investments, with low charges. If they wanted, people could opt out completely. If they wanted to spend the money on current consumption or to save in a riskier pensions vehicle, they could do so. It would not be a tax. We would be using the basic problem with the current pension system—inertia. People do not get round to saving, they are put off by charges and the choice on offer. Basically, they never send off the forms. Instead of inertia creating a problem, it will help to solve the pensions problem.
  In the United States where this system has been tried, the evidence suggests that between 85 per cent. and 95 per cent. of people stay in the pension scheme to which they are automatically allocated. The evidence also shows that the policy is effective at reaching those groups that currently save less than they need to for a good income in retirement—women, part-timers, people from ethnic minorities and those in lower paid occupations. The system would be well targeted at the current policy problem—the lower and middle income earners who are not saving enough. It would not have the problem of illiberality, which compulsion does and because people would be saving from day one of their working life, it would reduce the need to raise the retirement age.
  As the Government approach their Green Paper proposals, if they reject compulsion and raising the retirement age, people may be waiting for a big idea that will respond to the scale of the perceived problem in pensions. I think that introducing a presumption to save would be an effective way of targeting the real pensions
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  problem of people not saving enough. I commend it to the House, and I commend the Queen's Speech to the House.
  4.17 pm
  Mr. Peter Lilley: We have had some interesting, constructive and distinguished speeches in this debate, not least from my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Virginia Bottomley) and her counterpart, the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). I have to say, however, that of the 20 or so Queen's Speeches that I have heard in my time in Parliament, the speech made by the Prime Minister in introducing and defending the programme in the Gracious Speech was probably the worst$the thinnest, the least substantial and the one which contained the least attempt to justify any of the measures in the programme. At first, I wondered why that was so. I think that it is because the Prime Minister sees those measures essentially as pegs on which a headline can be hung by the complacent elements of our media, rather than as substantive measures to make real changes to the governance of this country.
  I want to begin by speaking about health—rather rashly, perhaps, given that two former Secretaries of State for Health have already spoken. I spelled out in a recent ten-minute Bill speech, and previously in a Demos pamphlet, my views on the need to restore patient choice in the health service. Choice is the dynamic force which drives improvements in quality and efficiency when it is allowed to operate and people are given a choice between different suppliers. Unfortunately, choice within the NHS was abolished by the Government in 1999 by circular 117. We no longer have the right to choose a hospital other than that to which our local health authority, or health bureaucracy, is contracted to send us. We cannot choose to go to one with a shorter waiting time, with better outcomes, for a particular operation, or to one which is known to be cleaner or is more convenient for any reason.
  When I put forward my proposals for restoring choice, they were, sadly, derided, by the present Front-Bench health team. They said that to restore choice in the health service would mean individuals running all over the country looking for better care or shorter waiting times. That is a bit rich, coming from a Government who subsequently have sent people running all over the Mediterranean on the same search. But today the Secretary of State invoked the language of choice and diversity of provision. Have the Government changed? Have they been converted? If so, no one would be more joyful than me. There is more joy in heaven-and in Hitchin and Harpenden—over the conversion of one sinner who repenteth than over 99 of my colleagues who need no repentance.
  Dr. Tonge: I am a little puzzled, because I seem to remember that when the right hon. Gentleman's party ran the health service, although there was an internal market, the patient followed the money in the form of a contract from the health authority and had very little choice, except in the occasional extra-contractual referrals.
  Mr. Lilley: Unlike the hon. Lady, I do not think that everything my party did was right and that we cannot

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  learn from experience. I spelled out in my speech and pamphlet both the ways in which I thought that some of the changes that we introduced had unforeseen consequences which we did not approve of, and the improvements which should be made in future. I hope she will give credit for that rather than make silly, knocking points about the past.
  I am not sure that the Government have substantively changed their policy on this issue, certainly not as much as I would hope. To harness the dynamo of choice within the NHS would need four things. First, there is the need to restore the right of patients to choose which hospital they are treated at. Sadly, there is no proposal to repeal circular 117. Secondly, we need to give patients information about waiting times, hospital outcomes, cleanliness and so on. There was no mention of that in the Secretary of State's speech. Thirdly, we have to make money follow the choice. Again, there is no reference to that in the financing mechanisms for new foundation hospitals or otherwise. Fourthly, we have to make hospitals genuinely independent. There was reference to greater independence for hospitals in the Queen's Speech and the Secretary of State's speech, but it seemed to be an element of typical new Labour tokenism rather than the mark of substantive change.
  The Secretary of State spoke only about new control mechanisms and new accountability at democratic local level in addition to centralised control. There was nothing about greater freedom or replacing centralised control by local control. He said nothing about removing the application of the several hundred targets. My local hospitals have 248 targets applying to them. Are they to apply to foundation hospitals? The Prime Minister strongly defended the use of targets, so I must suppose they are. There was no indication of whether the ring-fencing of funds by Ministers for certain applications is to apply to local trusts. There is no indication whether the star-rating system is to apply to foundation hospitals.
  It looks as though the Government are talking essentially about a change in local democratic representation on hospital boards, to which I have no objection—indeed, I am rather sympathetic to it, although I appreciate that there are enormous difficulties in working out where the electorate lies—but not about any serious independence for NHS hospitals.
  In practice, we observe that the Government are in the business not of widening choice and diversity for patients but of narrowing it. Throughout the country, they are busy closing and merging hospitals. They always claim that such decisions are medically driven. Theoretical arguments exist that bigger hospitals may in certain circumstances provide better standards of care, but where is the practical evidence that those mergers and closures work and produce improved outcomes for patients?
  I have repeatedly asked Ministers to carry out such studies. Indeed, there is a Minister on the Front Bench now whom I have previously asked and who has previously refused to give us that evidence or to commission research that would provide evidence of whether or not mergers which have taken place have worked. In Hertfordshire, we saw the merger some years ago—the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) will remember it—of the accident and emergency and acute services of St. Albans with those of Hemel Hempstead.
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  Although I have asked for evidence repeatedly year after year, no evidence has ever been provided that a merger has resulted in the improvements in medical care that every consultant who advocated that merger said it would bring about. Now we are seeing more proposals for mergers and centralisation, including the closure of what remains of St. Albans hospital. We should have the evidence first, before we see any further mergers and closures.
  I want to see a new teaching hospital in Hertfordshire, but not as an excuse or a way of dressing up the centralisation of existing capacity in one place. We are told that the proposal for a new hospital will simply siphon off capacity from existing hospitals and result in no extra beds.
  In practical terms the Government are talking about choice, but they are reducing choice. They are talking about decentralisation but they are taking decisions centrally. In substance, there is still the bureaucratic centralism which the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras clearly still believes in and at least has the integrity and honesty to defend.
  I welcome the constructive and interesting speech on pensions from the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell). Pensions are in crisis, yet there is nothing in the Government's programme to deal with that. The Government ignore this issue at their peril. In my time in Parliament, the largest single postbag I have ever had was when it was rumoured that the Government were going to change the taxation treatment of pensions. It was larger than that received on any other subject in my 20 years here. People now are concerned because they are seeing the damage done already by the £5 billion tax change imposed on pension funds.
  Kevin Brennan: Did the right hon. Gentleman have a large postbag at the time of the Tories' mis-selling of pensions scandal?
  Mr. Lilley: No I did not. That was partly because the regulator ensured and guaranteed that no one would lose from that scandal. I had a large postbag at the time of the Maxwell scandal when the hon. Gentleman's former colleague stole £500 million from the pension funds—a feat only ever exceeded by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who steals 10 times that amount every year from current pension funds with his Robert Maxwell memorial tax.
  We are told that the reason why the Government are not proceeding with any relevant measures is that they are looking for a consensus. That is usually a symptom of indecision or an attempt to silence criticism. Although many people think that our adversarial mode of parliamentary government leads an incoming Government to uproot everything that has gone before, that rarely happens. It has never happened with pensions. Governments have always built on the measures introduced by their predecessors rather than reversing them. Therefore, the Government do not have a need for a prolonged royal commission to achieve consensus. They should go ahead and act now to improve the current situation. They can be sure that an incoming Conservative Government will build on that rather than simply uproot any new measures that the

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  Labour Government introduce. It will be our duty, however, to criticise the proposals that they put forward and that, I am sure, we will do in a constructive spirit.
  4.29 pm
  Ross Cranston: I had intended to contribute yesterday, but I fell off the end at 10 o'clock last night. I apologise to the respective Front-Bench spokesmen for the fact that because I did not anticipate being here today as well as yesterday, I will not be able to stay for the winding-up speeches.
  I want to talk about the philosophical underpinning of important measures in the Queen's Speech. Because of the subject matter of today's debate, I shall illustrate that with references to the health service.
  As has been the case for the past six years, the programme set out in the Queen's Speech continues a commitment to social justice. The objective is a more equal, inclusive society, where marginalisation is reduced and the vulnerable are cared for but where citizens have duties and responsibilities as well as rights and opportunities. Crucially, the programme continues to reflect the belief that Government intervention—notably, but not exclusively, in the form of public services such as the NHS—is necessary to achieve that objective.
  Social justice and equality remain critical concerns because inequalities still exist in our society between socioeconomic groups, ethnic groups and regions, and along a range of dimensions that include income and wealth, educational opportunities and health. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned the recent Office for National Statistics figures on health, and an independent inquiry into inequalities in health was chaired by Sir Donald Acheson. As a result of that inquiry, the Government last year announced two targets. The first target was to reduce the differences in mortality rates between manual groups and the population as a whole, and the second was to reduce differences in life expectancy between people in different geographical areas.
  At its simplest, our reaction against such inequalities originates in the belief that it is unfair for people who cannot be held responsible for their poverty, physical disability, state of health and so on to be disadvantaged. The equality that we pursue is quite straightforward in some areas. An example is equality before the law, or when people are treated as being of equal worth. In other areas, we are dealing with equality of opportunity. However, there are circumstances in which it is not sufficient for everyone to be at the same starting post despite having different handicaps.
  In yet other areas—such as protection against crime and access to good health care—equality has more to do with outcomes. However, it is important to stress that equality is not the same as uniformity, and that it is not always equality of outcome. Moreover, equality is not inconsistent with difference, or with the pursuit of and rewarding of excellence.
  In his great lectures of 1929, which were later published in his book "Equality", R.H. Tawney made that much clear. He was passionate about achieving a more equal society, but he spoke about the need to
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  respect excellence. He deprecated mediocrity. He argued that progress depended on the recognition of the outstanding, although he had contempt for unfounded pretences to it. There needs to be a balance between recognising difference and excellence on the one hand, and the pursuit of a fairer society on the other. It is against that background that we can better appreciate proposals such as the foundation hospital idea.
  I shall turn from those philosophical underpinnings to deal with three themes that run through the Queen's Speech. The first theme is the economy. It is not surprising that the Queen's Speech should begin by setting economic stability as one of the Government's three main priorities. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has delivered that stability, with inflation, interest rates and public debt all low. That economic success feeds through to higher employment, and to welfare assistance such as tax credits. Importantly for this debate, it has also fed through to the huge additional investment that has been made in the health service.
  The second theme of the Queen's Speech is public services. We must invest in public services, but we must also refurbish them to ensure greater flexibility and transparency and greater responsiveness to the needs of consumers and patients. Public services have long had a role in ameliorating inequality. At one point in his lectures, Tawney says that the standard of life of the great mass of the community depends not simply on income from work but on the social income that people receive as citizens. As I have said, public services have to be financially viable. One of the challenges is to provide first-class public services that are affordable.
  Another challenge is universality, which allows everyone in society to benefit, for example, from good health. One problem in redressing inequalities in service provision is that there is a burden of the past. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned that, and the primary care trust in my area faces an immediate financial strain in meeting need because services have historically been skewed to other, wealthier parts of the borough.
  Public service reform has to be at the core of the Government's agenda if the health service and other public services are to deliver a service that responds to individual need. One aspect of reform is countering the conservatism of bureaucracy. Not surprisingly, producers of a service are attached to the comfortable ways of doing things, even if that is not in the interests of the consumers of that service.
  A second aspect of reform is the need to overcome the natural tendency of bureaucracies to operate as silos. There has been some discussion today about the need for health authorities and social services to deal better with the problem of delayed discharges. A third aspect is possibly the most important, and it involves liberating from the dead hand of bureaucracy the innovative health official or institution. Obviously, that entails consumers of public services—in the NHS, that means patients—having a larger say.
  I have no philosophical objections to high-performing hospitals becoming foundation hospitals, as long as equality of access to good quality services is continued and the ethic of public service is maintained. We cannot go back to having a postcode lottery for

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  public services. There is a need for high minimum standards around the country, enforced by targets and inspection. I particularly welcome the establishment of the commission for social care inspection anticipated in the Bill on health and social care reform.
  However, I repeat that people who think that uniformity in the NHS is possible or even desirable are missing three factors. The first has to do with practicalities: it is simply not possible to control tightly from the centre an organisation as vast as the NHS, which in terms of size is a rival to the Chinese army or the Indian railways.
  The second factor involves the health inequalities that I mentioned earlier. Unequal treatment is needed to address those inequalities. Thirdly, and as Tawney recognised, there is no philosophical inconsistency between social justice and the rewarding of excellence.
  The third theme of the Queen's Speech involves responsibilities. Social justice confers rights and opportunities, but also imposes on citizens duties and responsibilities. In that respect, there has been an historical failing in our thinking. People such as Tawney recognised that rights involved duties, and they spelled out the implications for people with power and privilege, but they did not deal with the implications for people who benefited in a more equal society.
  One area identified in the Queen's Speech where responsibilities are crucial is the welfare state. People have the responsibility to work if they can, and the responsibility not to defraud the system. Responsibility has links with social justice. On the one hand, we must make sure that people get a fair return and, on the other hand, we must deny rewards to those who cheat.
  The notion that citizens have responsibilities is most evident in those parts of the Queen's Speech that deal with criminal justice, but the notion also has an application in the context of the health service. Patients have responsibilities— in simple matters such as turning up for appointments, for instance, and in more important matters such as access to particular services.
  The three themes are linked. We need a sound and growing economy to fund the health service and other public services. In turn, good public services such as the NHS mean that trust in Government, and thus social cohesion, increases. Thirdly, the hope must be that that will generate a greater public-spiritedness and a renewal of civil society that will lead to a more socially just society. I recognise of course that that cannot be achieved by Government alone. It depends on a range of decisions by individuals in their vast network of everyday activities. The measures in the Queen's Speech will make a welcome contribution to social justice.
  4.40 pm
  Sir Michael Spicer: Like the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston), I want to talk about the relationship between the economy and public services, although the hon. and learned Gentleman will forgive me if I come to rather different conclusions from his, if I understood them. I suppose that I am more of a Trevor-Roper man than a Tawney man. Before I forget, Madam Deputy Speaker, I ought to declare an interest as stated in the Register, in case it is necessary, although I do not think that it is relevant.
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  I do not believe that we can consider health and pensions without reference to the general state of the economy. That is particularly true given that the Government's primary solution, whatever they have said this afternoon, is to throw more money at the problem. The specific issue is the way in which the Government are funding the health service. If the extra money were really being spent on specific, discrete front-line investment projects, that would be one thing. But it is not.
  Through a combination of private finance initiative funding, which has long-term expenditure implications, and wage increases, unstoppable spending increases are being set up which will have relatively little impact on the quality of services provided but will make enormous medium and long-term demands on financial resources. In that context, the firemen's dispute is highly relevant. If we assume, despite what the Deputy Prime Minister said this afternoon, that what will finally emerge is a wage increase of approximately 16 per cent. over two years, that would be four times the rate of inflation. The knock-on effect of that on the rest of the public sector will be enormous, and it will be largely the Government's own doing.
  The fault has been to leave the impression that, especially in the health service, there are vast public resources slopping about for employees' taking. So enormous public sector pay settlements lie ahead. The question is whether the economy can afford them and how strong the economy is. The Government's answer is that the economy is very strong. We have heard the points made this afternoon. The Government say that we have low unemployment, low inflation, low mortgage rates and high earnings.
  However, that is the veneer. Peel off the outer skin and a different picture emerges. Let us begin with Britain's competitiveness, and particularly her ability to pay her way in the world. This has been slipping very fast indeed, as IMD showed last week. According to IMD, Britain has just moved from 13th place in the world to between 16th and 19th. Part of the reason for that is that Britain's employment costs are rising rapidly. Until recently, we had the most competitive labour costs in Europe, but the UK is now superseded only by Germany and France. With the £8 billion in new national insurance rates biting in the new year, the British position will be further greatly weakened in Europe. Europe's position is itself weak compared with competitive areas such as the United States and the far east.
  One remedy for high labour costs is high investment. Indeed, that is what sustained the United Kingdom in the mid to late 1990s. Recently, however, low net returns for investment, largely due to rising taxes and regulatory controls, mean that investment rates have collapsed. The effect has been declining rates of productivity. In fact, productivity rates have been weak since Labour took office, but recently they have become so bad that the Government no longer publish them in what is ironically called "Productivity in the UK"—a pamphlet that they produce once a year.
  The impact of the decline in the competitiveness of the British economy is already being felt in our balance of payments. In 1997, the current account deficit was £1.7 billion. By 2000, it had risen massively to more than £19 billion and by 2001 it was more than

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  £20 billion. No economy can continue to sustain this kind of haemorrhage without matching inflows of capital. Something will have to give. What will go first is the projected growth rate, currently forecast by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at some 2.5 per cent. per annum. That brings me back to public expenditure, especially on health.
  The pattern of PFI-related expenditure and irreversible wage increases makes it highly unlikely that public expenditure will slow down as the economy declines. Indeed, the reverse is likely to be the case. So we will have exploding public expenditure and falling growth rates. That can mean only one of two things—rising public borrowing and with it rising interest rates, or rising taxes. As the Adam Smith Institute recently showed, taxes are rising faster in the United Kingdom than anywhere else in Europe.
  Tax rises of such magnitude, especially rises in indirect taxes, which the Government have chosen, hit the poorest hardest. They also deter investment and enterprise and so further slow the growth rate. We have the classic socialist vicious circle—high taxes, low growth, higher taxes and lower growth. That is not so much boom and bust as bust and bust. We need the opposite—low taxes, high growth, high revenue take and thus even higher growth. We have in prospect the opposite—higher and higher taxes and lower living standards.
  When they rumble the situation, as they probably will when the national insurance tax bites in the new year, the British people are likely to react angrily. In that case, the polls will look very different next year from the picture that they present today.
  4.47 pm
  Kevin Brennan: In welcoming the Queen's Speech, I am pleased to see a Bill designed to meet the needs of the NHS in Wales. It is an example of devolution in action that there seems to be a guaranteed annual slot in the Queen's Speech for legislation specifically for Wales. The National Assembly for Wales does not have primary legislative powers, so it is welcome to see Bills introduced annually in the Queen's Speech.
  We have heard some interesting speeches, and I shall focus on pensions. We have heard some thoughtful speeches about pensions—for instance, from the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), although I did not agree with all that he said, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell). My hon. Friend spoke of the "engine of change", while the right hon. Gentleman referred to the "dynamo of choice". I did wonder whether the dynamo of choice drove the engine of change—
  Mr. Pound: Into the lay-by of lost dreams.
  Kevin Brennan: My hon. Friend finished the sentence better than I could have.
  We look forward to the Green Paper on pensions. They are not a quick-fix subject, although the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden seemed to suggest as much. My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge
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  and Hyde told me earlier that when Sweden wanted to change the law, it took 14 years to conduct a review. The Government are right to reflect and consult, and to move slowly and deliberately. Those who legislate on pensions in haste repent at leisure—and there might not be much leisure in retirement if the Government get it wrong.
  I liked my hon. Friend's proposal—it could be called a third way proposal, which is hardly surprising, given that it came from him—to introduce compulsion with a small "c". People would be automatically registered with a pension scheme, but could opt out and consider alternatives if they thought that that scheme was not in their interests at that time or, indeed, throughout their working lives. There would have to be a proviso: they could not expect the state to pick up the pieces during their retirement if they chose that option.
  There is an injustice in pension law, with which I hope the White Paper will deal. I am thinking of what happens to those with occupational pensions whose companies subsequently go into receivership and liquidation. That recently happened to workers at Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff—and to Allied Steel and Wire workers in Sheerness, but obviously I was particularly interested in what had happened in Cardiff.
  Some workers in that company were required, when they joined it or its predecessors—it had had various guises—to join an occupational pension scheme as a condition of their employment. They had no choice. Some have been with the scheme for well over 20 years, and are approaching retirement. They have paid 5 per cent. of their salaries into the scheme throughout that time. The company has made contributions, assuming that it was building a pension at an accrual rate of one sixtieth. It was assumed that those who retired after 30 years with the company—as many would have done— could reasonably expect half their final salaries, and a fair chance of security in retirement.
  When the workers signed up to that arrangement—as I said, in some cases it was a condition of employment—they thought that they were signing up to something that would give them security in retirement. They did not think that it was a risky investment; they thought that they would be guaranteed a reasonable pension. What they did not understand, and what I think is little understood by those with occupational pension schemes, is that when companies go into receivership—as, sadly, they do from time to time—and the pension funds are wound up or frozen, their pension-holding employees may lose everything. It turns out that final-salary occupational pensions are not the risk-free, or low-risk, investments that those workers believed them to be, and that some of them might have done better to leave their money in building societies. Pensions should be about security, not risk.
  It is bad enough to lose a job, but when those workers lost their jobs they suddenly discovered that, owing to recent sharp downward fluctuations in the stock market, the pension fund had fallen significantly in the last 12 months or so. The company had been meeting its minimum funding requirement, laid down in legislation since the Pensions Act 1995, but there was not enough in the pot to meet the needs of the deferred pensioners— the current workers who are not yet drawing their pensions.

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  Under current law, those who have made additional voluntary contributions are first in line and existing pensioners second, but the last in the pecking order for anything left in the scheme when a pension fund is wound up when a company goes into receivership are the existing work force. They are often the best and most loyal workers who have stuck with the company for decades and who will not have been laid off or sacked.
  In the case of Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff, the latest information that we hear from some members of the work force—we do not have hard and fast information, because we have not yet seen the interim report by the independent trustee appointed to wind up the pension fund—suggests that some of the deferred pensioners may end up receiving from the occupational pension scheme a pension that amounts to as little as 20 per cent. of what they might have expected from their final salary scheme if the company had not gone into liquidation. It is a jaw-dropping injustice for people to pay into an occupational pension scheme and face that prospect after being loyal workers in a company.
  Worse still, under the current system, if such people are concerned about what is happening and write to the independent trustee who is appointed to value the fund, purchase the annuities for existing pensioners and do whatever is necessary to wind it up, he will charge the fund £300 for his reply. In some cases, the independent trustees of smaller occupational pension funds that have been wound up have depleted the bulk of the resources, leaving the workers with nothing. There is no limit on what the trustees can charge for their services. Very few companies engage in such work, so they can charge whatever they like. Their position is the only example I know of one in which the person who is appointed can write their own cheques for as much as they like in return for doing the job. There is every incentive in the system for trustees to prevaricate and drag their heels.
  Another injustice is the way in which occupational pension funds are used to provide early redundancies, especially for those in management. In the case of Allied Steel and Wire, two of the company's managers, who had inside knowledge of its financial status, left less than a year before it went into receivership, taking with them a large chunk of the pension fund. Those people, who are in their 50s, are now back in employment, working as consultants in highly paid positions, leaving the workers with nothing.
  I had thought that it was shareholders and the banks that lend money to companies that are supposed to bear risks. In this case, however, the people who bear the greatest risk to their livelihood in retirement are the workers. That cannot be right, and I hope that the Government will put it right. The pension fund does not even have secured status when it comes to seeking the money that is to be paid back. That cannot be right and is a fundamental injustice.
  I hope that, when the Government publish their Green Paper on pensions, they will consider that issue closely and ensure that what they publish is about security and fairness in retirement for workers, and not insecurity and injustice of the sort that has been suffered by the steelworkers from Cardiff.
  4.59 pm
  Mr. John Butterfill: The debate on the health service has been interesting. I believe that foundation hospitals are a good idea provided that they
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  are given the opportunity of raising their own money. The proposal to constrain them means that the exercise will not be as good as it might be.
  The Government were probably wise to drop the proposal for those with severe personality disorder. The prospect of Members of Parliament legislating to detain compulsorily people with severe personality disorders might be viewed in some quarters as resembling turkeys voting for Christmas.
  I want to concentrate on pensions. I am sorry that I missed the speech of the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell). I gather that his contribution was interesting and I shall take care to read it. The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) also made an interesting speech in which he mentioned some subjects to which I shall refer, albeit briefly.
  I disagree with the hon. Gentleman that the Government were right to take their time. The pensions problem has existed for a long time. The Government have been in office for five years and they have been much too dilatory in dealing with it. If the health service is in crisis, the pensions system is a disaster. It needed much more urgent attention than it received. The Sandler and Pickering reports have been belatedly published. They should have been produced a long time ago. I look forward to the Green Paper, but I should have preferred to look forward to legislation in this Session.
  There are two crises, the first of which is in occupational pension schemes. Why is there a crisis? It is partly due to the regulatory burden on pension providers—that is, employers. That is partly our fault because some of the provisions in the Pensions Act 1995 imposed unnecessary burdens and that needs to be redressed. The crisis is partly due to FRS 17—the new accounting standard—which has drawn to shareholders' attention the true burdens of pensions on companies. However, it is mostly due to lack of funds.
  The falling stock market has led to a serious predicament and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) said, the Government's advance corporation tax changes are criminal. They bear a huge responsibility for the crisis.
  As the hon. Member for Cardiff, West said, there is a severe problem when the schemes get into trouble. That happens for some of the reasons that I outlined. There is not enough money, and the schemes rely on the employer's continuing prosperity to sustain them. When they begin, there is no money, and employees and employers decide that if they stay together for 25 or 30 years, pensions will be provided. However, as the hon. Gentleman said, the hierarchy is wrong. Moneys should be withdrawn from partially completed schemes in proportion to the amount that people paid in, the length of time that they served and the amount that they can reasonably expect to take out. The nearer they get to retirement, the greater the difficulty of finding alternative employment or making up the contributions in another scheme.
  The hierarchy should reflect the proximity of the employee to retirement and the amount that has been paid in over the years. An employee who was approaching retirement and had served less time would therefore get less than another who had served longer

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  and paid in more. That is logical and fair and I hope that the Government will deal with that when they produce a Bill.
  I also hope that the Government accept the need to provide incentives for employers to produce such schemes. Everything that the Government have done so far has proved a disincentive to the schemes. If we are to continue with final salary schemes, which are the best that most people can expect, the Government must reintroduce some form of incentive.
  I come now to personal pensions—people's private savings where they do not have a company scheme. Here there has been a terrible loss of confidence among the public, most notably because of the difficulties with Equitable Life, but also many others. Again, the ACT changes and the stock market falls have meant that bonus rates are considerably reduced and people are wondering whether such pension schemes are really a good place for their money.
  The other disincentive is the rumours about possible tax changes. The Government do no service to the industry by letting rumours float about that they are about to abolish the tax-free lump sum and higher rate tax relief. All that creates uncertainty in the eyes of those who are saving for their retirement.
  There is a huge anomaly in any suggestion about the tax-free lump sum. The tax-free lump sum encourages people, many of whom should not do so, to take the tax-free lump sum to obtain their tax relief. In fact, the Government should be telling many people with smaller pension pots that they should put all their money into the purchase of an annuity, and then perhaps say, to offset the fact that they do not get the tax-free lump sum, that they should have a 25 per cent. reduction in the tax that they will pay on that part of the annuity that they might have taken as a tax-free lump sum. That is what happens elsewhere in Europe.
  For example, the Spanish say that an annuity is largely a repayment of capital and only a small amount of it reflects interest earned by that capital. Therefore, they charge people on only 25 per cent. of their annuity; 25 per cent. becomes taxable income and all the rest is tax-free. That happens throughout Europe. Europe has much lower rates of taxation on pensions than on other forms of income.
  If the Government want to encourage people to save for themselves, they will have to look at what happens elsewhere in Europe and take such action. The problem with pensions is that they are inflexible and a long-term lock up—30 or 40 years—compared with alternative forms of saving.
  The difficulty is that many people prefer an alternative means of saving because they are not prepared to accept such a lock-up and the risks that are inherent in pensions. Many young people today put their money in buy-to-let properties. That has the beneficial effect of increasing the pool of properties available to let, but it also adds to instability in the housing market. A lot of buy-to-let purchases have forced up the price of property and contributed to a huge escalation in property prices. If, as it appears, some of the buy-to-let properties are now proving difficult to
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  let because of over-supply, that may contribute to an artificially steep downturn in property prices. It has induced an element of instability in the property market.
  The Government should consider all those aspects and urgently introduce legislation. I hope that once they have the results of the consultation on the Green Paper they will bring legislation to the House with all possible speed.
  5.8 pm
  Glenda Jackson: I endorse the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). Not only do I share his dubiety over the creation of foundation hospitals but we share constituency boundaries, we comprise the parliamentary seats within the London borough of Camden and we also share, in a sense, the health facilities that are provided in that part of north-west London, which are not exclusively within the borough of Camden. There is close working with Islington, and the Royal Free hospital in my constituency takes patients from Brent and Haringey and the whole of north-west London.
  I shall not reiterate the points made by my right hon. Friend. I am concerned that the creation of foundation hospitals could have a deleterious effect on other hospitals. The hospitals that comprise health provision within my constituency in north-west London already work closely with each other and with other partners both within and without the NHS. I do not believe that the creation of a foundation hospital in the area of London that my right hon. Friend and I represent would necessarily achieve an improvement across the range of treatments for people who require them, whether they live in the area or travel to it every day to work.
  I am also concerned about who will be the voters in this particular democratic process. I intervened on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to ask whether he could give more detail on what comprises localism, and he attempted to allay my fears about who would be the decision makers in the creation of a foundation hospital by pinning his faith on the ballot box. Well, I am no psephologist, but I have read sufficient reviews of general and local elections to know that a great many more Labour votes are required in certain parts of the country to return a Labour representative to the House.
  In other parts of the country, a great many more Conservative votes are required to return a Conservative MP to the House. Of course, the Liberal Democrats believe that there will be no genuine representation of the feeling that resides in the country for their party and their policies until there is a complete abdication of the first-past-the-post system, under which people are sent to sit on these green Benches.
  Dr. Tonge: Hear, hear.
  Glenda Jackson: I share the hon. Lady's view, but that is not the point that I am attempting to make here.
  It is not the case that everyone who lives in my constituency and depends on the NHS has the same quality or volume of voice on making decisions about the priorities for health care provision in that constituency. I very much welcome the changes that the

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  Government have implemented in attempting to make the voice of the patient more pertinent and more directly heard by those who decide health provision, but we still have a long way to go to ensure that everyone has an equal voice. One of my concerns is that the creation of foundation hospitals, far from increasing transparency, openness and—that dread word in this context—choice, will have exactly the opposite effect.
  I am concerned about choice because every year it is the big issue in educational provision in my constituency. My constituents who are parents believe that such a choice is in fact a right to the first choice of school for their children as they go into secondary education. All the schools in Camden are extremely good. All the secondary schools are invariably oversubscribed, and they all have waiting lists. That is the one issue that turns up every year when parents discover the truth that they have a choice, but no right, and we must examine it in respect of health care provision.
  I can think of individuals and many groups that will campaign vociferously and vigorously for what they perceive to be their choice and, indeed, even their right with regard to health provision. If they win that argument—there is no bottomless pit of money, although I understand that foundation hospitals will be able to borrow—the pursuit of a priority health need by a particular group could have a deleterious effect on people whose health needs may be just as great, but whose ability to phrase their argument, capacity to make it, and access to those who should be listening are limited.
  I am somewhat concerned about whose voice is listened to most closely in the still-hierarchical structure of the NHS. I am all for modernisation if it achieves an improvement of our public services, but I do not believe that the voice of a consultant carries equal weight to that of a hospital porter or a hospital cleaner. I am sorry, but I have never yet come across such a situation.
  There is also not the same equality of voice when it comes to a patient who may be elderly, who may be chronically alcoholic, who may have certain personality disorders, who invariably smells, or who can be more than a little abusive when receiving care and treatment from hospital staff. I am not arguing that anyone who works in the NHS should put up with abusive treatment, be it physical or verbal, but fortunately our NHS is served by human beings and they can be as selective in their prejudices as in those areas that they wish to support.
  If a foundation hospital is created, for example, in the area that I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras serve in this Parliament, other hospitals that are doing a sterling job and that may have not three stars but two could feel that their contribution had been diminished, demeaned and reduced. Their patients could easily feel that the quality of service that they as users of the NHS will receive there may not be as good as that at a foundation hospital a little further down the road. If funding, up to a point, and the prioritisation of services still depend on what general practitioners tell primary care trusts their patients require, and if patients say, "I do not want to go to hospital A because hospital B is a foundation hospital," despite the arguments that my right hon. Friend the
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  Secretary of State has advanced, I can see there being a diminution in funds for those hospitals that do not achieve foundation status.
  As we all must know, inevitably there would be poaching. We have seen poaching in every area of virtually every industry and business over past years. If foundation hospitals come into being, I have no doubt that managers, boards and the chief executives of hospitals, probably at the behest of their consultants, will attempt to poach individuals.
  Dr. Murrison: Does not the hon. Lady agree that her dilemma may be resolved if the Government give us a proper timetable for the rolling out of foundation hospitals? If that timetable were tight, the issues that she is describing would not arise.
  Glenda Jackson: I regard the hon. Gentleman's intervention as somewhat flippant. We are talking about major fundamental changes in the provision of health services by the creation of a new tier of hospitals. The Secretary of State pointed out that a much more detailed presentation of what will constitute a foundation hospital will be published, but I have been at some pains to point out that not everyone is as capable—by virtue not of a lack of intelligence but, certainly in my constituency, of not having English as a mother language, for example—of voicing their concerns. If there is going to be genuine consultation on the issue, that consultation must enable everyone who will be affected by the creation of foundation hospitals to voice their opinions. I deeply regret allowing the hon. Gentleman to intervene. [Interruption.] I am entitled to voice my opinion. If Conservative Members do not like it, it is their hard luck.
  Centrally and essentially, my concerns stem from my perception that foundation hospitals will not present to users of the health service a more open, more transparent service, where they are genuinely in control and truly the drivers of the quality, type and range of health services that they require. I am open to argument. It would be nice if my mind could be changed by what the Government produce for us to view, but at the moment I am deeply suspicious. It seems that the move will create a two or even three-tier NHS. That is not what the NHS should be about. It is certainly not what a Labour party and a Labour Government should be about.
  5.19 pm
  Mr. John Horam: I am very glad to be called before I succumb to deep vein thrombosis, which might result from sitting on these Benches for a prolonged period. That would be particularly unfortunate during a health debate. However, I am sure other hon. Members have similar complaints.
  A fortnight ago, the chief executive of my local hospital trust, the Bromley Hospitals NHS trust, held a meeting in response to the concerns of local residents about hospital treatment in the area. This was occasioned by an incident where a disabled and blind 87-year-old man who had had a series of strokes was kept waiting on a trolley for 32 hours in Bromley hospital. He was neglected to the extent that when his daughter arrived to see him on the day he died, he was lying in a

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  pool of his own vomit. It is said that he spent his final hours praying to God for help—he got none from the local hospital. The hospital acknowledged that it had clearly failed in his case.
  Although that case is a shocking example of what can happen, in terms of waiting times in accident and emergency it is far from unique. Indeed, at the meeting to which I referred, the chief executive responded sensibly by agreeing to set up a committee of hospital users and relatives to look at cases where hospital care had clearly gone inexcusably wrong. He has also implemented a number of welcome short-term measures to do with accident and emergency. This shows that managers in the health service, of which that chief executive is a fine example, are genuinely very responsive to the problems that they face. The difficulties are certainly no reflection on the staff, who are not only responsive but caring and hard working. The problem is that all too often hospitals are overwhelmed by staff shortages, particularly nurse shortages, and by poor facilities.
  Bromley hospital operates on three different sites. Indeed, until a few months ago, Orpington hospital operated in prefabricated buildings that were built during the first world war. However, help is at hand as a new hospital is due to open next April. It is a happy coincidence that I was a Minister in the Department of Health when most of the planning took place, although I give the present Government credit for continuing with the plans and bringing them to fruition. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) was Secretary of State at that time and I give him and the Government due credit for that. As he will be aware, there is one problem, however. The new hospital, which is a PFI hospital, has fewer beds than are now spread over three hospitals. We have already discussed delayed discharges, and as the present hospital has only one star, it is far from being a foundation hospital because of the number of cancelled operations, the readmission rates and the waiting times in accident and emergency to which I have referred. As a consequence, although there might be a shiny new hospital, the circumstances facing local residents may well be worse.
  In addition, the plan suggested that the space that patients occupied should be turned into offices for accountants and administrators. As a consequence, I started a campaign, together with a local group, the community care protection group—a dedicated group of women who campaign locally on health issues—to save the beds in the Orpington hospital. Our slogan, not unnaturally, was "Beds not bookkeepers". It was rather obvious, but effective. As a result, we got 11,000 signatures and we were able to go to the primary care trust to present the case for keeping the beds.
  Our first suggestion was that the beds be kept for intermediate care because, as health experts will know, there is a severe shortage of care beds and private care facilities. If we are to deal with bed blocking or delayed discharge, some intervening care facility must be available, and here was a hospital with beds in it that could be used for precisely that purpose. To begin with, the PCT was somewhat chary about the suggestion; possibly because it was entirely new and, as a result of the continual reorganisation of the bureaucracy of local
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  health, had been in existence for only a few months and had succeeded another organisation that had lasted only a year. Therefore, the trust felt that it had to hang on and be careful before committing itself to something of that kind.
  In the end, the PCT agreed that the beds in Orpington hospital should be kept open—for the purposes, possibly, of intermediate care—for 18 months, which will at least see us through the period until April 2003 when the new hospital is up and running. However, the fact was that it was only an 18-month reprieve, but the Bromley Hospitals NHS trust came forward with a better solution when it applied for inclusion in the Government's programme for diagnostic and treatment centres, a programme that the Government have been rolling out for some time.
  Bromley was not in the first tranche but has applied to be in the second tranche, on which decisions have to be taken. I should be grateful if the Under-Secretary would convey to her right hon. and hon. Friends my request that a decision be made on the issue. Is Bromley Hospitals NHS trust to be included in the current tranche for diagnostic and treatment centres in south London? I understand that that is a possibility, and that Guy's is another candidate for the programme. I would like an indication this evening as to whether that decision will be made in the near future. We understood that the decision was to be taken in October; it is now November and we need a decision as soon as possible. In that respect, I pay due regard to the Government's decisions on these matters, which have been helpful.
  As the Secretary of State said, investment is not the only issue; there are also the issues of recruitment and reform. I, too, welcome the fact that the Government are climbing out of Labour's long-held views about the need for institutions such as the NHS to be run in a monolithic, state-funded way with heavy trade union organisation. I agree that it is a step forward for Labour to move towards Conservative ideas of greater diversity of supply. That is sensible.
  What I fear—and what, I think, the Prime Minister fears—in the light of the opposition we have heard today from the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, and the hon. Members for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) and for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes), as well as in coded phrases from the Chancellor of the Exchequer and from trade unionists, is that that opposition will prevent the Prime Minister from going fast enough and on a broad enough basis to bring about the improvements in public services, and particularly health, that we desperately need.
  5.29 pm
  Mr. Kerry Pollard: The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer) was complaining about the Tories' poll position. I have some comfort for him: I do not think that they can go much lower. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) mentioned the downscaling of my hospital in St. Albans and the shutting down of the accident and emergency department some time ago—10 years ago, in fact, when he was the Member for St. Albans as well as a Secretary of State.
  I welcome the modernisation of the health service and the freedom that it may give to local hospitals, with devolution of decision making and local accountability.

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  Our primary care trust is ready to take up that responsibility in the fulness of time. In preparation for this debate, I looked up how much money was given to our local health economy in 1996: just over £400 million. This year the figure is just over £800 million—double that amount. Outputs have not doubled, but some improvements have taken place and more will surely follow.
  I visited my local hospital yesterday and went to the day surgery unit, which is very ably run by Sister Eileen Kent. She is willing and able to increase throughput so that more operations are done and there are more good outcomes. I also visited the minor accident and emergency unit that remains. The sister in charge, the consultant, Rita Dunkerley, is also pleased to add more facilities to what she already provides. The will is there among the health professionals, and all they want is the freedom to act.
  A theatre and two wards were reopened in the hospital two years ago, and a planning application has been lodged for a new theatre to support the four that are already operating. I am sure that that will help with our waiting lists. There is also a plan to provide some much needed key worker accommodation on the site.
  About nine months ago, our special care baby unit at Hemel Hempstead hospital was shut because it proved impossible to recruit staff. I am pleased to report that just yesterday, I received a letter from the chairman of our health authority saying that a midwife-led unit would be opened at the hospital to provide facilities for women expecting a low-risk birth.
  We are about to undertake a second review of our acute hospital services—we had one three years ago, and I believe that inappropriate decisions were taken then. I hope that this time, the Secretary of State will make a more robust decision, looking to the longer term. There has been discussion about having a big new hospital, a centre of excellence, in the area. Two sites have been identified, one in Frogmore, in my constituency, and the other at the British Aerospace site in Hatfield. Recently, a third site—the old Harperbury mental hospital site—was suggested by Councillor Malcolm Macmillan. It is a huge site very close to the motorway, and should provide all the land needed for a big new hospital. We need extra capacity, and the new hospital should take care of that.
  As the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden said, we want a new teaching unit, a medical school, at the university of Hertfordshire. Next week I will meet the vice-chancellor to further that aim.
  I am concerned about outcomes, not about who provides the facilities. My wife suffers from debilitating arthritis and is waiting to see a specialist. I hope that she will be off the waiting list very soon, and will start some treatment. My Auntie Pam, who is very dear to me, is recovering from cancer, and I hope that, having had her sixth chemotherapy treatment yesterday, she will continue to recover.
  Close to my constituency there is a BUPA hospital. BUPA stands for British United Provident Association—and provident is the right term to describe providing much needed additions to our national health service provision. It is a not-for-profit organisation that provides good services, and we should use it where we can.
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  Finally, I have a serious matter to draw to the attention of the Front-Bench team. A resident of St. Albans has been waiting 50-plus years for an operation to have his tonsils removed.
  Mr. Pound: Fifty years?
  Mr. Pollard: Fifty-plus years. My mum took me to Rochdale infirmary 50 years ago to see about having my tonsils out, and I have been waiting ever since. The hospital has since shut down, and I believe that my records have been lost. I have to report to the House that my tonsils are well now, so I am really pleased that I did not have them out. I commend this Queen's Speech.
  5.35 pm
  Dr. Jenny Tonge: What the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) has just said shows what a useless operation a tonsillectomy was in many cases. How good it is that it does not happen quite so often nowadays.
  Before I became an MP I spent nearly 33 years in the health service, and I can remember that there has been a minor or major reorganisation every year since 1974. That is why those working in the health service regard it as a bit rich for the Health Secretary to tell them that they must get used to change. There has been change every year for more than 20 years, and another one is not welcome.
  It is certainly true that a lot more money has been put into the health service under this Government, and we welcome that, but as the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) said, unfortunately it has been accompanied by far more bureaucrats. Two thirds of the pages of the Health Service Journal are now occupied by advertising, whereas it used to occupy less than a third of the pages. The bureaucrats are setting up so many schemes, and have to employ so many people to fulfil the targets set by the Department of Health, that they are preventing money from reaching the patient. I wish that the Government would take that point on board.
  An example of bureaucratic meddling recently occurred in my own area, in Kingston Hospital NHS trust. In August the chief executive was suddenly magicked away. The hospital needed refreshing, we were told, and he went just after the new strategic health authority was formed. He was the first health service manager I have come across in my entire career who was popular with all the hospital staff. They would do anything he wanted them to. The consultants supported him en masse, and the medical director resigned. What a fine decision that was from the top! In some extraordinary way, another chief executive has already been appointed without advertisement or interview. All of a sudden, someone was magicked up to fill that place. Such meddling from the top is absolutely outrageous.
  The patients, too, are not very happy. I shall cite just one example. A year ago, a constituent of mine was given an appointment for a bone scan, which was to take place this month. She has just received a letter from St. George's hospital, saying that her bone scan cannot be done this month, and asking her to come back in November 2003. She will have had to wait two years for a routine scan that she needs. Things are not looking good. When I saw the Government's proposal on

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  foundation hospitals, I must say that I thought it was quite a good idea. There is no question but that hospitals need freeing up; they need to be freed from the bureaucracy that is fed down from the top.
  I am glad that I attended this debate because, as some hon. Members have said, it has been excellent. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) and the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) have made me think hard about this notion, and I should like to pose a few questions for those on the Government Front Bench. I am all in favour of pilot schemes. Let us choose a few foundation hospitals from all ranges—a good one, a middling one and a bad one—as the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras suggested. Let us see what happens in 12 months' time, and then spread the idea across the whole NHS, if it proves a good one. However, a two-tier system is a bad idea, for all the reasons that have been given by other hon. Members.
  I remain extremely worried about the concept of membership of the proposed mutual organisations. As hon. Members have asked: who will be the members and who will be the voters? The local hospital for my constituency is in Kingston. Other hon. Members have talked about the crossover of patients between primary care trusts, many of which will place their contracts with different hospitals, so who will have ownership of those hospitals? Who will decide who can be members of those mutual societies? How long will it be before a charge is levied on people who want to be members of a hospital and they have to pay a membership fee? If a person is a member and a voter at a particular hospital—as if they were on its electoral roll—will they be able to obtain treatment anywhere they choose, or will they have to stick with that hospital? We need clarification.
  Dr. Murrison: I, too, should like clarification. In her opening remarks, the hon. Lady said that there was too much change in the NHS and referred to her 33 years in the service, yet she went on to give a broad welcome to the idea of foundation hospitals. Does she want change or not? Although she is a Liberal Democrat, she cannot have it both ways.
  Dr. Tonge: I fully appreciate the hon. Gentleman's comment. However, I was pointing out that people in the health service are thoroughly sick of change because there has been so much meddling. Nevertheless, they would welcome freedom from top-down management; there is no question about that. On this occasion I am speaking on behalf of colleagues and ex-colleagues in the NHS and not for myself or as a Liberal Democrat.
  Hon. Members have observed that foundation hospitals in the south-east with a great deal of land would become rich, but that those riches would no longer be shared with the rest of the health service. However, what happens if foundation hospitals are mismanaged and get into debt? Will the Chancellor be happy to pay off those debts? Much more thought needs to go into such considerations.
  During my years in the NHS, I served as chair of social services in the London borough of Richmond for five years, so I saw both sides of the divide and the
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  constant buck passing between social services departments and health authorities. Because of my health service days, I have much sympathy with the Government's desire to get patients out of hospital beds quickly. For example, some social services departments make an absolute meal of home care packages and the process goes on for weeks and weeks. It should be speeded up and home care should be carried out by social services if it is within their resources.
  Residential care is a big problem in the south-east, especially in south-west London. Local authorities should be given more time and more financial help to manage the movement of patients out of acute beds and into residential care. What happened to intermediate care beds? What happened to the plans for low-tech beds?
  I shall not dwell on the mental health Bill. I am delighted that the Government are thinking again. Many changes are needed in mental health services, not least proper funding for the scandalous care in the community scheme, which rapidly became neglect in the neighbourhood. Before the Government even think about reorganising mental health services, however, we need proper funding not only for more psychiatric nurses and social workers in that field, but also for more beds. Everything will depend on their availability.
  I am sure that we shall have further opportunities to discuss changes in mental health services, and as I know that other Members want to speak in this debate, I shall conclude my remarks. I do not envy the Government in their task. I know enough about the health service to realise how difficult the problems are. I share some interest in and have some sympathy with what they are trying to do, but they should think again—and hard—before they take the route that they propose.
  5.44 pm
  Mr. Stephen Pound: We have heard much that is wise and well informed this afternoon. We have also heard, from the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge), an extraordinary description of the strange goings on in Richmond—a strange part of the world where consultants and chief executives apparently appear, reappear and disappear in a puff of smoke in what is clearly Hogwarts hospital. She described a circumstance that I have never before suspected, although I had often wondered what strange magic in the air made people vote Liberal Democrat.
  Dr. Tonge: Given what has happened at Kingston hospital recently, Harry Potter would have been very useful. He would have made a much better job of it.
  Mr. Pound: From the hon. Lady's description, I rather suspected that Lord Voldemort was in charge of the hospital.
  Talking of evil, my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell), the golden boy—in fact, the increasingly golden-haired boy—of a future Labour Administration, described foundation hospitals as the dynamo of change driving the engine of choice, or vice versa, using that graphic expression so elegantly enunciated by my good friend the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan). I take some issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde,

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  as it is not good enough to say that foundation hospitals will enable best practice to spread throughout the national health service. There is nothing to prevent best practice from spreading throughout the NHS now. All one and two-star hospitals should by all means aspire to the higher tier, but I dread the thought of a replication in the health service of the scandal of sink secondary schools. I sincerely hope that that will not happen, and I have confidence that those on the Labour Front Bench will ensure that it does not. However, we have to put a marker down now.
  I declare an interest, as the national health service and I were born together, in the first week of July 1948. I know what it is like to be 54 years old, fairly rocky, and in need of modernisation and an urgent cash injection. The important point is that although—as we did not have television in Fulham in those days—I am one of a great many children, my eldest brother, who was born in 1946, died at the age of three months and my next brother, who was born in 1947, also died at that age. I was born in 1948 under the NHS—one of the first children to be born under the NHS—and although it may not please all right hon. and hon. Members, I live in rude good health. I experienced the two-tier health service. I do not want to see it again.
  I raised the subject of cross-charging policies between social services and health services with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health earlier. Many hon. Members have touched on that issue. Local authorities in London can be charged up to £120 per night for any patient who is what is colloquially known as bed blocking. Earlier, I mentioned the situation of the London borough of Ealing, where 38 patients who are the responsibility of the borough are still in various hospitals—Ealing, Hammersmith, Central Middlesex and Charing Cross—even though they are fit for medical discharge. That is not because of any idleness or lack of activity or interest on the part of the borough, but because we have lost more than 100 beds in independent nursing homes in the past year. That was caused by house prices in London, and we do not have any control over it.
  The local authority faces the prospect of having to transfer £2.2 million to the acute hospitals as a result of something that is beyond its control. Ealing is performing well as a local authority, particularly in social services, but we have a £5.2 million overspend. Social services are demand led. One cannot tell people not to claim. Although there is a virement from central Government, we are still overspent because we have spent above the standard spending assessment. A substantial proportion of that overspend—about £2 million—is entirely due to elderly person placement costs, and cross-charging policies can only exacerbate that situation.
  In his response to my earlier question, the Secretary of State referred, quite rightly, to the additional money that is flowing into the national health service. The figure works out to about 6 per cent. of additional funding in 2003–04. The trouble is that the local
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  authorities will not receive these funds until the financial year 2003–04, but they are faced with a £120 per night per patient impost now.
  Dr. Murrison rose—
  Mr. Pound: There was much talk earlier of the Swedish model, but before I move to the Swedish model, I will give way to the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison).
  Dr. Murrison: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that because bed blocking is particularly acute in London and the south, the transfer would actually represent a bed-block tax that would disproportionately affect London and the south of England?
  Mr. Pound: I saw the hon. Gentleman stooped in the posture that I assumed to be that of the thinker. Had I but realised that he was crouching like a footpad to ambush me, I might have resisted his intervention. This is not a bed-blocking tax, and it would be absurd to describe it as such. It is a matter to which the Government must give their attention, and I have every confidence that they will.
  The annual social services conference in October was honoured by the presence of the Secretary of State for Health, and there was much discussion of the Swedish model. May I point out some of the differences between that model and what we have been discussing today? In Sweden there was a two-year lead-in time before the proposals were implemented. In addition, local authorities had responsibility for a vast range of alternative provision, including direct commissioning of health care. There is very little exposure to the variable pressures of an independent care market—that simply does not happen in Sweden. So there are structural advantages in Sweden, plus the two-year lead-in time.
  Sweden also has additional investment in sheltered housing schemes to increase capacity, because this is a capacity issue. Before we start referring to the model that was tried in Sweden, let us consider what else that meant. Bed blocking is ultimately about capacity; it is not about sloth, incompetence, medical malfeasance or local authorities not doing their job. I cannot believe that there is any right hon. or hon. Member in the Chamber tonight who has not dealt with the relatives of elderly people who have lived independently all their lives but suffer a serious medical operation and move to some sort of sheltered accommodation. They do not like this home, they do not like that one. They want the place that is closer to the bus route, near the post office or near the Royal British Legion. It is not simply a matter of placing person A in home B. A delay can often be the result of good practice, not bad practice. As long as there is that constraint of capacity, the time delay will exist and lengthen.
  I have confidence in my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I know that they take cognisance of this issue and they have the intelligence to see their way around it. I hope that they will look at the report of the Association of Directors of Social Services. Its members have made a powerful presentation, which I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears) has seen. It would

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  be churilish of me to say other than that 99 per cent of the Queen's Speech was excellent. fine and represents a great future for the country I would just that one area to be addressed.
  5.53 pm
  Mr. Edward Garnier: The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) is an example of someone who can make a speech that contains many serious points, but does not burden it with seriousness. I will leave the philosophy to the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston). The speech of the hon. Member for Ealing, North was the more powerful for containing elements of humour. He is, if I may not quote Dr. Spooner, a shining wit.
  I should like to talk about an aspect of the health service that was not dealt with in the Queen's Speech or in the remarks of the Secretary of State for Health this afternoon. I refer to national health service dentistry. I have been concerned about the absence of such dentistry in my constituency, particularly in Market Harborough, for about eighteen months. I have asked questions twice of the Prime Minister. Once was at Prime Minister's Question Time, either late last year or earlier this year, and I received no answer—or certainly no comprehensible answer—from him on that occasion. I intervened upon him on Wednesday when he opened for the Government in this debate. Again, it seemed that he was wholly incapable of getting to grips with the problem, which, I am afraid, his Government have delivered to my constituents. I asked the Secretary of State for Health about what he proposed to do about the absence of NHS dental provision in my constituency. He, too, has been unable to provide any sensible answer.
  I was first alerted to the problem in July 2001 when the chief executive of Leicestershire NHS health authority wrote to me to say that the largest dental practice in Market Harborough was intending to deregister its NHS patients. From memory it had about 10,000 patients on its register. There was a three-month delay period for the notice to bite, so it was November until those NHS patients were taken off that practice list. As a consequence they either had to become private patients of that practice, which is expensive, or to search the county and over the boundary in Northamptonshire to find alternative NHS provision. That was not easy.
  Leicestershire health authority let me know by letter that it would take the following steps. It was going to advise NHS Direct of dental practices in the Market Harborough area accepting NHS patients. There was one and it soon filled up. Sadly, this spring, that practice deregistered its NHS patients. The health authority said secondly that it would deal with calls received as a result of the letter that this particular dental practice had distributed and would provide information to patients on dental practices in the Market Harborough area currently accepting NHS patients. As I have said, that has proved fruitless. It said that it would advise other dentists in the area of the action that it was taking to ensure regular communication on progress in re-registering patients in the Market Harborough locality. Those were all well intended actions, but useless in their effect.
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  The position got no better between July and the beginning of this year. It is not surprising that I, as the constituency Member of Parliament, received many letters from people living in and around Market Harborough asking what I could do to assist them in finding an NHS dentist. Once again, in February, I wrote to the health authority. In March the director of public health of Leicestershire health authority told me that he had been able to reach agreement in relation to two further mini-personal dental service sessions based in Oakham in Rutland. I do not know whether he has ever looked at a map, but Oakham is not readily accessible by public transport from Market Harborough and is about 20 miles away. He told me that two practitioners had entered into an agreement to set aside a total of four hours a week to provide care of individuals with urgent treatment needs. The round journey by public transport from Market Harborough to Oakham is about four hours. He said that the service would be charged through NHS Direct and treatment provided under occasional treatment regulations. Together with the mini PDS scheme operating in Melton, 30 miles away, it would mean that sessions would operate on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. He told me that the Melton scheme was operating and the Oakham scheme should come into operation by 27 March this year. That is all fine and dandy if one lives in Melton or Oakham, but if one lives in Market Harborough one can go and suck one's teeth.
  One would have thought that after nine months, and questions to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health, the Department of Health might have thought that there was something amiss. It is not as though this is peculiar to Market Harborough. I do not suppose that anyone on the Government Front Bench listened to the BBC Radio 4 programme "You and Yours" on the Wednesday before last, but the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson), my parliamentary pair, raised a similar question about the provision of NHS dentistry in her part of Lancashire. The problem of the absence of NHS dentistry—or at least of the decline in access to it—is therefore not limited to south-east Leicestershire. I suspect that hon. Members will have encountered the problem in constituencies across the country.
  I have been sent a paper prepared by the body currently looking after the provision of NHS dentistry in my constituency. The Melton, Rutland and Harborough PCT came into existence on 1 April this year. It published the paper in July, in an attempt to set out the background to the problem that I have described. It said that NHS dentistry was available in three ways—through general dental services, through community dental services, and through something called personal dental services. It said that there were short-term solutions, and that there were a number of future developments that needed to be looked at.
  The long and the short of the matter is that the PCT had no funding to provide that important aspect of NHS provision that it felt under a duty to provide. The paper concluded by stating:
  "An important factor that needs to be considered is access to funding to implement any of the above options. Melton, Rutland and Harborough PCT do not have resources, which can be easily allocated to primary care dental services. Funding would have to be sought from the Department of Health when the best way forward is identified."

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  I cannot imagine why the best way forward—or any way forward—has not yet been identified. The paper added:
  "We may also be able to identify funding through the LIFT initiative."
  The trust is providing some short-term solutions, but they are wholly inappropriate for Market Harborough, and the paper said that they
  "do not cover the needs of the whole PCT population."
  In parenthesis, I should add that the PCT covers a geographical area that borders on Nottinghamshire in the north and Northamptonshire in the south, and covers almost all of eastern Leicestershire. It is a large rural area with a dispersed population, and it is no good for the Government, through their officials in the country, to say that setting up portakabins here and there miles away from Market Harborough is any answer to a real problem.
  The paper concludes by stating:
  Longer—term solutions need resources that the PCT does not have access to. There is a national problem with the recruitment of NHS Dentists. Also we do not have the powers to mandate dentists to provide NHS services, so are dependent on a different approach to NHS dentistry being considered by the Department of Health."
  I have yet to hear from any Department of Health Minister what intellectual activity is going on to sort out this problem, or what communication they have had with the Chancellor and the Treasury about the funds that will be made available to ensure that the NHS can do its duty to my constituents. It is a picture of indolence and incompetence that I see when I recite the history of the absence of NHS dentistry in my constituency.
  I concede that there are practical and other difficulties in arranging for the purchase by the NHS of private dental services, but something needs to be done—and done quickly—if the absence of NHS dentistry in any meaningful sense is to be dealt with in the near future. We cannot go on wishing that something may happen. We cannot go on "looking into the matter", as the saying goes, without some firm proposals being made in the near future.
  I therefore ask the Government to use their best endeavours to rearrange the way in which my PCT is funded so that the NHS dentistry that my constituents pay for through their taxes can be provided to them. Like all other citizens of this country, they are entitled to access to the NHS for dentistry as well as hospital services. They are not getting that access, and they are being short-changed.
  That is bad enough, but matters are made worse when one considers that, if we are not careful, children may not get into the habit of going to the dentist, with all the health consequences in later life that that will entail. I therefore urge the Government to get off their bottom and do something about this problem very quickly indeed.
  6.4 pm
  Angela Watkinson: I start by echoing the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill). A great opportunity was missed yesterday to address the looming crisis in pensions. It was a notable omission in the Gracious Speech that no mention was made of
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  pensions, savings or benefit reform, which is needed urgently. The problem has multiple strands. The level of savings is now so low that many people are heading towards an impoverished old age. The withdrawal of pension fund tax credits by the Chancellor to the tune of £25 billion already—that is £5 billion a year over five years, and in fact it is worse than that because that funding would have been invested and would have grown—is the single most damaging contributory factor to the problems that beset both money purchase and defined contribution pension schemes. It is the worst stealth tax of all, with the possible exception of the council tax.
  The London borough of Havering has historically been underfunded to the tune of £30 million, and last year received a 12.5 per cent. increase. As a result of the long-awaited review, which we all expected would benefit the borough, Havering now faces a worsening situation and another massive hike in council tax rates, possibly in the region of 30 to 40 per cent. Pensioners on fixed incomes will be affected worst.
  Add to the withdrawal of pension fund tax credits the £1.5 billion a year shortfall in rebates on contracted-out schemes, and the current regime is unsustainable. People who have been making pension contributions during their working lives now receive pensions on retirement way below former expectations, and their standard of living is not what they had looked forward to or planned for. Add to that the urgent need to simplify the pensions and benefits system, which is far too complicated for most people to understand.
  I often have people come to my surgery who have been utterly defeated by 40-page benefit application forms. On one occasion, an elderly couple came with their younger neighbours, who had attempted to assist them. The form had defeated not only the couple in question but their neighbours, and they had filled it in incorrectly. That put my elderly constituents in a worse position than they were in the first place because their application was rejected.
  There is also a worryingly high level of personal debt in the country, running to several thousands of pounds per head. Rather than save, many people choose to spend not only the money that they have but money that they do not have. One wonders what prospects some borrowers have of ever becoming free of debt.
  I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) is no longer in his seat, because I would have been happy to assure him that there is nothing elite about this Conservative. I was brought up as what used to be quaintly known as respectable working class. I think that the respectable bit referred to not getting into debt, paying one's bills and managing one's budget, however small it was. I remember debt being something that was whispered about. Banks required references when people sought to open a bank account, to ensure that the account holder was of good standing. These days, we are all plagued by unsolicited offers of credit cards and loans, with little or no investigation as to the ability of the person to repay.
  There must be countless people who are heading for an impoverished retirement on an inadequate pension, with debts that will have to be settled from their estate, if they have one. The problem of estate values in Upminster may not apply because property values have

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  rocketed in recent years, but I have many pensioners who are asset rich and cash poor. They have never been rich. Many have earned only modest incomes during their working lives, and they are house owners only as a result of a lifetime of hard work, prudence and making economies—of turning out lights, turning down heating to save on electricity and gas bills and not going to the pub. Home ownership has not come easily to them, but has come from the constant struggle to keep heads above budgetary waters. Many find this struggle difficult to sustain in retirement, as huge increases in council tax hit fixed incomes hardest.
  Moving house to realise capital is not an attractive option for elderly couples, still less for individuals, who have lived for decades in the same familiar home, of which they are rightly proud.
  The number of elderly and disabled people who approach me for advice is increasing all the time. The Department for Work and Pensions does not provide a local pension office; instead it uses local voluntary organisations such as citizens advice bureaux, Age Concern and, in Havering, the Havering Association for People with Disabilities, which runs advice surgeries.
  That is a positive step in one sense because it makes venues more accessible in the community, but no funds are available. The Havering association has only £18,000 in core funding. It seems very unfair that small local charities helping their communities should be expected to subsidise the Department. The association loses income by making a room available for an advice surgery that would otherwise have been let to another group at a charge.
  I hope that the Department will consider transferring some of the savings made from not running local offices from its petty cash or its paper-clip fund to help small local charities like the association, which are providing services for local people. The Government must take up the challenge this year: they cannot afford further delay. They must now simplify the system, enabling and encouraging more people to provide for a secure old age.
  6.11 pm
  Dr. Andrew Murrison: Let me begin on a positive note, by welcoming the omission from the Queen's Speech of the threatened mental health Bill. I hope very much that the illiberal measures it would have contained will never see the light of day. What a pity that the much-needed overhaul of the Mental Health Act 1983 has been delayed by the Government's disappearance down a rabbit hole of their own making!
  The loose definitions in those proposals, the apparent intended role of Ministers, and the misconstruction of detainment as treatment were unhelpful and sinister. We do not summarily detain or disadvantage those in this country who seem odd or unusual on the pretext that they might pose a threat to themselves or others. If I may sound pompous for a moment, let me say that to do so would be distinctly un-British.
  I might add that of all the occupational groups I have encountered professionally and socially, ours presents itself as one of the greatest repositories of strange characters and odd behaviour. I am sure, therefore, that other Members joined me yesterday in breathing a sigh of relief.
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  The community care Bill reminded me of my own Bill to deal with bed blocking, introduced under the ten-minute rule. I am not about to confound the model that I proposed, which was based on a system that had been used quite successfully in Scandinavia. For what this is worth, it also found favour with Wanless.
  The concept of cross-charging has merit, provided that it is construed in an administrative rather than a punitive way. At its heart must be a redistribution of resources from hospitals to less glamorous sectors. The reimbursement scheme suggested by Ministers must surely involve the expectation that fines will be levied on social services departments. They cannot "magic up" facilities in the community. Such fines will, I suspect, become part of the normal exchange between health and social care departments, and will have to be financed by central Government rather than—as I suspect is the intention—through council tax, at least in part. Otherwise, council tax payers would effectively underwrite, among other things, the loss of nursing home beds over which the Government have presided. The bed-block tax would of course apply unequally, with the south shouldering a particularly heavy burden, given the amount of bed blocking in London and elsewhere in the south.
  The Secretary of State's assertion on 18 April that fines imposed on hospitals in the event of emergency readmission would stop them from discharging people too soon was disgraceful. Bureaucrats may think like that, but if the Secretary of State seriously believes that dedicated health care professionals would be motivated by incentives of that kind he gravely misunderstands what motivates those at the coal face of the NHS. My ten-minute Bill has, of course, sunk without trace, but its intention was to keep clinical decision making at arm's length from administration. In the context of reimbursement charges I believe that that is an important safeguard for clinical care—albeit one that looks increasingly naïve in the "command" NHS favoured by the Chancellor, if not the Secretary of State.
  Ministers might also like to reflect on why emergency readmissions have increased. Could the reason be that people are being inappropriately placed as the number of available nursing home places shrinks? If so, acute units could rightly claim that readmissions were the fault of social services or social service structures, and fining hospitals on the over-simplistic basis that they are wholly responsible would therefore be inappropriate. I urge the Secretary of State to think twice about that incentive.
  The Government's proposals include an incentive that health care professionals will willingly observe. It is a perverse incentive that acts in individual patients' best interests. If the quickest way to get a patient the community care that they require is to admit them to a district general hospital, with the consequential imperative for social services to avoid a fine and get cracking, let us be quite sure that GPs will admit them. I believe that that would wind back general practice several decades and that it would no longer enjoy its current position, which we would all celebrate. Once again, district general hospitals would be the nexus of health care provision in this country. That would be highly regrettable both for patients and professionals.

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  The flip side is that people who were not admitted through district general hospitals, for whatever reason, would be ascribed a lower priority. Effectively, the only gateway to services might become the DGH. I am sure that there are ways of moderating those effects and I would be very interested to hear about Ministers' plans in that regard.
  The NHS Confederation is right to point out that the Government's timing is over-ambitious. It is also concerned about the lack of adequate piloting, which means that Ministers are taking a remarkable leap of faith. Unfortunately, Christmas is almost upon us and we are told that the systems that are necessary to implement the reimbursement system must be in place by Easter. I welcome the Government's sense of urgency; bed blocking is a tragedy both for the poor, hapless bed blocker and for the thousands whose admissions are cancelled because of lack of room. However, I believe that the NHS Confederation is right to counsel caution.
  The Bill on health and social care reform brings forward grant-maintained or foundation hospitals; one can call them what one likes. They are a nice, if unoriginal, idea, but the devil is in the detail. One of the two DGHs that serve my constituents is unlikely to be in Ministers' sights. The clinically excellent Royal United hospital in Bath is acknowledged as an administrative disaster area. It is on such hospitals that I expect Ministers to focus first and foremost. I would oppose strongly anything that would drag resources and personnel from trouble spots such as Bath. For me, that is the priority and I hope that it is the priority for Ministers too, although I see little evidence of that in yesterday's proceedings. I wonder how the Secretary of State would address the leaching of top staff from, let us say, Bath, to the highly starred and potentially foundation Gloucestershire Royal hospital, given the pay competition that he proposes to introduce into what remains a monopoly sector.
  My quest for bias not towards the swept up, but towards the struggling, is not purely parochial. I am pleased to have an unlikely ally in the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). I was fascinated to hear that foundation hospitals would have elected representatives on their boards. Having struggled through the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002 and tried to identify who on earth we would get to volunteer for patients forums, I do not know where the Secretary of State thinks he can get people who will be willing to serve on the boards in the numbers that he expects.
  It was remarkable to hear the comments made by many hon. Members about the likely composition of the boards, which will, of course, be middle class. Voluntary organisations throughout the country have middle class members. Indeed, they overwhelmingly populate our voluntary organisations and that will be the case in respect of the new measure, if it is adopted. With respect, however, making such criticisms in the House is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The House might like to look at itself before criticising volunteers throughout the country who will presumably be called on to serve on the boards of foundation hospitals.
  The NHS Confederation is worried that foundation hospitals appear to constitute the Government's flagship health service reforms. It is right to worry. The
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  organisation shares my view that we should not view health care as bricks, mortar, beds and hospital buildings or even as surgical operations, but refocus on managing chronic disease and the clinical networks necessary to do that. We should be less exercised and constrained by the administrative boundaries that have been the hallmark of the Government's stewardship of the NHS.
  6.20 pm
  Mr. Paul Goodman: In my constituency lies Hughenden Manor, which was once the home of Benjamin Disraeli. Disraeli spoke of two nations, the rich and the poor—or the vulnerable, as Conservative Members might say nowadays. I want to speak about poverty in relation to the Queen's Speech.
  No Conservative Member should doubt the commitment of the Government in general and the Chancellor in particular to relieving poverty and social exclusion. The main means that the Government use to achieve that are programmes that appear to be devised in and controlled from the Treasury, and targeted at people whom the Treasury or Downing street identify. It would be churlish not to acknowledge that some programmes have played a part in providing opportunity and inclusion.
  However, it would be foolish not to acknowledge that the regime of centralised command, which controls most programmes, has flaws and, indeed, a fatal error. I hope to have time to consider that later. I want to concentrate on three aspects of the flaws. The first weakness involves means-testing and the take-up of benefits. I know that that is a theme that has often preoccupied the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who is in his place.
  Up to a third of all benefits are means-tested. That particularly affects pensioners, for three reasons. First, many pensioners do not realise that the benefits exist. In my constituency, that applies especially to pensioners from ethnic minorities, many of whom speak English as a second language or perhaps not at all. Secondly, some pensioners, especially older pensioners, are too proud to claim. Thirdly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) said, some are simply confused, baffled and frustrated by the sheer number and depth of the forms that they have to complete. Anyone who doubts that is welcome to accompany me to a meeting with the Wycombe citizens advice bureau, which has to advise pensioners in difficulties.
  The consequences are apparent in the figures. Between 1979 and 1995, the proportion of pensioners on means-tested benefits fell from 57 per cent. to 38 per cent. However, according to the House of Commons Library, the proportion will increase to between 56 per cent. and 59 per cent. by next April. Last year, almost 600,000 eligible pensioners were not receiving income support; more than 200,000 eligible pensioners were not receiving housing benefit, and more than 1 million eligible pensioners were not receiving council tax benefit. Pensioners who do not take up such benefits tend to be older and women. They are the principal victims.
  Next April, the new pension credit will be introduced and the Government estimate a 67 per cent. Take-up rate by 2004. Even the Department of Health described that

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  target as "ambitious". However, there is no firm proposal for hitting the target. I should like to quote from the report of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, on which I serve, which is dominated by Labour Members. The report states:
  "We were concerned about the Department of Work and Pensions' inability to produce reasonable estimates for such an important figure as the take—up of a key Government benefit."
  I appreciate that the Minister is short of time, but will he tell us when we can expect to see the income-related benefit take-up figures for last year? They are normally issued in September. Alas, there is nothing in the Queen's Speech to ease the burden of means-testing.
  The second weakness of centralised control involves area-based regeneration. I shall list six of most deprived boroughs in the country and state the number of schemes in them to help local groups relieve poverty. Manchester has 22 schemes; Tower Hamlets has 21; Liverpool has 21; Newham has 20; Hackney has 19, and Hartlepool has 18.
  At this point, I want to quote the words of my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) in a debate on poverty in Westminster Hall earlier this year. He said:
  "I ask the Minister to put himself in the position of a playgroup leader who wants better facilities, or of a community group leader who wants closed circuit television in a local park to protect playgrounds from vandalism…There is a strong argument for much more single-pot funding to make it easier for such groups to improve the environment that so many people who live in poverty have to put up with. "—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 18 July 2002; Vol. 389, c. 145WH.]
  There is indeed a strong argument for more single-pot funding, but again, regrettably, I see few measures in the Queen's Speech that will permit that—and that leads me to the third weakness.
  Last summer, the Select Committee on Work and Pensions produced its report on the Government's employment strategy. I would describe the biggest problem that it identified as that of low social capital. Those people who find it hardest to find and keep work are usually those who lack social capital—the connections and self-confidence that some of us take for granted. Many of those who lack social capital have not had the childhood love and security that some of us are prone to take for granted, and it is often those who lack social capital who are causing the antisocial behaviour that was a theme of the Queen's Speech, as it was in 2000 and in 1997. A good appearance, punctuality, courtesy, and the ability to work in a team are the soft skills that help people to find and keep work. It was the lack of soft skills and the social capital that builds them up that the Committee identified as the biggest barrier of all to finding and keeping work. It is significant that the Committee stressed that the best means of allowing people to develop their soft skills and thereby build up social capital was to extend flexibility and local discretion in the provision of the schemes that help them.
  As the Secretary of State and all hon. Members will know, one of the themes of all three main parties during the party conference season was devolution, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the only real way of extending flexibility and of building up the social capital
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  the lack of which is at the heart of so many of our problems today is a radical programme of devolution. I do not see the breaking of the regime of central command anywhere in the Queen's Speech.
  If there can be a social exclusion unit and a neighbourhood renewal unit in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, why can there not be at the centre of Government, as the Conservative party suggested at the last general election—my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) is on the Front Bench and I hope to hear that suggestion raised again—an office of civil society or equivalent that would take the lead in devolving power to the local councils, charities, schools, clubs, faith institutions, voluntary groups and communities that are best placed to build up the social capital that we need?
  There is a paradox here. It is curious to be calling for another Government office to solve the problem of devolution, but only the centre can devolve power from the centre and there needs to be an engine in Government to do that. The Treasury is not that engine. We are not getting the devolution that we need to build up the kind of one nation society to which Disraeli was looking forward, and I am only sorry to say that such measures are not in the Queen's Speech.
  6.28 pm
  Mr. David Willetts: We have had a lively debate on the Queen's Speech, during which I think 20 hon. Members have spoken. Interventions have ranged widely, and I hope to comment on a few of them, but what has been particularly striking is that no fewer than four previous Secretaries of State have spoken. It is a bit like those wild west movies where the old gunslingers come out of retirement for one last appearance—in this case, out of retirement as Ministers, I hope not as Members of Parliament.
  I was struck by the contrast between the interventions by the four previous Secretaries of State on the Conservative and the Labour Benches. My right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Virginia Bottomley) spoke about her concern about the state of the health service. We also heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley). My right hon. Friends' speeches were striking because of the two themes that emerged: my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey referred to trusting the professions and the importance of allowing professionals to exercise their medical judgment, while my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden spoke about patient choice. Of course, we believe that those two themes together are the way to raise standards in our NHS. We think that the dynamism achieved by the combination of patient choice and professional freedom produces the best possible patient care. My right hon. Friends' two speeches referred to the true and best way to raise health care standards—what a contrast they made with the speeches by the two Labour former Secretaries of State, whom it is good to see in their places.
  The right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) spoke for new Labour, while the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) spoke for old Labour. They were indeed the smooth man and the hairy man. Strikingly, whereas our two

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  former Secretaries of State combined provided a coherent alternative approach to the NHS, the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North, in what he described as his first intervention from the Back Benches for many years, produced a lot of rhetoric about new Labour, but not much reality as to what it means in practice.
  The right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, speaking as one who was Secretary of State for Health in this very Government, gave a critique of the Government's health policies. It was hard to follow exactly what he proposed, but he seemed to say either, "Do not do any of it," or, "Do it properly so that all hospitals have the opportunity to enjoy the freedoms that are only on offer to 12 elite hospitals"—if I remember correctly the expression that he used in an article in The Observer recently.
  We believe that the right way forward is to give as many hospitals as possible as soon as possible the full freedoms that will supposedly be enjoyed only by the foundation hospitals. I do not know whether the Secretary of State follows films, but "Groundhog Day" is to be shown on Channel 4 at the end of this week. For those of us who were involved in the health reform debate in the early 1990s, it is "Groundhog Day" all over again: we are hearing all our arguments on the need for greater freedom for individual hospitals to run their own affairs.
  When I heard the Secretary of State trying to answer all those specific questions, I was reminded of nothing so much as the arguments that we made on how much freedom we wanted to give to self-governing hospital trusts. The right hon. Gentleman could do a lot worse than simply re-publish our consultation documents on how much freedom we wanted to give such trusts, which the Government abolished and are now to reinstate.
  James Purnell: The hon. Gentleman is referring to his time as an adviser to the Conservative Government. In April, I asked him whether he would apologise for the fact that, when he advised that Government, the income of the bottom 10 per cent. fell by 17 per cent. in absolute terms. He said that he did not recognise those figures. Does he recognise them now, and how does he square them with his commitment to the vulnerable?
  Mr. Willetts: If the hon. Gentleman is talking about the absolute income of the poorest members of our society, and if we are to measure that in the way that the Prime Minister now wishes to measure it—in other words, considering not the measure of poverty with which the Prime Minister began, but median income in 1997 and whether more or fewer people are poor against that measure years later, which is what he now talks about—I believe that, on the Prime Minister's chosen measure of poverty, we succeeded in reducing poverty during our period in office. If the hon. Gentleman wants to use a relative measure, we can argue about the case for relativity; if he wants to use the Prime Minister's preferred measure, I think that we have a proud record.
  I want to speak briefly about the health agenda before discussing welfare reform. On our Front Bench, we have at least one new health spokesman—I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) to his post—and that shows how much talent we have on this side of the House. We have fresh faces who will carry
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  forward the battle—[Interruption.] I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who has also joined our Front-Bench health team. We believe that more centralised control is not the right way to reform health. The way to improve the quality of our health service is to have greater freedom for hospitals. That must be the right way forward.
  There are many Bills dealing with health in the Queen's Speech. There is also a Bill dealing with antisocial behaviour. I hope that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will be able to tell us whether his proposals on antisocial behaviour will include measures that concern the benefit entitlements of families who may be suspected of involvement in such behaviour. The right hon. Gentleman knows the history. At one point the Prime Minister proposed that child benefit should be taken away from families who were suspected of involvement with antisocial behaviour. It was one of those classic front-page "crackdown" stories. We all heard how the right hon. Gentleman was going to get tough on antisocial behaviour. Then he beat a hasty retreat. As often happens, it was the right hon. Member for Birkenhead who proposed an alternative that looked as if it might rescue the Prime Minister. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead said that housing benefit should be used instead, as it was the most effective device in using the benefit system to tackle antisocial behaviour.
  Hon. Members on both sides of the House who have serious problems of antisocial behaviour in their constituencies know that one of the things that most concentrates the minds of the families who, sadly, seem to be responsible for such behaviour is the thought that if they carry on they may lose their house. None of us wants them to lose their houses, but the threat must be credible. If it is, it often leads to parents at last getting a grip on their children.
  The right hon. Member for Birkenhead took the measure into Committee as a private Member's Bill. The Conservatives approached it constructively.
  Mr. Frank Field indicated assent.
  Mr. Willetts: I am pleased to see the right hon. Gentleman nod. I want to hear from the Secretary of State whether a proposal for withdrawal of housing benefit from people who behave in an antisocial way will be part of the legislation on antisocial behaviour. Will there be a proposal on child benefit as the Prime Minister originally suggested, or have the Government completely given up on the idea of using benefits to tackle that serious problem? I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to tell us about that. The Conservatives have no objection in principle to using the benefit system as a lever to tackle the problem. We want to hear what the Government's approach is.
  Although there is that measure on antisocial behaviour, we do not have anything in the Queen's Speech on pensions—I declare the interests that appear in the Register of Members' Interests. I hope that the Secretary of State will offer us some account of what policies he will put before the House to tackle the pension crisis. So far, we have had confusion and uncertainty about what exactly the Government will do.
  We have had debates about compulsion. Some Ministers are supposed to favour compulsion, others not. Will there be any reduction of the tax incentives for

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  people to save? It is good to see a Treasury Minister on the Front Bench as I ask these questions. Do the Government recognise that, especially at a time like this, we need to give people more incentives to save, rather than taking away the modest incentives that exist? Is the Secretary of State looking at other incentives to encourage people to save? Does he recognise the serious long-term effects of the spread of means-testing on people's incentives to save—something on which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead has spoken eloquently?
  Mr. Field: May I ask the hon. Gentleman to move a stage backwards in his argument? When he asks whether the Government will move on compulsion, is he not posing the wrong question? We have compulsion in the system. The question is how should we levy that compulsion? At the moment, because previous Governments have failed to ensure that everyone has a decent pension, taxpayers compulsorily pay 5p on each standard rate of tax to make good that deficit. Surely the question before the Government is whether we should continue with that form of compulsion to add to failure, or switch the compulsion to build for success?
  Mr. Willetts: The right hon. Gentleman has put forward ambitious proposals to compel people to build funded pension saving. As he knows from the many discussions we have had on the matter, I do not agree with his proposals—I shall not detain the House by explaining why—but at least he has made a bold contribution to the debate. So have organisations such as—most recently—the National Association of Pension Funds and the Association of British Insurers. The one voice missing from that debate has been the Government's. We have not heard what the Department for Work and Pensions plans to do about the crisis. We want to hear what the Secretary of State thinks he can do. That might be too much to hope for, however. It might be over-ambitious to expect the Secretary of State to have a policy on pensions, although I must say that in the conditions of this debate we could promise him almost complete secrecy. He could unveil a confidential draft discussion document this evening and I am sure that we could assure him that there would be absolutely no media coverage, but even if a promise of complete confidentiality is not good enough and the Secretary of State feels unable to offer us any policies, could we make two more modest requests? First, will he at least accept that there is a crisis?
  One thing that we have found most frustrating as we have debated the subject over the years is the sort of approach that is captured very well in a quote from the Secretary of State's colleague the Minister for Pensions, who said in May, when quoting one of the many sets of figures on pension saving which were subsequently shown to be wrong:
  "These figures emphasise that the basic structure of pensions in this country is right."
  It is reasonable to ask the Secretary of State whether he registers the scale of the problem. Does he plan to continue on working on the basis that the basic structure is right, that it does not need to change and that we should just tinker at the edges, or will he measure up to
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  the scale of the crisis by proposing something big, bold and radical, which is what the crisis requires in order for it to be tackled? If I lower my expectations, and settle for the Secretary of State not offering a policy, will he at least offer some frank assessment of the scale of the problem?
  Finally, if the Secretary of State is not going to offer us a policy or any assessment of the scale of the crisis, will he at least tell us how the Government propose to set about formulating policies to solve the problem? Will he at least tell us the framework within which he will set out the policies? Not only are we unsure about the Government's policies, we are not even sure about how they will unveil the policies that may emerge in future.
  Kevin Brennan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Willetts: No. I have only three minutes to conclude my speech.
  We have had endless consultation documents—Pickering, Sandler and Myners. We have had various legislation too, yet we now have a debate in the press about whether there will be a Green Paper at the time of the pre-Budget report, whether there will be a separate Inland Revenue document and whether the Government will set up a royal commission. My view on royal commissions is that Harold Wilson put it very well when he said:
  "Royal Commissions take minutes and waste years."
  We do not have the time to wait for a royal commission, but if the Secretary of State can offer a framework that we can work within to try to tackle the crisis, I will end with the assurance that Opposition Members recognise that this is a problem that can be solved only with longterm planning and on the basis of some recognition of the need for stability in future, just as I gave an assurance that we would not get rid of stakeholder pensions. When the industry came to us and said, "We need to know that stakeholder pensions will continue" we gave that assurance, despite our concerns about stakeholder pensions. I hope that the Secretary of State will set out at least the framework within which he will approach the problem. So there we are. I have lowered my expectations. I am not asking for a policy. I do not necessarily expect an assessment of the scale of the problem. Even an account of how the Secretary of State might set about thinking about how to solve the problem would in itself constitute progress.
  I am sorry that I have not had time to comment on the many speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House. I was particularly struck by the number of speeches from Opposition Members on the subject of health. I particularly enjoyed the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) on pensions. I always listen attentively to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) on poverty and social capital. We now look forward to hearing whether the Secretary of State can at least inch us forward by setting out the framework within which he will solve the problem.
  6.44 pm
  The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mr. Andrew Smith): As the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said, the debate has ranged widely—as is the case on these occasions—making it very difficult to do justice to all the interesting contributions from both sides of the House. However, one thing is clear: in the Queen's Speech this year, we can build on what we have achieved over the last five years in sorting out the economy, tackling poverty and social exclusion, getting people into jobs, investing in our public services and cutting crime. But as we recognised in putting forward the Queen's Speech, there is very much more to do, including in health and pensions, which we have been addressing today.
  There has been a sharp contrast in the debate between the positive case that the Government can make and the weakness and contradictions from the official Opposition. While the Government can, on the basis of economic stability, carry forward investment matched by reform and opportunities matched by responsibilities so that we improve front-line service delivery, get to grips with antisocial behaviour and build a stronger society, it is clear that, despite some thoughtful contributions—I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman)—no coherent alternative is being advanced by the Opposition. So much for the 25 shiny new policies that they launched at their conference, which have been practically unmentioned during the debate. It is clear that the quiet man's approach is beginning to catch on on the Opposition Benches.
  It is striking in these health debates that we always get at least one Conservative Member, and usually more, getting up and pointing to the health needs in his constituency, which invariably require more resources. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) made a powerful case for dentistry in his constituency, and good for him as a constituency Member. However, he asked Health Ministers whether they had been to the Chancellor to ask for more money. The Conservatives cannot put that argument across credibly while trying to convince people that they want lower public spending and to cut taxes nor, moreover, when they voted against the huge investment in the NHS that the Government are making.
  Mr. Garnier: Let us assume that the Chancellor will not give the Department of Health any more money. How will the Government provide dentistry to Market Harborough?
  Mr. Smith: As we have set out in our NHS plan and through the measures in the Queen's Speech, we will do that by devolving more power to localities, by putting more power in the hands of the front-line professionals and by structuring things so that there can be more response to local needs.
  The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who speaks on health for the Opposition, made a real doom-and-gloom speech in which he tried to persuade the public that the NHS was not working, that it had never worked and that it could not work; yet the Conservatives profess to believe in the NHS. He claims that administrators outnumber beds, but he does not tell
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  us that he includes within non-clinical staff hospital cleaners, porters, catering staff and receptionists, all of whom provide direct support to NHS patients. He claims that we cut training for GPs. Wrong; between 1997 and 2001, the number of GPs in training has increased by 40 per cent.
  Dr. Fox: The Secretary of State for Health did not understand the point that was being made. It is not that the numbers in training have not increased. The point concerns the numbers who have been trained but have decided not to take up a career in general practice. That is the problem that the Government face. The proportion of those trainees going into general practice has fallen, despite the fact that the number of training places has indeed gone up.
  Mr. Smith: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman accepts that we have increased the training of GPs. He ought to accept also that we would be in a much stronger position had the Conservatives not cut the training of GPs by about 25 per cent. There would have been 1,000 more GPs in the NHS now.
  The NHS is working. Thanks to the efforts of staff, it is delivering for many millions of patients. We are ensuring that there are 39,000 more nurses and 10,000 more doctors; 1 million patients are treated every 36 hours; 300,000 more operations are carried out each year; and there is the first increase in general and acute beds in the NHS for 30 years.
  I was very pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) in the Chamber. He underlined just how important it is to maintain the momentum behind radical reform, matching social justice with economic efficiency and matching rights and responsibilities. That is precisely what the Queen's Speech does, with its reform of the criminal justice system, the comprehensive strategy for tackling antisocial behaviour and our proposals for public service reform.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) voiced apprehension about foundation hospitals but said that she was open to argument. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will shortly publish a prospectus, which I think will address the concerns of the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). As the innovation and development of foundation hospitals goes ahead in practice, I hope that my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) will be persuaded of the merits of the approach.
  From my constituency experience—like that, I am sure, of many hon. Members—I believe that, given the strength of community, patient and staff support for good local and indeed specialist hospitals, giving them a bigger say, through a stakeholder council, with greater freedom to respond to local needs, will certainly result, as my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) said, in improvements and give a greater sense of local ownership, responsibility and achievement, consistent with the strongest traditions of mutuality and co-operation that have been so important to our party.

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  I want to respond to the points on pensions made by the right hon. Members for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) and for South-West Surrey (Virginia Bottomley). They, and the hon. Member for Havant, asked whether it was the Government's policy to put the whole pensions issue to a royal commission. As I told the Select Committee recently, it is vital that the difficult policy choices confronting us on pensions are faced up to in our forthcoming Green Paper—as they will be—and not simply parked in a commission. The public would not thank us for that. I do not, however, rule out the possibility of external bodies helping us to develop the way forward on specific issues, once the policy has been set after consultation on the Green Paper. I announced just such a proposal at the CBI last week, when I said that we wanted to create an employers' taskforce on pensions, to pull together examples of good practice, to spread and promote that good practice and to ensure that employers, along with the TUC, are fully involved in the further development of pensions policy.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) made some important points about the position of employees affected by scheme closures, such as those at ASW. We can all imagine how dreadful it is for people who were counting on those schemes to provide a substantial proportion of their retirement income to have that cut away from them. We should never understate the anxiety and anger to which that gives rise. There are existing measures to protect the members of those schemes, but I understand the shortcomings to which my hon. Friend referred, including the situation when directors, often with privileged information, jump ship before the problems really hit.
  Of course we are considering all those matters in the Green Paper, and they will be an important part of the national debate, which must go wider than just the Government, as we develop our policy. Within what has been a voluntary system, there is a balance to be struck between the protection afforded to those who are in a scheme, and requirements that could mean, if they are overly burdensome, that more schemes close or are never established in the first place. We cannot escape responsibility for dealing with that balance.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) spoke of a third way between voluntarism and compulsion, which I think was described as "assertive choice". I look forward to discussing that concept with him further. Compulsion has always struck me as something that is either there or is not, but his inventiveness in devising third way solutions is legendary. I await the detail of his proposal.
  I am obviously unable to tell the House this evening what will be in the Green Paper, but I can confirm that it will be published later this year. I have set out the principles that we need to follow: fairness; security in retirement; informed choice for consumers on the savings and pension products available; simple and proportionate regulation; ensuring that incentives are effective and well-understood; promoting employment among older workers; and flexibility, which gives individuals more choice about the pace at which they retire from the labour market. In carrying those principles forward, we will need to build on partnership
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  between Government, employers, employees and the financial services industry. In so doing, we need to ensure that the particular needs of different sections of the population are addressed. Here, I should emphasise the position of women, which, as the Liberal Democrats have pointed out, has often been neglected in respect of pensions policy.
  The challenge is to build on the changes that we have already made—the way in which we have strengthened the state system—so that more employers and individuals can, and do, make provision for their pension. As I told the TUC and the CBI, we need to take a hard-headed look at the options. We need reforms that have the confidence of business, as well as trade unions. We need to recognise that it is no good preaching at workers to save if they lack the means to do so, or if they lack confidence in the products available. However, it is no good loading employers with so many requirements—so much red tape or so many costs—that they cast off any responsibility for helping their employees to build up a pension. It has to be worth while for employees to save. They must be confident in what they will get in return, and it must be easy for employers to contribute.
  Mr. Butterfill: Can the Secretary of State comment on the existing anomaly whereby those who take their 25 per cent. tax-free lump sum get a tax break, but those who put all their pension pot into the purchase of an annuity get no tax break?
  Mr. Smith: Those are the choices available to people within the system. The hon. Gentleman's expertise on these matters is acknowledged, and in asking his question he enables me to knock on the head the repeated claim that we will somehow use the tax system to end reliefs, and to hit high earners' pension contributions. Let me repeat the commitment that I, and Treasury Ministers, have given. We have no such proposals, and if we did, we would tell the House of Commons.
  The hon. Member for Havant asked whether we had backed off on housing benefit sanctions, and about the position on child benefit sanctions. As I said in my opening remarks, this Queen's Speech puts forward a range of measures to tackle antisocial behaviour. On nuisance neighbours—the neighbours from hell—there are measures such as injunctions, fast-track evictions and antisocial behaviour orders. As far as those who truant from school are concerned, we are looking at the effectiveness of fixed penalty notices, fast-track prosecution and parenting orders. The test is what works: the measures that will be speedy and effective in stopping nuisance neighbours, and in stopping children truanting.
  In this Queen's Speech, our approach to both health and pensions is to devolve power to front-line staff, to couple investment with reform, and to ensure that we can simultaneously build a strong economy and a strong society, in which we each fulfil our obligations to one another.
  Debate adjourne—[Mr. Ainger.]
  Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 12 (House not to sit on certain Fridays),
  That the House shall not sit on the following Fridays:
  22nd and 29th November and 6th and 13th December 2002.—[Mr. Ainger]
  Question agreed to.

  PETITION

    Fishing Industry
    7 pm
    Mr. Alex Salmond: It is my privilege to present a petition from the fishing community of Fraserburgh, the most fishing-dependent area in the whole of Europe. The petitioners fear the destruction of the economic fabric of their community and of communities along the coastline of Scotland. In a few days, their campaign attracted 9,000 signatures and they now wish to see their cause represented at the highest levels of Government. They intend to take their campaign nationwide throughout Scotland.
    The petition reads:
    To the House of Commons
    The petition of the people of the fishing communities of Scotland declares that we have grave concerns over the future of the fishing industry in the light of recent E.U. proposals.
    The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons requires that Her Majesty's Government represent the interests of the Scottish fishing industry to ensure the long-term survival of the industry.
    And the petitioners remain, etc.
    To lie upon the Table.

  Local Government Funding (Derbyshire)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn—[Joan Ryan.]
  7.1 pm
  Judy Mallaber: I thank the Speaker for granting me this debate on local government funding in Derbyshire. I was greatly concerned to have missed being called in a previous debate on the funding review, especially as so many representations have been made to me by my constituents. I am pleased that other Members representing Derbyshire constituencies are in the Chamber, as they, too, may want briefly to contribute to the debate. I shall reiterate some of the points made by hon. Members in the previous debate, but I want to raise some issues relevant to Derbyshire that were not considered on that occasion. I shall begin with highways. That issue was only touched on in the previous debate and I did not raise it in my written submission to the review. I am concerned that Ministers are coming under great pressure not to change the current formula. We want to support the proposed new formula on highways.
  The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie), may not be aware that the Woodhead pass on the Sheffield to Manchester road has already been closed this year due to snow. He may not know that Derbyshire county cricket club was the only one to have a first-class cricket match cancelled because of snow in June. We are very well aware of the problems caused by snow, but the new formula should none the less use temperatures rather than lying snow as a measure. They are more relevant when determining whether pre-gritting is needed.
  Derbyshire grits about 52 per cent. of the total highway network—even more than the Audit Commission recommends—but that is essential for road safety. An icy or frosty road can be more dangerous than one where there is melting snow. Winter gritting takes place between 60 and 70 times a year in Derbyshire, but there is snow on only 20 of those occasions. Furthermore, when snow readings are taken, urban areas sometimes benefit due to the fact that snow has fallen in high regions elsewhere.
  The proposed new highways formula also removes the threshold whereby Derbyshire gets no extra cash for traffic flows. Such money is mostly awarded to urban areas. A certain volume of traffic, such as heavy lorries, causes the same damage even if it flows during a longer period, so there should be some recognition of that, rather than an artificial cut-off point.
  If Ministers do not agree to changes in the formula, Derbyshire will suffer twice. The main, and very busy, road through the county, the A6, and other roads have been de-trunked and the special grant of £12,000 per kilometre that we currently receive would be reduced to £5,000 per kilometre in the standard spending assessment. That would result in a loss of £1 million for the carriageway for which the county council has recently become responsible. We were told that the grant would continue for longer, but it will now be absorbed into the SSA after only nine months. We have not objected to that because the new standard spending assessment formula is more rational, but it will be a double whammy. We will be very upset if not only do we

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  not get the new rational formula, but we also lose out on what we might otherwise have expected to get because we have taken over responsibility for the de-trunked roads.
  On education, I will reiterate some of the arguments made in the previous debate, but also ask Ministers to consider a proposal that I made in my submission to the review, which seems not to have been considered. I have replied to 300 letters from constituents asking for the review to put right the unfairness in the present system, which has discriminated against Derbyshire children for many years. They support the arguments put by the worst funded education authorities for a proper basic level of funding per pupil. They are not arguing against extra help for those areas with great deprivation, but they cannot understand why children in more affluent areas, such as Hertfordshire, get more—£300 more per secondary pupil and £250 more for primary pupils. They do not understand why there is a home counties subsidy.
  The sense of grievance undermines positive feelings about the additional resources that have come into education under Labour, which have been of huge benefit to our schools. If the problem is not recognised, it will undermine the good that has been done as a result of that extra spending. It needs to be recognised in some way that the current disparity in funding is not based on real educational and social needs, otherwise there will be huge disillusion.
  I appreciate the difficulties for Ministers in trying to deal with that problem, as they face pressures from all sides, but surely there is only one principle, which is the one put forward by our education chair in Derbyshire—that similar schools with similar characteristics in different authorities anywhere in the country should get similar resources and be able to employ a similar number of teachers and support workers and have similar information and communication technology equipment and so forth. That is the basic principle. It might mean different amounts of cash going into different schools, but there would be parity between schools with similar characteristics.
  How does that principle work for one of my head teachers, who moved from a southern county to Derbyshire? He moved to a similar sized school, but one that takes pupils from far greater areas of deprivation and has more statemented pupils. He had £300,000 less in his budget, which is equivalent to about 18 to 20 teachers on top of the present 73, than he would have had according to the formula in the county from which he came. That head teacher has emphasised to me his appreciation of the help afforded by the extra money that has come from the Labour Government. The school now has technology status. Frankly, he went for that because he could not afford to buy computers for the school. He appreciates that, but feels aggrieved—as do many of his pupils. The head of the neighbouring primary school told me that the Ofsted inspector frankly refused to believe him when he described the level of funding it received.
  I want the Minister to respond to three points on education funding. Like hon. Members who represent other authorities, I want higher basic funding per pupil and I support the option that includes working families tax credit as one of the indices of deprivation, which
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  should also apply to the social services formula. That system would better reflect poverty in rural areas, where unemployment figures may not be as high as in inner city areas, but pay levels are very low.
  On the first day of the debate on the review, a major clothing company announced the closure of two more factories in my constituency and the neighbouring Erewash constituency. A huge number of jobs have gone in the east midlands in that sector. My neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), lost 700 jobs at Biwaters in Clay Cross, but our local jobcentres tell us that those job losses have not been reflected in the recorded unemployment levels. Many of those involved must have disappeared from the register and may well have gone into much worse paid jobs elsewhere. Any change that would better reflect deprivation would give a truer reflection of local circumstances and needs.
  Will the Minister consider a proposal that I put forward in my submission? In the previous debate, I was able to intervene to make the proposal, but I am afraid that I was rather unclear and he thought that I was talking about floors and ceilings as with the damping mechanism. I was proposing that there should be a mechanism to level up education authorities in the lowest quartile of SSA for the proposed new education spending blocks. I gave examples that included the education 2 proposal, and did not help authorities just because they got the area cost adjustment. The mechanism would level up the lowest funded education authorities.
  We have a real problem locally. Every teacher and parent in Derbyshire seems to know about the gap between our area and others. Levelling up would be an easily demonstrable method of proving to those parents and teachers that we care and that we understand about the poor levels of funding. I ask the Minister for his response to that proposal.
  We have been asked whether it matters that the funding of authorities such as Derbyshire is so much lower than elsewhere. We keep our education and social services spending above standard spending assessments to compensate at the expense of other services. The Government know that teachers are concerned about work loads. Our teacher contact ratios are substantially higher than nationally, a majority of heads in small schools teach more than half the week, all non-essential support services—curriculum development support, teachers' centres, community support and a range of other services—have been lost over the past 10 years and nearly half our key stage 2 pupils are in classes of 31-plus.
  I visited an infant school in a severely deprived part of my constituency—a good school with beacon status. The head told me that when she meets heads elsewhere, she is amazed that they have the resources to allow non-contact time for infant and primary teachers. She told me of cuts in a major literacy project and how such shortages are limiting her school from making yet more progress. I ask the Minister to respond on the specific proposals that I have made, some of which were put forward by other hon. Members in the debate. The other specific proposal is about levelling up.
  My next point, about the area cost adjustment, was well aired in the debate, so I will not go into it at length. However, at Prime Minister's Question Time on the day

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  before the debate, the Prime Minister reaffirmed the Government's commitment to help coalfield areas and talked about the resources that were going to help those communities to raise their aspirations. However, the consultation document does nothing seriously to reform the area cost adjustment, which makes coalfield areas such as Derbyshire subsidise the home counties solely because they are wealthier and, moreover, adds to the inflationary spiral in the south-east. They do not have higher costs that justify the huge subsidy. The ACA has gone up from 1.8 per cent. to 4 per cent. of costs. They sometimes have to pay higher retention payments for staff and put them higher up the scale, but not at a rate that justifies this ever increasing proportion going to the area cost adjustment. Surely joined-up government should not allow coalfield areas to be given money with one ministerial hand only to have it snatched away with the other.
  Mr. Mark Todd: I have been following my hon. Friend's argument on the ACA—an arid area of what is already a dry topic. As I remarked in the last debate, of the options that are available on the area cost adjustment, following the existing NHS formula for allocating assumptions on increased costs is surely the best. It is a tried and tested formula, established in the largest employer in Europe, and should surely be commended in local government.
  Judy Mallaber: I thank my hon. Friend, who is more on top of these arid arguments about the ACA than I am. I commend his suggestion to the Minister, who I am sure will respond favourably.
  Perhaps the Minister could also respond to the suggestion, made partly in jest and partly seriously, that if some wealthier counties with higher salaries are so worried about losing out, we could add a couple of higher council tax bands, expand their tax base and use that as part of the review of local government. That might be one element to throw into the equation when considering the finance review.
  I plead with the Minister not to choose options that build on past spending patterns and unfairness, as is the case with some of the proposals on police, fire and resource equalisation. On the police, for example, all the options are bad for Derbyshire. One would enable us not to use past establishment figures. Derbyshire county council did very badly historically related to the establishment figures. There is great advantage in phasing it out. Surely there is no justification for basing new options on past spending patterns which were unfair. That relates to other areas as well, of course.
  Mr. Harry Barnes: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a particular problem in the proposed formulae for shire counties in general, and that almost 90 per cent. of them in all the categories provided lose out? I know that the size of the cake is growing, but the proportion that is going to shire counties is shrinking if we follow this particular formula. Derbyshire has serious problems. In this area it requires about a 5 per cent. increase in the next settlement in order to stand still in its expenditure.
  Judy Mallaber: I thank my hon. Friend for his helpful comment. We have serious problems in this area and I
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  hope that, within the difficulties that we have with all the formulae and current budget settlements, we do not exacerbate that but improve it, by at least not basing the new formula on past establishment figures.
  Mr. Todd: My hon. Friend touched on the issue of resource equalisation—perhaps an even more arid area in this dry topic. May I draw her attention to the fact that what appears to be the thrust of this is to establish a set of formulae to establish need, but then to say that we will throw that away and track back to previous spending patterns which may well have been justified by the authorities in question and their electorates, but should not be the basis for the allocation of Government resources?
  Judy Mallaber: I agree, and I am grateful that my hon. Friend is so assiduous and understands all the complex arguments in all these issues.
  Finally, on social services, I have no particular arguments on the options, other than to reiterate the argument for using working families tax credit within the deprivation index. Obviously, that is relevant to social services too. Overall there is an inadequacy in the global amount of social service funding, which requires Derbyshire to spend substantially above standard spending assessment in order to meet the basic needs of our residents in the county.
  Those are the main points. All of us could go on endlessly, but I should leave sufficient time for the Minister to reply to those points.
  7.17 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Christopher Leslie): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) on securing the debate. There is a lot of competition for time to debate local government finance, believe it or not, and the measure of support from hon. Members representing that county is evident today. My hon. Friend has covered a remarkable number of points in her speech and I shall try to address as many of them as possible.
  My hon. Friend is particularly concerned about funding for schools, and has registered her support for the proposal put forward by the F40 group. I am aware of the strength of feeling about this issue in the F40 group and in Derbyshire, following recent meetings with representatives. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards has also been discussing with the F40 group delegation how the current funding review might impact on their authorities. I understand that there has been a constructive exchange of views.
  It might be helpful if first I provide some background to our plans to introduce the new funding system. Hon. Members will know the range of general issues and difficulties that we face, and I do not intend to spend time repeating the general points made elsewhere. There was widespread agreement that the formulae for distributing grant needed to be overhauled. We have been working hard to devise a new system that will deliver our aims of a fairer, more transparent system for the distribution of the local grant. It is important to emphasise now one significant change from the old principles of the standard spending assessment, whose

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  original idea was to deliver a standard level of service for a standard level of council tax. That approach has not worked. We are all clear that such an approach is fundamentally incompatible with our objective of giving greater freedom and discretion to local authorities. Rather than pretending that we can say how much councils should spend, under the new framework we are focusing on how we divide up grant—real money—between authorities.
  Unsurprisingly, we have received many representations from local authorities about how they wish to receive grant. The formula review is about the distribution of a pot of money between authorities. As my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) noted, everyone argues for a bigger slice of the cake. We cannot give all authorities a greater share, but I can reassure the House that the system will consider the relative needs of different authorities and determine grant on that basis.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley mentioned highways, and the formula issues that affect local government spend in that area. The Government have looked carefully at the current highway maintenance formula throughout the review, and we share concerns that the indicators do not seem appropriate for assessing the cost of road maintenance. That is why we propose that the new formula should consist of a basic amount per kilometre of road, with top-ups for traffic flow, winter maintenance costs and pay costs. We are considering all the responses that we have received, including concerns about special grant for de-trunking, and so forth. We will make our decisions known when the final results are available.
  With regard to the options for the education formula, it is worth reiterating that considerable increases in funding for education are coming through, thanks to the spending review, over the next three years. In addition, hon. Members will know that the Government have given clear commitments that no authority's schools will lose out in real terms.
  For the education formula itself, we want a fair clear system that is justified by the educational needs of children, and based on more up-to-date evidence of cost and need. Any formula will need to have an element for deprivation, and enhancements for areas where schools need to pay more to recruit and retain staff.
  Under the current system, the main reason why authorities in London and the south-east receive a higher level of funding than other authorities such as Derbyshire is that they receive extra funding through the area cost adjustment to take account of the extra cost of recruiting and retaining staff in the area.
  Options set out in the consultation paper are based more on evidence that suggests that authorities with significant deprivation and additional staff costs need to spend significantly more to achieve the same results for their children. I accept that there is scope for judgment about the evidence, but the four options that we have reflect that.
  Judy Mallaber: The group of northern counties has produced an analysis that shows that many of the areas that get extra money through ACA are spending the
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  extra money not necessarily on education services but on other services, or to keep council tax levels down. It is not clear that the new formula really measures actual needs, and the resulting disparity in funding is substantial.
  Mr. Leslie: Obviously, there are differences of opinion between local authorities on that point. However, I hear what my hon. Friend says. I know that the F40 group, of which Derbyshire is a member, has expressed its dissatisfaction with the four new options set out in the consultation paper. That is why the option 5 proposal has been made, and I have received a great weight of correspondence from F40 authorities in support of that. I can reassure the House that we have considered all those matters carefully, and we will try to take them fully into account when we make the final decision.
  I should make it clear that in introducing the new funding system, our aim is to produce the best possible match between the distribution of funds and the differing circumstances and needs of local education authorities. I hear the interesting proposal concerning the lowest funded quartile of education SSAs. Even though the consultation has closed, my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley incorporated the proposal in her earlier submission, and we will certainly consider it.
  Option 5 suggests that money be taken out of the factor in the formula for deprivation and put into the basic allowance per pupil. That would, of course, have an impact on authorities with high levels of deprivation. In working up a new funding system we need to consider how changes will affect all authorities, not just those in the F40 Group.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley touched on other issues in relation to authorities with sparse populations. We intend the formula to contain a "sparsity" element to reflect the costs of home-to-school transport. We also hope that transport funding in each LEA will contain an assessment of the impact of sparsity. We estimate that in the new formula, 60 per cent. of the transport element in the LEA block, for example, will be distributed through the sparsity index. That may be to the benefit of Derbyshire.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley mentioned that the area cost adjustment was a significant issue. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) urged us to look at ways in which it might be changed. Numerous research projects have been undertaken over the years to find a better solution. We conducted research relatively openly. It is out there for people to see. We have thoroughly reviewed the way in which the area cost adjustment is calculated. Different research proposals were developed and have been widely debated.

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  There has been much discussion about which data source to use, which type of economic model to use, and where the boundary lines should be drawn. I think that about 21 different options for area cost adjustment have been proposed. There is little agreement between authorities on the merits of the options. While the vast majority of people recognise that pay costs should be recognised within the system, how we do that and what weighting we place on it are obviously matters for the Government.
  Judy Mallaber: May I at least tempt my hon. Friend to say that we will not carry on with the ever increasing proportion that is going into the ACA, and at the very least, that the trend will come down rather than continue to go up?
  Mr. Leslie: My hon. Friend may tempt me in that regard—but whether she succeeds is another matter, and I am afraid that I cannot give any announcements or decisions on that. We must take these matters in the proper order.
  My hon. Friend mentioned that introducing higher council tax bands might be part of a solution for authorities if they wished to expand their tax base. The matter obviously relates to the revaluation of council tax banding and whether it should start in 2005, with bills then issued for the financial year 2007 based on that revaluation. The Government are concerned about the fairness of the tax system, but we are also listening to the views of taxpayers and local government about council tax bands. The matter may well have an impact on finance, but I should mention that dwellings in band H account for less than 1 per cent. of the total number of dwellings in England, so increasing the number of bands above that would not necessarily result in significant increases in the local tax base.
  Mr. Barnes: Might not an additional approach be to make the difference between the amounts that people in different bands are expected to pay more progressive? The property value in the top band is eight times that in the bottom band, but the highest resulting payment is
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  only three times what people in the lowest band pay. If the range was greater, more money could be drawn from the top and less from the bottom.
  Mr. Leslie: These are interesting debates. They are separate from the formula grant review, I might add, but they are issues of significance and we will come to them when we address the question of revaluation and council tax banding.
  I want briefly to touch on some of the overall issues. It would not be right to look at Derbyshire in isolation from the bigger issues of local government funding. This year we have seen an 8.8 per cent. increase in resources for education. Resources for social services have risen by more than 3 per cent. in real terms each year since we took office. This year, expenditure on policing has increased by 6.1 per cent.
  There is better to come over the next three years. For social services, there will be an average increase over the next three years of 6 per cent. in real terms. Spending on education will rise by 6 per cent. for the next three years. For policing there will be an extra £1.5 billion, more than in the financial year 2002–03. There will also be more money for the environmental, protective and cultural services area of expenditure.
  Derbyshire has also benefited significantly from extra money under this Administration. Whereas it received a 1.8 per cent. increase in the last four years of the previous Administration, under this Government we have typically seen 5.1 per cent. increases. The increase in spending on education in the past five years has been 37 per cent. Whereas in 1997 the capital increase was £4 million, in 2001–02 it was £50 million, this year it was £37 million, and next year it will be £27 million. Significant sums have also been made available to Derbyshire for social services.
  Judy Mallaber: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Leslie: I am afraid that I do not have much time. I want to make a couple more points. We have consulted at length. We have considered all the issues carefully. There is a guarantee that no authority will lose out. We want a transparent system that ensures that authorities get a fair grant. That is the intention and the approach that the Government wish to take.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at half-past Seven o'clock.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Gas Prices
  The Minister for Energy and Construction (Mr. Brian Wilson)
  We have published today our conclusions on the operation of the GB gas market and concerns, especially from industrial consumers, on a marked increase in gas prices which occurred in 2000. We have carefully considered all the responses to the consultation and have found that the fundamental reason for movements in gas prices has been the influence of trade with continental Europe through the Interconnector pipeline, essential for the UK's winter gas requirements and future security of supply, as we become net importers.

  The consultation produced no evidence to suggest anti-competitive behaviour nor to justify a competition investigation by the Office of Fair Trading or the European Commission. The consultation was useful in eliciting views about the operation of gas markets.

  We recognise the difficulties that industrial consumers experienced with the rise of gas prices in 2000. To address this we are continuing to press for liberalisation and competition in energy markets both here and on the continent, and to then ensure that the inherent benefits are passed on to both industrial and domestic consumers. The complexity of the gas market means that we must seek to introduce greater transparency for the consumer. To this end we will continue to work closely with Ofgem, Transco and representatives of gas consumers, shippers and producers to increase understanding and clarity for all market participants.

  The published response includes a summary of responses to the consultation. Copies have been placed in the libraries of both Houses.

  Employment Tribunal System Taskforce
  The Minister for Employment Relations, Industry and the Regions (Alan Johnson)
  With my right honourable and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor I have today published the government's response to "Moving Forward: The Report of the Employment Tribunal System Taskforce".

  I have placed copies in the Library of the House and it is also available on the DTI's Employment relations website http://www.dti.gov.uk/er.
  2WS

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Fridge Disposal
  The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Michael Meacher)
  Report number 109 has been laid today seeking agreement to the distribution of the £40 million funding for English local authorities through a special grant. We propose that the amount payable to an authority will be allocated according to the formula used for county services within the Environmental, Protective and Cultural Services SSA block, in the same manner that the previous allocation was calculated.

  Our officials are writing to each local authority concerned with details of the special grant and the process by which they will receive their allocation.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Asylum Seekers
  The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes)
  Regulations were laid before Parliament on 21 October 2002 amending the Asylum Support Regulations 2000. The amendment, which came into effect on 11 November 2002, increased the level of support provided to dependants of asylum seekers aged under 16 who are supported by the National Asylum Support Service. The support rate has risen from £33.50 to £37.00 per week.

  Animal Procedures Committee
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office (Mr. Bob Ainsworth)
  In accordance with Section 20(5) of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, I have placed the Committee's annual report for 2001 in the Library today. Annexes to the report include the Committee's reports on Biotechnology and Openness.

TRANSPORT

  Bus Fuel Duty Rebate (Biodiesel)
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Mr. David Jamieson)
  A 100 per cent, rebate is now available for the fuel duty paid on biodiesel used by bus services which are eligible for support under the rules of my Depatment's Bus Services Operators Grant scheme.

CABINET OFFICE

  Workforce Development
  The Minister of State (Mr. Douglas Alexander)
  The Strategy Unit's report "In Demand, Adult Skills in the 21st Century—part 2" has today been published as a report of the Government.

  The report, commissioned by the Prime Minister, sets out a detailed and long-term plan for improving the productivity of the UK through raising skills levels in the workforce.
  3WS
  It focuses on the government's strategy for
  Raising demand from employers and individuals, providing access to good quality information and advice and supporting those who find it the most difficult to access development to meet their needs, particularly small businesses and individuals with lower skill levels.

  Improving the quality and responsiveness of training to make sure it meets the needs of employers and individuals.
  Providing a government framework of qualifications and accountabilities that supports development to support higher productivity and keep pace with industrial change.

  The report also sets out who is responsible for delivering the improvements, how progress will be monitored and how success will be evaluated.

  Copies of the report have been placed in the libraries of the House. Additional copies and further information can also be found on the Cabinet Office website at www.cabinet-office. gov.uk/inn ovation.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Local Radio Services
  The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tessa Jowell)
  After public consultation on the proposed radio ownership scheme, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and I have agreed that the policy of local radio ownership should ensure that in every local market with a reasonable range of services (three or more analogue stations) there should be at least two commercial radio operators and at least three commercial media voices across local and regional radio, television and newspapers.
  4WS
  For radio-only operators, maximum ownership will be limited to 55 per cent. of a market, as defined by a points system. For significant cross-media owners (either the relevant regional Channel 3 licensee or a local newspaper owner with more than 50 per cent. in the market in the coverage area of a radio station) there will be a stricter limit of 45 per cent. for analogue service, although this will only be applied in areas where there are three or more overlapping licences. No one will be allowed to own a local radio licence if they own both the relevant regional Channel 3 licence and more than 50 per cent. of the local newspaper market in the coverage are of the radio station.

  The necessary rules would be introduced by order once the Communications Bill is enacted and a draft order would then be published alongside the Bill.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Local Authority Housing Assets
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Mr. Tony McNulty)
  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is about to go out to consultation on a proposal to amend the Local Authority (Capital Finance) Regulations 1997 to allow local authorities to use up to 100 per cent. of the capital receipt they receive from the disposal of certain housing assets, excluding right to buy sales and large and small scale voluntary transfers, for the provision of affordable housing.

  The consultation paper and draft regulations may be found on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's web-site at http://www.odpm.gov.uk. Copies of the consultation paper have also been placed in both house libraries.

Preamble
The House met at eleven of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Gloucester.

Licensing Bill [H.L.]
The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision about the regulation of the sale and supply of alcohol, the provision of entertainment and the provision of late night refreshment, about offences relating to alcohol and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill he now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Baroness Blackstone.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Arms Control and Disarmament (Inspections) Bill [H.L.]
The Minister for Trade (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make further provision relating to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe signed in Paris on 19th November 1990. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [H.L.]
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Whitty, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision about waste and about penalties for non-compliance with schemes for the trading of emissions quotas. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

High Hedges Bill [H.L.]
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision for dealing with complaints about high hedges; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Baroness Trumpington.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Committee of Selection
11.8 a. m.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That in accordance with Standing Order 64 a Committee of Selection be appointed to select and propose to the House the names of the Lords to form each Select Committee of the House (except the Committee of Selection itself and any committee otherwise provided for by statute or by order of the House) or any other body not being a Select Committee referred to it by the Chairman of Committees, and the panel of Deputy Chairmen of Committees; and that the following Lords together with the Chairman of Committees he named of the Committee:

L. Cope of Berkeley,

L. Craig of Radley,

L. Dubs,

L. Grocott,

L. Roper,

V. Slim,

L. Strathclyde,

L. Trefgarne,

B. Williams of Crosby,

L. Williams of Mostyn (L. Privy Seal).—(The Chairman of Conmattees.)

Lord Barnett: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, especially as the noble Lord is making his first appearance as the new Chairman of Committees. I congratulate the noble Lord on assuming that office but I must ask him to think again about the Motion. We are appointing a Committee of Selection that will decide on the membership of all Select Committees. The role of Select Committees is to hold government to account for much of the time. Should that selection be done wholly by the Front Benches? There are only three non-Front-Benchers on the list all of whom, I am sure, will do an excellent job. The committee will be totally dominated by the Front Benches. The new Chairman of Committees will be conscious of the problem. When my noble friend Lord Sheldon was chairman of the Liaison Committee in another place, he fought very hard to ensure that the Government did not dominate the selection of members of committees.
I hope that noble Lords will consider this matter and that the Chairman of Committees will do so further. We are today starting for the first time on a Thursday at 11 o'clock, and it cannot be right or the best way to proceed if we also continue with the same procedure. Is the Chairman of Committees willing to think again?
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I associate myself very much with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. He is a very wise man and although I cannot always follow him in the restraint that he shows, on this occasion I applaud it and am doing my best to copy it.
Lord Sheldon: My Lords, I add to the comments of my noble friend Lord Barnett. I was chairman of the Liaison Committee in another place. We produced a unanimous report that these matters should be decided by the whole House of Commons. The present Leader of the House agreed with that, and there was a vote in the House of Commons. Under a surprisingly whipped vote—done from behind the scenes—the proposal was lost although the Leader of the House wished it to be implemented. I hope that we shall not proceed along similar lines here. Members of this House need to have control of these matters.
Lord Roper: My Lords, before any vote, it is important to read what the Committee of Selection does. It does not make decisions; it makes recommendations and proposes to this House. The composition of Select Committees in this House is in the hands of noble Lords.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I find the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, very puzzling. I normally agree with what he says. Would any of us ever name a Member of your Lordships' House as someone whom we should rather not have on a committee and—even more preposterously—name someone else whom we should prefer? The fact is that the usual channels dominate this matter. My noble friend is simply asking for some further thought in view of our total commitment to modernisation and similar matters. Everyone on my own committee, of course, is quite perfect. It would never occur to me to criticise any of them. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Roper, is not suggesting that we should get into the business of discussing named persons. I should find that deeply disturbing.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, for his kind words, although perhaps I do not thank him so much for his intervention on my first outing. I take his point. I say only that there are three Back-Bench Peers on the committee: the chairman of the Conservative Peers, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne; the noble Lord, Lord Dubs; and the noble Viscount, Lord Slim. Therefore, it is not entirely a "usual channels" affair. However, it is for the parties to decide how they proceed in this matter, and this is the way proposed today. At this stage, I cannot say much more than that. I commend the Motion to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

House of Lords Reform: Joint Committee
11.13 a.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords. I beg to move the Motion on the Order Paper standing in the name of my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House.
Moved, That it is expedient that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed—
(1) to consider issues relating to House of Lords reform, including the composition and powers of the second Chamber and its role and authority within the context of Parliament as a whole, having regard in particular to the impact which any proposed changes would have on the existing pre-eminence of the House of Commons, such consideration to include the implications of a House composed of more than one "category" of Member and the experience and expertise which the House of Lords in its present form brings to its function as the revising Chamber; and
(2) having regard to paragraph (1) above, to report on options for the composition and powers of the House of Lords and to define and present to both Houses options for composition, including a fully nominated and fully elected House, and intermediate options; and to consider and report on—

(a) any changes to the relationship between the two Houses which may be necessary to ensure the proper functioning of Parliament as a whole in the context of a reformed second Chamber and, in particular, any new procedures for resolving conflict between the two Houses; and

(b) the most appropriate and effective legal and constitutional means to give effect to any new parliamentary settlement;
and, in all the foregoing considerations, to have regard to—

(i) the report of the Royal Commission on House of Lords Reform (Cm 4534);

(ii) the White Paper, The House of Lords—Completing the Reform (Cm 5291), and the responses received thereto;

(iii) debates and votes in both Houses of Parliament on House of Lords reform; and

(iv) the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee report, The Second Chamber: Continuing the Reform, including its consultation of the House of Commons, and any other relevant Select Committee reports.—(Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean.)

Lord Wigoder: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness for her undertaking that the items set out in paragraphs (i) to (iv), to which the committee shall have regard, are not intended to be an exclusive list and that the committee can have regard to any other matters that it considers appropriate.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Yes, my Lords. I believe that it is a continuation of what we did in the previous Session but it is not an exclusive list.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, at 3 p.m. my noble friend Lord Rooker will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is being made in another place on the fire dispute.
I take this opportunity to remind Members that today the House will adjourn during pleasure between 1.30 and 3 p.m. and that we should aim to conclude our business by 7.30 p.m. In order to rise by 7.30 p.m., Back-Bench speeches should last for no more than nine minutes, as indicated at the foot of the speakers' list.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, perhaps I may raise a question. I am, of course, fully aware that we moved to a different timetable for business. However, I had not personally taken it on board—perhaps it was my foolishness—that, in effect, that will mean that all debates on days where the aim is to end at 7.30 p.m. will be time-limited. Therefore, in practice, if Statements are made and if many noble Lords wish to speak, very short periods will be available for speeches. I know that that has been the practice in other forms of debate in your Lordships' House, but this seems to me to be a big extension of that principle. If I am right, it is one at which I express some unhappiness.
Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, I listened carefully to the Captain of the Yeoman of the Guard and he did not say that it is a time-limited debate. Indeed, it is not a time-limited debate, as my noble friend makes clear. That was not part of the agreement and it was not part of the arrangements which your Lordships' House carried in the summer. It was agreed that we should use our best endeavours to finish by the various times stated.
However, in the discussions that we had—off the top of my head I cannot remember whether it was stated specifically in the House; it was rather a long debate—it was also understood that when, for example, we had a Statement, the time targets would be regarded as flexible. Obviously a Statement takes a huge chunk out of the time.
Clearly today, when we have a Statement, we are less likely to conclude by 7.30 p.m. than would be the case if there were not a Statement. In any case, the suggestion of the number of minutes for which noble Lords should speak is just that—a suggestion. No doubt some noble Lords will speak more briefly than the time suggested, but it is possible that some will overrun that time, having valuable things to share with your Lordships' House. All that is entirely in order, within the agreement and within the Motion passed by your Lordships in the summer. It was very deliberately not a Motion to time-limit debates.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I confirm what the noble Lord, Lord Cope, has just said. Last
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summer a decision of the whole House was made that we should take action to seek to conclude our business by 7.30 p.m. on some days and by 10 p.m. on others. I cannot think that it was not clear to anyone that seeking to achieve that might lead to some self-discipline among Members. The usual channels are trying to implement the decision that the House took in July this year. As the noble Lord, Lord Cope, rightly says, this is not a time-limited debate. No government Whips will stand up at the conclusion of nine minutes to say that the speaker must sit down. But, of course, the House has the objective of rising and that will call for self-discipline by all Members of the House.
The question of whether there is a Statement and the effect that that has on the length of speeches has also been anticipated. At the foot of the speakers' list is a proposed time limit for when there is a Statement and one for when there is not. The nine minutes that I suggested today takes into account the fact that there will be a Statement.

Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech
11.19 a.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion moved yesterday by the Baroness Turner of Camden—namely, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to open this debate on foreign affairs, international development and defence. The world has changed profoundly in the year-and-a-half since we last discussed these issues in a debate on the gracious Speech. Since then, some of our worst fears, which to many people were far-fetched or unimaginable, have become a reality in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Bali and Moscow. Terrorism has threatened the international community more starkly than ever.
But, over the same period, we have also seen the international community performing at its best in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor. All those countries still have huge difficulties to overcome but all have become not so much theatres of conflict as theatres of co-operation, rebuilding and shared international effort.
We in this country can be proud of Britain's contribution to that effort. Our role in international peacekeeping forces as well as our support for reconstruction has been crucial. These are among the best examples of Britain acting as a force for good in the world and a prime example of why we need strong Armed Forces equipped for today's challenges; a

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dedicated and astute Diplomatic Service; vigilant and well-informed intelligence services; and an international development programme focused on eradicating poverty, hunger and disease. I pay tribute to all the men and women who serve the United Kingdom throughout the world in those capacities. Their work is often difficult and dangerous. It does not always grab the headlines. All too often it surfaces only in times of military conflict, terrorist outrage or humanitarian disaster. But it goes on painstakingly and professionally day in, day out and it matters deeply.
Let me begin with what will be foremost in many minds today: Iraq. Your Lordships will want to know that there will be an opportunity to debate that subject fully in this House in coming weeks. The Government's policy is clear: full compliance with the United Nations Security Council resolutions and an end to Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction, verified by United Nations weapons inspectors. Those are our crucial objectives. Iraqi acceptance yesterday, albeit grudgingly, of the unanimously expressed will of the United Nations in the shape of UNSCR 1441 is a first welcome step. But we must be vigilant. The Iraqi regime's intentions are notoriously changeable. To achieve our objectives we must continue to pursue a strategy of diplomacy backed by force. Last week's UN Security Council resolution gives us what we need: a path forward in how the international community should deal with that threat and, crucially, a path forward for Iraq too, if the regime will take it, to normalise relations with the rest of the world.
The United Nations is also playing a key role in combating international terrorism. The UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, under the chairmanship of our Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock, is reviewing the efforts of member states to suppress terrorism, and coordinating support for those efforts. We are making real progress. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has been removed and democratic government established. Reconstruction is underway. Al'Qaeda's operations have been severely disrupted. But the threat remains and nobody is immune: the advanced economies, the military powers, commercial life, or, indeed, the poorer parts of the world. We all suffer from terrorism or the threat of terrorism. This Government will continue to play a leading role in combating it.
In recent weeks we have been asked about the direct linkage between terrorism and our concerns about weapons of mass destruction. The question has been raised in this House. The fact is that both are threats. They are distinct and separate but both are current and potentially deadly. We know that Iraq is not the only country to have been building up undeclared weapons of mass destruction. North Korea also poses a serious threat. There are concerns about, among others, India, Pakistan and Israel. In all those cases the countries concerned are in discussion about how to deal with their weapons.
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Where states possess nuclear weapons, we must work to minimise the risk of them being used. In South Asia, Britain has been active in trying to reduce longstanding tensions between India and Pakistan. We hope the recent elections in Kashmir can serve as the basis for further confidence building.
For many commentators, politicians and many of your Lordships, I know that the underlying problem, the huge unresolved conflict, is in the Middle East. We must all work to stop the violence and build a more secure future for Israel and the Palestinian people. The Government understand the enormity of the obstacles which face us. Those obstacles can be overcome only through leadership by those directly involved but the international community can and must help. I applaud the role Javier Solana is playing as the EU's representative in the quartet on the Middle East working alongside the United States, the United Nations and Russia. The quartet is moving forward on a road map that could achieve a final settlement within three years, breaking the cycle of violence, despair, hatred and deprivation which has gone on for too long and which is a scar on the face of the international community.
Russia's role in the quartet on the Middle East is just one example of its growing partnership with the West. That is an important and welcome trend. There are many issues of common concern. As the terrible events in Moscow two weeks ago illustrated, Russia knows as much as any country about the threat from terrorism. We have a shared interest in combating international crime and curbing the flow of heroin from Afghanistan. Building on those shared interests, we are now also working to develop a new relationship between NATO and Russia. We look forward to continuing the dialogue of growing trust and cooperation.
Moreover, NATO itself is changing fast. The Prague Summit later this month will be an opportunity to reshape NATO to provide defence against the new threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. That means giving it new missions, new capabilities, new command structures and a substantial number of new members. NATO is also developing new relationships with its partners to the east and south, especially Russia following the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council. All that represents a transformation which will guarantee the role of the alliance as the bedrock of our security for the next generation.
The transatlantic alliance remains the basis of our collective and territorial defence. Our relationship with the United States is strong and effective. We are bound not only by our close ties of commerce, defence and language but by the underlying values we share as free people within vibrant civil societies where democracy and the rule of law are paramount. We are, as the American Ambassador William Farish remarked at the commemoration of the dreadful events of September 11th, the United States' staunchest ally and truest friend. But, as in all relationships, both sides have to work hard and both

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countries, the United Kingdom and the United States, do indeed work hard to sustain and grow our vital friendship.
Diplomacy must always be backed by defence. Our defence capability is crucial in making us an effective international partner. Our Strategic Defence Review has provided the basis for restructuring and re-equipping our Armed Forces. The value of that has been proved time and again in terms of their professional fighting capability and superb record in peacekeeping. Our servicemen and women are the envy of the world. We shall ensure that they have the support they need to perform effectively. We must continue to take prudent steps to ensure that they are ready, fully trained and fully equipped to undertake any task their country may ask of them.
The new chapter of the Strategic Defence Review published this year provided a renewed assessment of the fast-changing security environment. We are increasing our defence spending and have launched an unprecedented programme of enhancing defence capabilities: new aircraft carriers, the new Type 45s; new transport provision in C17s and the A400M; the Typhoon; the Joint Strike Fighter; and Watchkeeper, which will form a key part of progress towards network enabled capabilities. Also, in ASRAAM the RAF now has a missile available for full operational deployment that is already the best of its kind in the world; and, yes, we will have a new communications systems too.
We must also continue to work with our EU partners on a European security and defence policy to enable Europe's contribution to crisis management operations both within NATO and when NATO is not engaged. That will be discussed at the Copenhagen Summit. 'The summit will also see historic decisions on enlargement of the EU to include new members. The Government hope to see a first wave of accession by 2004 by 10 EU applicants and will, as the gracious Speech indicated, bring forward the necessary legislation during this Parliament.
The Government are also working to promote reform of the EU's internal structures. The Treaty of Nice was the first step. Copenhagen will be another. We have laid out our priorities: defining the competencies of the EU more clearly; simplifying the treaties to make them easier to understand; addressing the role of national parliaments in the EU; and improving the EU's democratic legitimacy. We hope that the Convention on the Future of Europe will see progress on this agenda, and we commend the work of parliamentarians in both Houses who are taking this forward.
Reform is needed to help to prepare the way for EU enlargement. But that is not the only reason why reform is needed. Many of the changes we are seeking are long overdue; for example, strengthening cooperation against organised crime and illegal immigration and reforming the common agricultural policy. The mid-term review is still on track and Europe must recognise that a system of subsidies where every cow is subsidised to the tune of two dollars
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a day, while 1.2 billion people around the world subsist on one dollar a day is not right, not sustainable and not acceptable. We must also enhance the competitiveness of the EU economies. The Government will complete by June 2003 their assessment of whether Britain should join the euro, based on the five economic tests. In the meantime, our policy remains clear: in principle we are in favour of joining; in practice the economic conditions must be right.
We want to strengthen the EU's role as a force for good in the world in preventing conflict, promoting democracy and human rights, and supporting sustainable development. The Convention on the Future of Europe is looking at reforms to the EU's foreign policy mechanisms. Development also deserves a distinctive place in the convention's considerations. We want to see the EU's current development policy reform efforts intensified. That includes reducing trade barriers, particularly to agricultural goods, to make it easier for developing countries to begin to trade effectively. The Government will work with EU partners for a successful conclusion to the multilateral trade negotiations launched in Doha last year.
According to the IMF, if we were able to halve the trade tariffs around the world, we could increase the trade to developing countries by some 150 billion dollars a year. That is three times what the whole world gives in aid budgets to those countries.
As the Minister for Trade, noble Lords would expect me to be committed on this point: I am convinced that a successful trade round would serve the interests of developing and developed countries alike, including of course this country. Our prosperity is hugely dependent on international trade and investment. Our long-standing crucial trading relationships with the US and with Europe are well understood. But world-wide we must sustain our efforts, which produce 30 per cent of our GDP. The City of London is one of the world's leading financial markets. One in three of our diplomats is involved in promoting British business and securing high-quality foreign investment. The creation of British Trade International, which reports directly to the DTI and the Foreign Office, has enhanced their work greatly.
British Trade International is a great example of the Government's emphasis on joining up the work of Whitehall departments. That is important in all areas of policy. But it is particularly relevant to much of today's foreign policy agenda. For example, trade relationships with the countries of Latin America, with Brazil and Mexico, on the one hand and countries in Asia—in particular with China emerging as a huge economy—are crucial in taking forward other areas of shared concern. Globalisation is making Britain's security and prosperity increasingly dependent on events abroad. Departments traditionally focused on domestic policy are increasingly aware of the international angle; and departments traditionally focused on international developments are increasingly aware of the domestic agenda. A good example was the preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.

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Through active, joined-up diplomacy we played a key role in securing a wide array of new commitments to promote sustainable development worldwide.
It is appropriate that that summit was held in Africa. Nowhere is the challenge of sustainable development more compelling. We can, and must, make progress. This requires partnership; a commitment by African leaders to pursue policies to tackle poverty, and a commitment by the international community to support those policies. The New Partnership for Africa's Development provides the framework we need. Britain is providing strong support. Our assistance to Africa is increasing rapidly and will soon exceed £1 billion per year. The Prime Minister has given strong leadership in this endeavour and of course my noble friend Lady Amos has been closely involved as his special representative in Africa and has worked tirelessly on this issue.
The priority we are giving to Africa is part of a wider refocusing of Britain's international development programme towards a single goal; that is, reducing poverty. That was confirmed by the International Development Act, which received Royal Assent during the last Parliament. We will press ahead with this agenda and work to strengthen the development efforts of the international community as a whole, particularly the EU, the United Nations and the World Bank. The key challenge is to focus the entire international effort on achieving the millennium development goals.
In the meantime, we are faced with the appalling food crisis in southern Africa and increasing concern at the situation in Ethiopia. The number of people at risk in southern Africa is truly terrifying. We have committed more than £81 million since September in humanitarian assistance and agricultural recovery. Our support will continue. We must also encourage others in the wider international community to engage further. In Ethiopia, at the same time as humanitarian assistance, we are looking at tackling the underlying causes of food insecurity.
The Commonwealth is a key partner in these efforts. The Government's commitment to the Commonwealth remains as strong as ever. Members are bound by a shared commitment to sustainable development, based on the principles of good governance and respect for human rights. It is tragic that these principles originally agreed in Harare are now so threatened in Zimbabwe. We must continue to work with our Commonwealth partners and the wider international community to continue to tackle the problems which have had such an appalling effect on the long-suffering people of that country.
The Government also remain firmly committed to British Overseas Territories, as set out in the 1999 White Paper. We want to build a secure, stable and prosperous future for all our territories, and of course we have particularly in mind at the moment Gibraltar. As I have said many times in your Lordships' House, this can be achieved only through constructive dialogue, a dialogue which we hope to continue with all interested parties.
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We know that these are not issues for government alone. We know we need to work closely with business, non-governmental organisations, religious communities and the whole range of others involved in international development and foreign and defence policy. The Government have taken significant steps to enhance such co-operation. We recognise the need to reach out to all those who can contribute to this debate—to the Arab and Muslim communities—in finding a way forward on what my right honourable friend the Prime Minister described as the only viable solution that the whole world supports in the Middle East—an Israeli state recognised by all and a viable Palestinian state.
We need to reach out, too, to those in failing or failed nations, to help them to rebuild their fragile societies and to move away from military conflict, corruption and poverty.
We recognise the need for dialogue between the great religions of the world. I commend, as did my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, the work of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey of Clifton, in pioneering the Alexandria process in this respect, which embraces the religious leaders with very different views and backgrounds, but all with a shared passion for peace.
We shall talk to those who will engage in this endeavour to encourage all countries to espouse the freedoms that we hold dear and to apply the benefits which flow from those freedoms in terms of peace and prosperity fairly around the world.
11.38 a.m.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords are extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for her wide-ranging survey of international affairs. In the time available I could not possibly—nor shall I—seek to cover all the interesting points and aspects of this very dangerous world upon which she touched.
However, it is appropriate that we should open the debate on the gracious Speech by addressing international affairs, because foreign and domestic issues are becoming more and more inter-linked. The opinion pollsters tell us that no one is really interested in foreign affairs. But, of course, they ask the wrong questions. The reality is that what happens in relation to the issues that we are discussing today influences intimately the business mood, life on the high street, our daily lives, our social affairs, our taxes, spending prices and the future of our politics. So we are starting at the right point with an overarching view that embraces the whole foreign and domestic scene.
Perhaps the greatest lesson that we have learnt in the past year—between the previous gracious Speech and this one—is that the frontiers of our freedom, safety and security have radically shifted. We now live in an infinitely more complex foreign affairs, defence and security environment. We used to think that our front lines were mainly on the Elbe and in central Europe and our faith was in the NATO shield. True, the foundations of our security remain collective, but not

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only is NATO changing radically, as the noble Baroness said and as will be discussed in the forthcoming Prague gathering on NATO reform, but the frontiers to be defended have moved both further away and, at the same time, much nearer home.
We now confront immediate danger to our citizens and our lives both in the mountains of Afghanistan and on the high street. Instability in Africa, central Asia and even the Pacific region directly threaten our survival, while at the same time homeland defence against terrorist acts in our cities and towns has once again loomed massive in importance—as military planners have belatedly recognised with their renewed interest in the Territorials and reservists, who have been cut repeatedly over the years under successive governments. We are now beginning once again to understand and respect their vital role.
I shall concentrate on three themes from the gracious Speech, all mentioned by the noble Baroness. The first is the Middle East situation and Iraq—the horrors of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the surrounding penumbra of terrorist, hatred and anti-Americanism with which it is infused. The second is the contribution that we in this country are making in those fields—in particular, the contribution of our Armed Forces and their equipment—in readiness and preparation for what is clearly to come. Thirdly, I shall consider a matter to which the noble Baroness devoted some time, which is the value added, as it were, in the handling of those issues crucial to our national security by current European Union developments and plans, the work of the convention and the stream of new proposals to reorganise and reshape the European Union in the face of its prospective enlargement to 25 nations.
Given time, I shall also say a word about the increasing feebleness and dismal incompetence of the Government during the Gibraltar saga, which now has an almost farcical quality. In the words of the excellent House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, we have achieved the worst of all worlds, with both Gibraltar and Spain deeply alienated, everyone feeling cross and all our aims set far back. I shall return to that later, if I have time.
Obviously, I should also like to say a word about Zimbabwe, where our feeble policy is allowing the entire New Partnership for Africa's Development, which was mentioned in the gracious Speech, to be undermined. The result of that and the Zimbabwean crisis is making the already appalling drought much worse and increasing rather than reducing suffering. My noble friend Lord Astor will speak in much greater depth on both those subjects, as well as on that other great strand of world policy, underdevelopment and its main cause, which is bad governance, when he winds up the debate.
My first theme is Iraq and the Middle East. As I said the other day, we strongly welcome the United
38
Nations resolution and the reply through the post from Baghdad—although, Saddam being a congenital liar like Matilda, who,
"told such Dreadful Lies
It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes",
cannot resist telling a whopper right at the outset. There will be many more half truths, dissembling and some difficult calls to make for those who want the matter to be sensibly progressed during the coming weeks.
I strongly support a point made by the noble Baroness and the Foreign Secretary, which is that the truly credible threat of force behind the resolution has been the key to getting movement so far. Anyone who thinks that Saddam would have moved an inch if it had not been for the strong credibility—the visible signs—that we were prepared to use military force deludes himself. I know that many Members of your Lordships' House—perhaps in all parties—and people outside Parliament have questioned the threat of force. However sincere they are, they have not understood the point that every doubt uttered about using military force immediately encourages Iraq to flout the UN again, making violence, instability and warfare much more likely, not less.
Nor have some of the doubters understood that international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are all part of the same culture of mindless hatred and fanatical murder. The Prime Minister did not emphasise that point when he first spoke about the dossier on and the need to do something about Iraq, but now he appears to have got the point. I am glad that the Government are now emphasising, as they did not originally, that weapons of mass destruction and the terrorist mentality are two new terrifying developments that, when they come together, threaten us all.
I have full respect for those who argue that the Israel-Palestine tragedy must also be addressed and that we must not be distracted from it, but with Saddam curbed or even removed and a new sense of moderation and co-operation running from Turkey, where there is a new government, through a more pluralist Iraq to a more enlightened Syria, which seems to be changing its views, the chances of progress with Palestine and Israel will be immeasurably increased. Those things go together.
Secondly, how do we in Britain prepare to be part of that credible threat, to help in the use of military force? We all know that our Armed Forces have unmatched personnel who risk their lives for us. We must never forget that for a moment, but we must ask whether we are fulfilling our side of the bargain and sending them into battle with the best possible equipment. In the words of the noble Baroness, are we equipping them to meet today's challenges?
At present, some of our troops are having to give up their leave to perform firefighting duties using machines that when I see them on the streets look suspiciously like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine. I hope that they will be able to manage. However, in the longer term and more seriously, I

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recognise that valuable lessons were learnt during Exercise Sail Sareea in Oman and that the smart acquisition procurement cycle has had its successes in the military. However, when I asked the National Audit Office, the House of Lords Library and other experts for a short list of some problem projects, the papers with which I was supplied were so voluminous that I could not even pick up my briefcase. The list is vast. I shall name only a few from an enormous list of problems with the provision of equipment.
As a result of Exercise Saif Sareea, we know that some of our trucks boil over, Challenger tanks get full of sand—although we hear that that is being corrected—boots melt, and rifles jam—there are now doubts even about the modified SA80, the A2. Signal equipment is still ancient. Bowman is coming but Clansman is inadequate for placing an expeditionary force in the Gulf.
As for bigger equipment, Apaches are mothballed because of lack of pilots and damage themselves with debris when they shoot their missiles. Lynxes are grounded, so we have Apaches with no pilots and pilots for Lynxes but no aircraft. Merlins have operational difficulties. Half of our frigates and destroyers are unavailable. Nimrod's wings do not fit. The Sea Harrier is to be scrapped. The upgraded Tornado has trouble with its missiles. The Eurofighter is over-running its cost by £1.9 billion—that is a minimum estimate; some say that the figure is much higher—costing £19 billion in total. Then we have the Joint Strike Fighter—I fully appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, Minister of State for Defence, is at present in the United States dealing with that issue.
I do not know whether we need all those vast, manned fighters for our future equipment, but they certainly drain money away. Now, according to the Daily Telegraph of 2nd November—I would like to know whether there is any authenticity in the report—the Chancellor is telling military chiefs that we do not have the money to mount a full expedition with full equipment to the Gulf anyway. That will not be surprising, if half of the things that I read out are correct. We are entitled to, at least, some assurances that some of the matters are being addressed in a way that will ensure that, as the noble Baroness said, our troops are fully equipped for today's challenges.
I would also like to hear in the winding-up speech how many reservists will be needed to get the expeditionary force into the Gulf for the attack on Iraq, if we are to make a serious contribution alongside the Americans and others. We hope that that attack will not come, but it may be needed.
The Secretary of State for Defence has also said that we must consider seriously the issues that arise for us from developments in ABM technology and the need for American bases here to be upgraded. Can we be assured that that is all going ahead and not told that no formal decision has been requested from the Americans? In his latest pronouncements, the Secretary of State has encouraged us to consider such matters. How is all that going?
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I turn now to the enlargement of the European Union. We will deal with the accession treaty Bill in the coming year. I have two initial comments. First, it seems to me, having spent some time at the EU institutions and in Brussels in the past few weeks, that there is a conviction that a larger European Union means more centralisation and more power to the central European institutions. It is a deep conviction. I believe that the opposite is the case and that that view is fundamentally wrong. The obsessive hunt for a single foreign policy is a distraction, and the demand for integration of the third pillar—which one hears all the time in Brussels—into a single structure is dangerous.
The other day, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, urged Britain to speak for Europe. That is crying for the moon. In the present situation, Britain speaks for Europe neither on Iraq nor on many other issues. EU spokesmen certainly do not speak for us. Mr Schröder has called for the "German way" in dealing with Iraq; that is not our way. France is ploughing a completely different furrow. We need a realistic understanding of our differences, if we are to make a serious contribution in that area. It is good that the mantra of ever-closer union has, at last, been discarded, but the convention keeps calling, as the noble Baroness mentioned, for a single pillar, combining defence and foreign policy in a "communitised" system. That would be unacceptable, and I hope that the Government hold that view too. We need an assurance on that, before we are told one morning that the whole matter has been conceded.
The concern to create a European superpower is an elitist's dream. It is utterly remote from the people of Europe and will not bring a single benefit to Europe's citizens. There is, in some quarters, total failure to understand that the real need is to bring power back to national parliaments and ensure that democracy and accountability are not pushed onto the back seats, as they sometimes appear to be in the convention's discussions. The European Charter of Fundamental Rights has, apparently, now been accepted, although it was once described as being no more important than the Beano. If we incorporate that into the proposed new constitution and treaty, it will not add in any way to human liberties. In some circumstances, the piling on of additional rights is so unbalanced that it will reduce those liberties.
I hope for an absolute assurance from the Government that, when the new constitution being brewed up—in effect, a huge new European treaty—comes along in a year or so from now, there will be a referendum here. The people of Britain must be allowed to make their views known by that means. We are also utterly opposed to any new powers to arrest and extradite British citizens for activities that are not crimes in this country.
After terrorism, the second greatest danger is the deepening divide between the European Union and America. The noble Baroness mentioned the ESDP. Some say that the Prime Minister has lost interest in that scheme, but the damage has been done. Ministers still assert that ESDP does not weaken NATO, while

41
the Americans warn us that it weakens American enthusiasm for working and engaging with Europe. They ask why we have created an autonomous capability outside NATO.
It has brought a heap of problems, which I have been dealing with in Brussels in the past few days. There is the issue of Turkey, which has been stirred up to fever pitch by Giscard d'Estaing's unwise remarks, just when there is a new, more balanced government in Ankara who might help us to solve the Cyprus situation with their interesting idea of having Swiss-type cantons. That has all been embittered by the ESDP issue. There is the American call for a NATO response force. I do not see how that is supposed to fit in with the European rapid reaction force, unless our troops are to be triple-hatted. The common agricultural policy is still with us and is likely to be so for many years. It will not be changed as some of us—including, I think, the Government—hoped. Meanwhile, the centre Left in Europe has been singing the wrong tune about George Bush. Amid the usual anti-American chorus, he is proving to be a powerful statesman and a winning politician. It sometimes seems that, while the Asians and others worry that American foreign policy will fail to meet its peacekeeping aims, too many Europeans fear that it will succeed.
I have no time to comment on the euro, about which the noble Baroness spoke. We do not think much of the five tests. The real issue is stability against the dollar, a currency that is more important—1.6 times more important—for our exports than the euro. All that must be debated in the Chamber. Some misleading figures have been given from the Government Benches.
There is a paradox at the centre of global affairs. The US is the most powerful state, but it is also the most vulnerable. Our medium size and agility are valuable adjuncts that would be seriously damaged, if we were to become entangled in a dinosaur of a European superpower. World security requires the partnership of US might and UK agility. The stupidest reaction of all in the present dangerous conditions would be for the European leadership to try to rival or emulate the US and create another superpower. The applicant states understand that better, in many ways, than do the leading policy-makers in some other continental capitals. Our best contributions to world peace are the confidence and the qualities that we have as the British people.
Of course, the US cannot go it alone; we have known that all along and have said so. There is a need for our qualities in dealing not only with Iraq but with Zimbabwe, which I mentioned. We should take the lead in the Commonwealth and not just wring our hands. We should also take the lead over Gibraltar, where our nerve and our diplomatic skills seem to have failed us. I hope that, whatever the noble Baroness said, the present plan will be dropped.
It is now time to explain simply to our Spanish friends and neighbours that the best way of handling the Gibraltarians is to be nicer to them and not to bully
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them—or, indeed, us. We should be firm, friendly but unwavering in safeguarding the freedom, prosperity and security of our people. That is the way to a better relationship all round. On Gibraltar, we should drop the talks and start again. I hope that our foreign policy makers and Ministers have, at least, learnt that lesson in the past year and will apply it with more success in the year to come.
11.59 a.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we must start the debate with the most immediate issue: the Middle East and the potential war with Iraq. I congratulate the Government on their efforts to ensure that there was a successful UN resolution that could be adopted by unanimity. It was worth the effort, the countless telephone calls and the weeks of delay. To witness Syria voting for that resolution and then the Arab League meeting to bring pressure on Iraq shows what can be done through effective multilateral co-operation. We all recognise that the British Government have played a very constructive role in this, and for that it has our full support.
The first result of that massive effort has been that Iraq has been forced by its neighbours and partners, as much as by the rest of the world community, to accept inspection on the terms laid down in a very tough resolution. I was rather shaken yesterday to be telephoned by an American reporter, who will be accompanying President Bush to Prague, and asked whether the Europeans were going to stick with this rather vague UN resolution. In response to that I ask: 'have you read it?' This is a very detailed and tough resolution. It gives us the way forward and if there are those in Washington who think that this is not a serious operation then we have to be tough with our American allies and say this is the path down which we go.
None of us, of course, has any illusions that this will be a tough and continuing process with many twists and turns in the coming months. The immediate prospect of war has been averted, bat we all recognise that the threat of force remains necessary to ensure compliance. So Liberal Democrats support necessary military preparations provided that these remain within the framework of the United Nations Security Council resolution and provided that any move towards the use of force will be taken within the context of multilateral co-operation, not of a unilateral American assessment followed by Britain alone. We have set out to manage the problem of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq through multilateral institutions, so far successfully. We should continue down that path, holding the international community together as well as we can.
I have also been surprised and unnerved by the extent to which there are those in Washington who wish to refer to Saddam Hussein as a madman totally outside the possibilities of any compromise. All the evidence, as I am glad to see that the US administration's psychological adviser on Saddam

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Hussein himself admits, is that Saddam Hussein is a rational actor who recognises that survival is an important part of his future plans.
Therefore, we welcome the effort that the Government are making to insist that inspections shall be the road down which we go, but that inspections have to be accepted on the terms of the UN resolution. We also welcome the Minister's reaffirmation that problems of weapons of mass destruction and of Iraq are not the same as those of international terrorism, even if there are many indirect links between them, and that effective inspection in Iraq, or even a regime change, will not resolve the problems of international terrorism.
We, in the United Kingdom, and our allies and partners, also have to address the wider context of relations between the western democracies and the Middle East and the Muslim world as a whole. Therefore, we welcomed the Prime Minister's restatement in his Lord Mayor's banquet speech of Britain's approach to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, reminding us of President Bush's speech of last June with its clear commitment to a two-state solution and to a viable Palestinian state, which must mean a withdrawal from many of the recent Israeli settlements, not just another promise of a halt in their further expansion. We know, sadly, that there are those in Israel who wish to push the Palestinians out of the Occupied Territories and claim the whole of the land west of the Jordan for a Jewish state. We must spell out very clearly that any move towards permanent occupation, let alone towards expulsion of substantial proportions of the population, would be condemned by the whole international community.
We all recognise that there is an unavoidable link between the bitter and longstanding Israeli/Palestinian dispute and relations with the rest of the Middle East. The West has to be seen, as the Prime Minister also rightly said, to be concerned with the implementation of all UN resolutions towards the region if we are to carry other Arab governments and their publics with us on Iraq.
We also welcome from these Benches the efforts that the Government have been putting in—in particular the Foreign Secretary—on maintaining a dialogue with Iran. We do not see Iran as part of the axis of evil: we see it as a state internally divided, in which it is very much in the interests of the West to encourage those progressive elements who wish to move towards a more open relationship with their partners.
We also want to see our Government and others pursue the agenda opened up by the UN Development Programme Arab Human Development Report; not, as again some in Washington have suggested, a recipe for imposing western democracy across the region immediately through forced regime change, but an intelligent admission from Arab experts of the underlying problems of authoritarian regimes attempting economic modernisation without social progress or political reform. We clearly need a broad co-operative strategy to take that agenda forward.
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Furthermore, we should do everything we can to promote a closer dialogue between the West and the Muslim world as a whole. Again, we welcome the Prime Minister's references to inter-faith dialogue and the role of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey of Clifton, in the Alexandria Process. There is a great deal more to be done here, including with our own Muslim community within Britain.
I just want to repeat what we on these Benches have said before, our enemy in this—the enemy of liberalism, of democracy, of civilisation—is fundamentalism, not Islam. Christian fundamentalism lurks dangerously on the conservative right of American politics. Jewish fundamentalism supports the expansion of Israeli settlements across the whole of Gaza and the West Bank and dismisses the rights and interests of the Palestinians. Muslim fundamentalism drives international terror attacks against the West.
In all of that, and in much of the rest of Britain's foreign policy, we can achieve little on our own. British foreign policy is far more effective when it is conducted in co-operation with others than when we attempt to stand in splendid isolation, as it seems to me so often the Conservatives appear to prefer. There have been occasions in the previous Session when I have wondered whether the foreign policy of the Conservative Party was concerned with Zimbabwe, Gibraltar and very little else. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Howell, ranging more widely today, although I have to say the underlying anti-European tone of his remarks did worry me considerably. I would be sorry to hear the Conservative Party going quite so far into almost a hope that the European Union will fail so that we can follow America as a passive partner, rather than what many in Washington, as the President will say in Prague, want from the Europeans; that is, an active partner which is capable of working together with the United States. And that requires the Europeans to work together.
The Prime Minister has put in great efforts over the past few months in co-operating with the United States. I was struck to hear on a radio programme a Republican congressman refer to the argument between the Cheney/Rumsfeld axis and the Powell/ Blair axis. If I were the Prime Minister I would be very happy with that definition. I think that there were some disadvantages in working quite so far behind the scenes. Our Government, and others, have to be concerned about the unnerving quality of the public debate within Washington—how frenzied it is. how many subjects are not being discussed there—and we need, as America's partners, to be taking part in their public debate as well as in their private influence.
However, I worry that some of that has been at the cost of neglecting Britain's partners. If the United Kingdom is to act as an effective bridge between Europe and the United States we have to ensure that the footings remain firm on both sides. There is, after all, a heavy European agenda for the coming weeks and months. We have the NATO summit in Prague on 14th and 15th November. Thankfully, enlargement is already a done deal, but the American proposal for

45
what is now called a NATO response force is an important challenge to Europeans. Here again, I disagree strongly with what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said. It seems to be clear that the American proposal for the NATO response force fits in quite well with further progress towards an ESDP. It is a different rapid reaction force for a different purpose and it is important that Europeans respond positively to that.
I do, however, agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that there have been occasions in the past two years when it has seemed as though the Prime Minister has forgotten that the St Malo initiative was his and that Britain has appeared to go a little cool on closer European defence integration. We on these Benches are quite clear that if we want to use our own defence efforts more effectively, and to persuade our European partners to spend their limited defence budgets more effectively, closer defence integration is the way forward.
That is not to talk about a European army. It is, however, to remark, for example, that in any potential conflict in Iraq British forces would rely on medical units from other European countries because we do not have enough, and we ought to be pleased that medical units from other European forces are available to work with the British. I was immensely puzzled by the suggestion of the noble Lord. Lord Howell, that what we really want is a looser common foreign policy and a looser European Union. What we get from Washington is an increasing demand that Europeans as a group should play a larger role in sharing the common burden. That is among many other reasons why we on these Benches support a more effective common foreign and security policy, including a more effective European defence policy.
We then move on to the Copenhagen European Council on 12th and 13th December when the European Union has to deal with the final bargain on enlargement; a major development bringing 10 former socialist states into the European Union. What distresses Liberal Democrats most about that is the extent to which the broader vision has been lost. There is haggling about agriculture, about the budget and even about the British rebate. There is a suggestion that we ought to be concerned that these new members should not be net contributors in the first year after they join. However, there is no sense of generosity and no sense of the historic nature of extending security, democracy and prosperity from western Europe across to the East. I regret that none of the leaders in Europe, including our own, has yet begun to talk about enlargement in those terms. I hope that the British Prime Minister, when he goes to Copenhagen, will at least attempt to raise the debate to that level.
On the convention, to which the Minister has referred, my noble friend Lord Maclennan will no doubt say a good deal more than me. However, I want briefly to say that this Government have said from the outset that they wish to strengthen the role of national parliaments in the European Union, but they have seemed remarkably reluctant to inform their own national Parliament of the proposals which they were
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making to the convention. I hope that at the end of the debate the Minister will assure us that we will have an early debate in this House on progress in the convention and that the Government will report their current attitude to the proposals under discussion in the convention. It is already halfway through and a number of reports have already been published and we ought to be allowed to have our say.
We also welcome the reference in the Queen's Speech to reaching finally some sort of conclusion on the five tests for the euro. We on these Benches greatly hope that those conclusions will be favourable and we look forward to a referendum. I was pleased to see in the newspapers reports of the visit of a committee from the other place to Paris and of the constructive proposals that the French were making to welcome the British into the euro on favourable terms. That is a historic political and economic decision which we hope the British will soon be making.
There are many other topics to which we will return in the course of the Session. I refer, for instance, to other aspects of weapons of mass destruction; the stricter control on and the reduction of arms sales; the question of the International Criminal Court; and of course the longer term challenge to Africa. I want to say from these Benches that we have all been immensely impressed by how hard the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, has worked on the problems of Africa and how effective her efforts have been in the extremely difficult circumstances of where we now are in southern Africa. We have no illusions that it is easy, given the colonial past, to deal with the current government in Zimbabwe. We recognise the mixture of political and economic difficulties.
In the longer term, the challenge of Africa for Britain and our European neighbours is one of the most serious we must face. It is not purely a matter of altruism; it is clearly also a matter of self-interest. When states collapse, their educated and determined population arrives on the shores of Europe and many of them end up in London. When governments fail to be able to look after their populations, epidemics spread across borders. So we strongly support the Government's efforts to strengthen NePAD and the Johannesburg conference on world development.
Finally, we also want to compliment the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the extent to which its recruitment has opened up to an entirely new diverse section of our society. In particular, I am pleased to know that we are now able to staff our temporary post in Mecca each year entirely with Muslim members of the British Diplomatic Service. In view of the fact that graduate recruiters tell me that entering the Diplomatic Service is the single most popular choice for graduates now leaving university, that is all welcome news. Well done.
We on these Benches support an active foreign policy for Britain which must also be an internationalist foreign policy. We see that policy as rooted in closer co-operation with our European neighbours and partners working to build a common foreign policy and a common European defence

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policy. Those European states together must operate to maintain trans-Atlantic partnership with the United States to promote an equitable international order which must be based on stronger international institutions and a full respect for international law.
12.16 p.m.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, we are at a very serious moment in international affairs and I should like to look in particular at Iraq and Al'Qaeda.
If one has followed, as I and others have, the detail of the manoeuvrings of the Saddam regime before, during and since the Gulf War, as well as understanding the full horror of the nature of that regime, then the current UN resolution is fully understandable in all its terms. Some have been taken aback by the stark and detailed demands in it and have called it a resolution for war. Well, it is only that if Saddam makes it so. Its terms are the way they are for two reasons.
The first reason is that the detailed requirements are based on the bitter experiences of the UN weapons inspectors over the years before they finally had to give up in 1998. That is why there are such words as "immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access to any and all, including underground, areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records and means of transport" and so forth, and why the resolution also provides for discretion to conduct interviews inside or outside Iraq without the presence of observers from the Iraqi Government. Behind all these words lie real experiences from the past, where we saw the UN inspectors thwarted from carrying out their UN mandate by every trick in the book being pulled by the Iraqis.
We can only wish Dr Hans Blix well as chair of UNMOVIC. I know him, from my time as a British diplomat in Stockholm in the early 1970s, as a studiously correct member of his Foreign Office, and with his academic background and experience as a Swedish Foreign Minister he will be ideally placed to provide a calm and objective assessment of what he finds. It is, I have to say, a compliment to Sweden and its foreign service that it also provided my very good friend and outstanding diplomat, Rolf Ekeus, as a chair of UNSCOM in the earlier, very difficult days with Iraq.
The second reason why the UN resolution has to be so explicit and uncompromising is that there is no point at all in trying to be diplomatically subtle with the Saddam regime. Many of us will remember how the unfortunate US ambassador to Baghdad was blamed, in my view unfairly, for not spelling out to Saddam what the reaction would be if he invaded Kuwait. She had conveyed the message in diplomatic terms, although one would have thought clearly enough.
Saddam is a man who does not just fail to get the message when a spade is called a spade. He fails to get the message unless he is hit with a shovel. Those who find the resolution too warlike also think that there
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should have been a bridge left for him to walk, but there is no bridge he wants except that which will lead to him keeping his weapons of mass destruction. The efficiency of his terror machine is such that the last thing he needs to worry about, so long as that machine is intact, is Iraqi public opinion.
It is difficult for people living in a democracy to begin to comprehend the all pervasive power of terror. It is amazing how you will see things one way if the only alternative is a horrible end, not just for yourself, but for your whole extended family. That is the reality of Saddam's terror machine and we should not be misled by the misuse of words like "parliament". The UN Security Council resolution is, in my opinion, excellent. Who would have believed beforehand that it would be adopted unanimously? It is an outstanding achievement of the professional diplomats involved, who all deserve our congratulations.
Before leaving Iraq, I should like to address one issue often raised—the difference between UN resolutions on Iraq and other situations, especially Israel and the Palestinians. It is very important to be precise and not speak loosely about this. As I said in the debate in your Lordships' House on 24th September, the resolutions on Iraq are of a special nature—they are different from other conflict situations such as Kashmir or Israel. The Iraq resolutions embody and arise out of the terms agreed for a ceasefire in a war waged on a UN mandate against Iraq, and Iraq agreed these ceasefire terms and has proceeded to evade them for the past 11 years.
Security Council resolutions concerning Iraq are all based on Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which covers,
"Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace and Acts of Aggression".
Chapter VII provides for the use of coercive force to counter these threats, in the form of economic or military sanctions or authorising collective military action. Every resolution the Security Council passed on Iraq came under Chapter VII.
None of the resolutions relating to the Israeli/Arab conflict come under Chapter VII. They are mainly under Chapter VI, which is for the peaceful settlement of disputes. The famous resolutions 242 and 338 call on all the parties to negotiate a peace settlement—that puts the responsibility not just on Israel to act. Having said that, I want to make it very clear that I want a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in his speech to the Labour Party conference about UN resolutions applying to the Israeli/Palestinian situation:
"They don't just apply to Israel, they apply to all parties".
And, he said, the aims of final status negotiations should be,
"an Israeli state, free from terror, recognised by the Arab world, and a viable Palestinian state based on the boundaries of 1967".
I hope we can all agree with that.
To turn to Al'Qaeda, as widely reported there has been a regrouping in the usual loose decentralised manner of Al'Qaeda under six leaders who appear to

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have taken over operative command of the network's military and financial planning, while whoever still survives of the senior leadership, including perhaps Osama bin Laden, are on the run or in hiding. According to some reports, out of 31 original commanders, six are dead, six are in captivity and 19 are unaccounted for.
The six who seem to have emerged now from cover are two Egyptians, two Yemenis, although one of them may be a Saudi, one Jordanian and one Indonesian. What is known of their CVs makes impressive, if chilling, reading. Time prevents me from going into details today.
So, as all of us realise, Al'Qaeda has not gone away, and it will not go away for some considerable time. As the Guildhall speech on Monday evening by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made all too clear, we are in for a long haul and it is for us all to play whatever part we can.
I would just like to make a plea for understanding of the enormously difficult task faced by all our public servants involved and, in particular, our intelligence and security service officers. It would be helpful if the media did not always rush to judgment and ask what went wrong, but reflect that it never knows when, as very often happens, things go right. The nature of intelligence on terrorism is particularly uncertain, based often on doubtful sources and giving only pieces of a very incomplete jigsaw, and always having to be assessed as to whether it is false or deliberate disinformation. Because the stakes are so high the pressures are sometimes almost unbearable. We should appreciate how fortunate we are in having such outstanding professional services at our disposal and for our defence.
12.25 p.m.
Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, in the debate and to pay tribute to the clarity and moderation with which she has presented some very important arguments. I reflect on the fact, I think correctly, that she spent quite a substantial part of her life in the Diplomatic Service. One is bound to wonder whether the nation would have been better served by her continued presence there or by her wisdom being available to us in this House. We start from a good beginning anyway. I thank the Minister for her introduction and noble Lords who have spoken subsequently.
I cannot compete with the ambitious, omnivorocity of my noble friend Lord Howell but I certainly endorse his despair at the way in which the Gibraltar negotiations were conducted. There should be no apology for having started down that road—which is, after all, one that I designed—but there is much grief at the lack of finesse, to put it mildly, with which the operation was conducted. I say this with great regret in the presence of the noble Baroness, who understands the position.
Every noble Lord who has spoken so far has drawn attention to the huge changes that have taken place since we last debated this subject on a Queen's Speech.
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It is impossible to exaggerate them. The most important, of course, is that the central, horrid problem of Iraq is being handled down the United Nations route and with the support of a unanimous resolution from the Security Council. It is a necessarily tough resolution, as others have sought to explain.
It is interesting to reflect on a letter written to President Clinton nearly five years ago in January 1998 urging a change in his policy. Among other things, it stated that,
"American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council".
The signatories to that letter included Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Robert Zoellick. We have moved a long way since then and the present Secretary of State and the present President of the United States deserve to be congratulated on that important change, as do, indeed, our own Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary and all the diplomats who helped to bring the resolution about.
It is important to put that problem in a wider context, recognising, of course, that that is the context in which British forces may see action within months. The central point is that, throughout it all, restraint will be as necessary as resolution, wisdom as necessary as determination, if the authority and unity of the international partnership is to be maintained as it must be.
That brings me to a question which may, at first sight, distress my noble friend Lord Howell. It concerns the imbalance in global power which makes it difficult always to be sure that we are handling these issues right, starting with a word about our closest ally—the country with which we have been more often involved in conflict against others than any other—the United States. The huge imbalance in power reflected by the massive strength of that country must be a cause of concern. American military expenditure, leaving all the soft power on one side, is greater than that of the next eight largest military powers combined.
I was struck by an article which appeared in the New York Times last spring, which was written by one of our distinguished historians, Timothy Garton Ash, entitled The peril of too much power. This is an important point and I make it without apology. He said:
"America today has too much power for anyone's good, including its own".
Before I go any further, I stress that I say that out of no hostility whatever to the United Slates. Indeed, most of my life has been devoted in one way or another to working with Americans and in admiration of their country. But Garton Ash went on to express concern:
"It would be dangerous even for an archangel to wield so much power. The writers of the American Constitution wisely determined that no single locus of power, however benign, should predominate … Every power should therefore be checked by at least one other".
Who and what in today's world is to provide that balance? The international institutions certainly; and they have played an important part in it. But, alone, they are not credible. There can be only one answer:

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Europe—the collective civilisations from which America itself was born but which make up the European Union. If it did not exist, it would have to be invented.
I immediately make it plain to my noble friend that I am not calling for a European superpower of the kind that he sometimes fears so much. What we have created is already a major economic power, and is a major force to our benefit in trade negotiations and in the aid market. But we must acknowledge that, in terms of military capacity, the gap between the nations of the European Union and the United States is catastrophic. That sits uneasily with the history of the past two or three decades.
I remember confrontations, if one may put it that way, at one NATO meeting at Halifax some years ago, in which Hans van den Broek, the benign Netherlands Foreign Minister, was rash enough to quote a public opinion poll in his country. People had said by 60 per cent to 12 per cent that the United States was more aggressive than the Soviet Union. Noble Lords may imagine the response of George Shultz. He said in due course that he would go on being "correctly aggressive" in support of American interests and in giving leadership to the alliance. I admired him for that. But the alliance has changed since then: the links that bind us, the interests that we have, are not the same as they were. The principal threat that provided the glue for the old structure of NATO has gone and the relative strength of the European and American members has moved adversely ever since.
The position has been analysed with great clarity by the chairman of the European Task Force on European Defence, Julian Lindley-French, in an article in the latest issue of International Affairs. He draws attention to the American view, which thinks in terms of "conflict inevitability", and to the European view which, alas, thinks in terms of "conflict myopia". It is against that background that the United States has massively re-armed while within Europe there has been steady disarmament under the rubric of "sharing the peace dividend". We have been juggling with a series of initials—CFSP and ESDP—as though that kind of institution-mongering, as though subtly-worded texts of communiqués, are going to answer the question. My fear—again I borrow a word from the author whom I have just quoted—is that all the European efforts in this direction are in danger of being "WEU-ified". I spent some four or five years trying to help to breathe life into that set of initials and it did not get us very far.
I stress that there is nothing anti-American in what I am saying. It is part of an attempt to inspire, or at least to urge, our present Government to maintain a stronger commitment than they have thus shown to vitalising and energising the European share in NATO and to get our partners to do so.
I can join my noble friend Lord Howell—and we are truly friends—in denouncing many of the shortcomings of many of our partners in the European Union. But the answer is not therefore to despair of
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that organisation, but to be even more emphatic as regards the need to achieve what we really want from that.
I had intended to refer briefly to the Middle Eastern problem. However, I shall respect the pleas on all sides for compliance with our time resolution and conclude my remarks. I am confident that the noble Lord, Lord Wright, will hardly allow that issue to be neglected.
12.35 p.m.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, I have the happy opportunity of following the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon. His geopolitical perspective is congenial to my own view and closer to my own perspective than that enunciated from the Front Bench by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. Indeed, it is a happy prelude to what I feel I ought to say to your Lordships about the work of the Convention on the Future of Europe to which the noble Baroness happily referred in her opening speech.
It is right to recognise that, in respect of the future of Europe, the citizens of Europe—if their opinions can be measured at all effectively across the now 15 countries, perhaps to be 25—would appear to favour greater coherence in the delivery of a common foreign policy. No sphere of European intervention is more clearly understood or more urgently desired. That is said against the background of all the evident inconsistencies, weaknesses and incoherences which enable the noble Lord, Lord Howell, not inaccurately to describe the limited capabilities which the European Union has brought to bear upon the great international crises that have plagued our debates since the previous Queen's Speech.
Not only is there a predisposition to accept the competence of Europe in these fields; there is also a strong desire on the part of member governments to act more coherently and more effectively in support of United States policies when they are seen, as they have been, to be leading the world in defence against the international terrorism of 9/11, the threat of the possession and use by Iraq, in defiance of the United Nations, of weapons of mass destruction.
It is wise to recall the instant response of the European Union to the events of September last year. In that short space of time there was an evident willingness to shoulder global responsibilities in Europe. Efforts were made to co-ordinate humanitarian and reconstruction aid. Troika delegations were sent to the countries' bordering Afghanistan and to central Asia. It is a fact that the biggest donor of aid to Afghanistan is Europe. Through the efforts of the High Representative, Javier Solana, the conflict for a management profile of the European Union has been remarkably strengthened within the quartet.
It is right to recognise that the Laeken European Council has sought to take that process forward: to develop the operational capability of the ESDP, the conflict prevention tools, the diplomatic role of the troika and an improved early warning system, and the rapid reaction mechanism to provide initial financing. These are valuable steps in the right direction.

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It is clear that at present Europe is not in a position to react in a consistent, coherent and effective way, given the huge gulf, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, referred, between the military capabilities of the United States and those of the constituent member countries of the European Union. That is why from the beginning there has been a sharp focus in the Convention on the Future of Europe on how these competencies ought to be strengthened.
One of the very first reports to emerge from a working group under the chairmanship of former prime minister Giuliano Amato was on attributing to the European Union a single legal personality. Thus, it is advocating the effective ascription to Europe of something that lawyers, in the event, believed to exist, but recognising, more importantly, the need for coherence in the European Union's exercise of its diplomatic initiatives and in the support that needs to be given to whoever is to take the lead, be it the high representative, the presidency or a permanent president, as adumbrated by the Prime Minister. Out of that debate, in which I played a part, came a clear recognition that the present arrangements, which fracture the deliberations and negotiations—a suitable example has been the trade and co-operation negotiations with Iran—are not the most effective way to bring to bear upon the international scene all the economic, political and security strengths that are needed in the construction of new relationships. Most observers recognise the value of the role of the office of the high representative and how effectively it has been discharged. As we build that office, we should not see a bifurcation of the bureaucracies between the forces of the high representatives and the council and those of the Commission on the other side. There is a need to bring together these constituent elements of effectiveness.
The debate is continuing in a working group in the convention under the chairmanship of Jean-Luc Dehaene, the former prime minister of Belgium. A report is anticipated shortly, in the preparation of which Mr Peter Hain has played a part. I do not doubt that it will underline the desirability of seeking to unify the preparation and delivery of foreign policy initiatives and giving a greater reality to the common foreign and security policy. It will do that by addressing the unsatisfactory aspects of the budgetary arrangements that are necessary to provide the sinews to make effective the interventions of forces. That applies whether they be peace-keeping forces on a very modest scale such as in Macedonia, or the wider ambitions that the council may have.
It would be valuable to hear this House's views on these matters. I hope that there will be an early opportunity to consider how the common interests of Europe in the delivery of effective foreign policy can best be delivered. It is not possible to develop these arguments at length in the time that is available today.
12.44 p.m.
Lord Owen: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to commend whole-heartedly and fully Her Majesty's Government's policy on Iraq. It has been an extremely
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difficult period, not just over the past few weeks and months but ever since the need to impose a no-fly zone in the north and south following the appalling attack on the Kurds in 1991. That policy has virtually run out on us. We were sustaining it because there was nothing better. But sanctions were no longer having any effect, massive leakage of oil was going out from Iraq through Turkey, Syria, Jordan and the Gulf. It was also becoming increasingly hard to persuade people that they should make available airfields in surrounding countries.
This resolution, as was eloquently described by the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, every word of whose speech I agreed with, is a great tribute to two statesmen in particular: President Bush and our Prime Minister. But it also a tribute to the Diplomatic Service in the Foreign Office and the State Department. I could not imagine a better outcome than that resolution. But I am sure no-one is under any illusion about it. There may now be serious defaults. Within that resolution there is now clear authority to take action if there is a default. It does not require another resolution, though it would of course be desirable to have one.
Elsewhere, I see a foreign policy of very clear objectives, which I totally support. I am very pleased by the proposals that have come forward from the United Nations and De Soto over Cyprus. I know that they were greatly helped by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. It seems very fair to both Greek and Turkish Cypriots. I hope that it is agreed quickly. It allows me to say what I hope will be the British policy now when the new leader of the majority party in the Turkish parliament visits this country and that a way will be found to enable him to become prime minister of Turkey. I hope that Britain will make it clear that we support Turkey's membership of the European Union. Some work remains to be clone on it. But we should seek when enlarging the European Union to give Turkey a firm and clear timescale for entry. I know that this will be a major challenge to the European Union. I do not say it lightly. I used to believe that Europe ended at the Bosphorus. I did not see how it would be possible to take Turkey into membership. But I also used to think it would be impossible to take in the former Soviet Union. I now believe that it is wise for the European Union to conduct itself in a way that would make it possible for Russia to become a member of the European Union so that Europe does not end at the Urals. That, too, will be an immense challenge, and the timescale for that is some distance away. Time will still be needed for Turkey's entry. But, with Greece supporting their entry, and with a new Turkish government clearly trying to help to reach a resolution in Cyprus, I believe that there will be progress and considerable achievements.
All is looking so very well in my own personal relations with the Government on foreign policy that I am even hopeful that the Treasury will look at the eurozone at the moment—and I say it without great relish—that the problems with the so-called growth and stability pact and the need for the European Central Bank to recover or to perhaps assert a greater

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authority that they will judge that it is not the time to put the issue in a referendum to the British people. We need a good deal more time for the eurozone itself to sort out the inevitable transition period. The technical handling of the coins and notes was very satisfactory, but there are considerable difficulties ahead.
Despite the gloomy fact that the Federal Republic of Germany has taken such a markedly different stance from us and many other European Union countries on Iraq, it is a welcome sign that the Germans are ready, with the Dutch, to take the leadership of the peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan and to argue that that should be based as far as possible on NATO assets and support and to work towards a situation in which when, in six months, their role is passed on to another country it might be possible for the operation to be NATO-led. In the same way as NATO led the stabilisation force in Bosnia and Kosovo, it would include other NATO countries and possibly the Russian Federation—even in Afghanistan by then—as they have played a major part in the Balkans.
These are very important and interesting issues. I shall say no more. I apologise that I cannot stay for the end of the debate because I have to be in Prague for a debate about NATO, which has been brought about by Russia, and I shall therefore sit down and make an even smaller contribution. At the moment, British foreign policy has shown that it is possible both to be an extremely loyal and committed member of the European Union and to respect the relationships with the United States, using our independence in foreign policy and our freedom for manoeuvre as a significant country and a permanent member of the Security Council. That balance is well reflected in an extremely interesting article in today's Financial Times by its correspondent in Washington in which a White House spokesman says that we can reasonably say now that Britain is the second most influential country in the world economically, politically and diplomatically. With skill and finesse, that position can be maintained for some years ahead.
12.52 p.m.
Lord Biffen: My Lords, I join the noble Lord. Lord Owen, in apologising for not being able to attend the wind-up of today's debate. I apologise in particular to the Government Front Bench.
I was struck by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, as she deliberated on the horrors of the Iraqi regime. Nobody in the Chamber would dare contest that. However, it made me think how extraordinarily passive many of the neighbours of Iraq have been as we have elaborated the horrors that lie ahead. I think that is because we so often look at the United States through the eyes of the first world, whereas we are confronted by a substantial number of countries with a very different outlook. They see the United States very much through the eyes of the third world. That third world view must be taken into account. We deceive ourselves if we think that that view is without justice or integrity. Those countries fear a political situation in the United States heavily
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dominated by influences favourable to Israel and reinforced by the powerful evangelical Christian lobby. They are apprehensive of an American economy driven by high levels of consumption.
The view on the Kyoto protocol is not the product of the administration; it is the consequence of the popular view in the United States. With that view comes a demand for resources, which focuses on oil. The relationship of the United States with the wider world in that context is fraught with warning for the western world.
In that context and given the current developments, that resentment in the third world is more evident than ever, even if it is not always powerfully expressed. It has one immediate challenge and focus: the relationship between Israel and Palestine. If there is one issue that is forcing its way to the top of the agenda, it must be once again to see what can be done to bring about a settlement in the Middle East. There is no mention of that in the Queen's Speech. I do not object to that, but, just for presentational purposes, I would have been happy to see half a phrase relating to a Middle East settlement as well as the problems of international terror.
The Palestinian issue is of growing moment. When we think of international terror, our minds turn to the tragedies in New York just over a year ago and the threats that came to us from the Home Office recently, all concentrating on what it meant for the great urban centres of the western world. However, there is a wider area that is prone to Al'Qaeda techniques. We had prior notice of what could happen in the wider world generally in Indonesia. Al'Qaeda can strike with considerable success in areas with weak governmental arrangements. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has said:
"Last year only one of 24 conflicts worldwide was, as it were, a classic war, between functioning states".
All the others were in failing states or in circumstances approximating to that. It is therefore essential that those mounting the war against Al'Qaeda must be able at least to win the hearts and minds of the third world countries that are likely to be affected. We have our own experience of confronting the IRA in Northern Ireland. We know how difficult it was to counter that when so many of the population were passive rather than active in supporting the forces of authority. When General Templer conducted magnificently successful military operations in Malaya, they were sustained by a conscientious effort to secure the hearts and minds of a population who might otherwise have been passive. That is the challenge that is now emerging.
The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, said that we have strong and effective relations with the United States. Let us be clear: only the United States can bring about the circumstances for a peace settlement in the Middle East and give some equity and justice to the Palestinians. I fear that the United States currently appears all too much like a great technological giant. We are only too happy to have America's skills and technology, but they must ultimately remember that technology is not enough.
12.58 p.m.
Baroness Northover: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak in this debate in my new role as spokesperson for the Liberal Democrat Benches on international development. I venture into this field with some trepidation, given the enormous expertise in this House, but reducing the huge imbalance between wealth and desperate poverty has to be one of the most pressing concerns of our time. This is a vital area for us to address. I am very glad that the Government have chosen to mention their international development programme in the Queen's Speech.
The Government talk about the Johannesburg agreements. They say that they will focus on tackling climate change and finding new ways to meet our energy needs. That is clearly welcome. So, too, is the pledge to work for a more effective global effort to reduce poverty. The Government also state that Britain's aid budget will be increased; that, too, is very welcome. However, will that increase be significant? Will this be new money, or does this relate to commitments that have already been given? In relation to that, can the noble Baroness say when she believes the Government might reach the target of 0.7 per cent of GDP, which has been an aspiration for so long? It is surely an indictment of Britain that we are still so far adrift after all these years.
The Government further state that they intend to work for a successful outcome to the current round of world trade negotiations in a way that benefits industrialised and developing countries alike. We agree with this commitment, but are concerned that the Government have a long way to go. As the noble Baroness said in her introductory remarks, CAP reform is of course crucial to that effort. Once more, it seems to have been thrown into doubt as a result of recent events in the European Union.
There are surely few more pressing needs in the world than helping those in profound poverty. The depths of that poverty mean that when something goes wrong, it goes disastrously wrong. We can see that as, once again, we face the prospect of famine in Africa. There have been many warnings. Not enough has been done to ensure that countries are less reliant on food aid. Mechanisms for delivering the food aid, which is still so vital, are not sufficiently robust. Food aid that has been promised is not getting through to those who need it.
The World Food Programme's donor appeal for southern Africa has received only 40 percent of the required funding, and has delivered less than 14 per cent of the food aid required in that region. None of the food needed by Mozambique has got through: only 5 per cent of what Zambia needs has been delivered. As we are only too aware, Ethiopia and Eritrea are facing similar food shortages. In Ethiopia, more than 6 million people are at risk. In Eritrea, one-third of the population is at risk.
The situation in Zimbabwe is particularly difficult. The immediate priority must be to ensure that those who need food aid receive it and that political manipulation is reduced as far as possible. Overall, we
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have to ensure that the United Nations mechanisms, which are supposed to be in place for dealing with such emergencies, are well funded; that those assisting are well trained; and that all involved are well prepared. In the case of Zimbabwe, more must he done, particularly through the Commonwealth and the LEN, to uphold the rule of law.
We all know—but it has to be made a reality if ever we are to get beyond these cycles of famine—that we have to help the poorest countries become more self-sufficient. The key to that is a reduction in debt, greater economic and political stability, and vastly improved health and education services. Debt levels remain unsustainable. The Monterrey round produced some new money, but not enough. Other aid and trade initiatives are undermined by failure to achieve more progress on the issue. NePAD provides something of a useful framework for addressing debt problems in return for progress on governance. Rewarding countries with good records on human rights and the rule of law is clearly worth while, especially if it encourages other countries to follow suit.
The poorer the country, of course., the less its people are able to sustain any kind of further misfortune. And a major tragedy of greater and greater proportions is that created by HIV/AIDS, which has reduced life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa from 62 years to 47 years. One fifth of the Zambian population is infected, yet that country is spending 30 per cent more on debt than on health. As Oxfam puts it:
"The HIV/AIDS pandemic is an unparalleled setback in human development. In the space of a few years it has rolled back the achievements of decades, destroying the lives of millions of people and compromising prospects for recovery in the process".
HIV/AIDS strikes at every aspect of society. Its public health costs are enormous, but it extends far beyond that. Those who are ill cannot easily work. They cannot support themselves or their families, or make their contribution to the greater prosperity of their society. The disease has had a disastrous effect on education. In 1999 alone, Zambia lost 1,600 teachers from AIDS. If often forces families to take their children out of school, whether because of sickness, loss of income, or to take care of sick family members. HIV/AIDS is thus creating costs that extend beyond children today to the children of tomorrow.
Women account for a large share of the population affected by HIV/AIDS. One study covering 11 African countries found that average infection rates were over five times higher among teenage girls than among teenage boys, and three times higher for women in their early twenties than for men. In parts of southern Africa, HIV prevalence among pregnant women often exceeds 30 per cent in urban areas. And almost everywhere, the burden of caring is borne disproportionately by women. Girls are taken out of school, and women out of work, to care for sick relatives. HIV/AIDS is clearly having a catastrophic effect on the prospects for Africa's future. Far more must be done to address the situation.

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There are many speakers in this diverse debate today, and I realise that time is very short. Suffice to say, noble Lords on these Benches welcome much of what the Government are doing. However, we urge the Government and our international partners to recognise with increased commitment the necessity of urgent and fundamental action to tackle with long-term solutions some of the problems of the poorest countries. It is surely not only right that we do so, but also in the interest of the future stability and economic prosperity of all of us that we do so.
1.7 p.m.
Lord Wright of Richmond: My Lords, perhaps I may first apologise to the House. A long-standing commitment this evening is likely to make it impossible for me to be here for the winding-up speeches.
It will not surprise your Lordships—it will certainly not surprise the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon—to know that I propose to concentrate on the situation in the Middle East. I shall not say much about the question that has understandably attracted so much attention in recent months; namely, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. I wish, however, to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, for answering so clearly my earlier question about the Government's objectives in Iraq.
As the Minister knows, I was unable to be in the Chamber on the afternoon of 7th November when the Foreign Secretary's Statement on Iraq was debated. I should like briefly to add my own words of congratulations to the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and my former colleague, Sir Jeremy Greenstock and his staff in New York, for the unanimous support that they managed to achieve for Security Council Resolution No. 1441.
Last week, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, said:
"A few weeks ago many people thought that there was no chance of getting this before the United Nations, let alone a chance of getting a resolution, let alone a chance of getting a resolution as tough as this one".—[Official Report, 7/11/02; col. 925]
As a former ambassador to the Syrian Arab Republic and having had the privilege of discussing Iraq with President Bashar al Assad when I called on him with a parliamentary delegation in early September, I should add to the "let alone" list—
"let alone with the positive vote of the Syrian Representative on the Security Council".
That is a considerable tribute to the statesmanship of President Assad whose country has itself been a victim of both Iraqi terrorism and Israeli occupation, and to the diplomatic contacts between the Foreign Secretary and his Syrian colleague.
I wish, however, to dwell on one aspect of the Arab-Israel situation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, referred. I warmly welcome the Prime Minister's remarks in his Guildhall speech on Monday, repeated by the Minister today, when he talked of the need to move quickly toward an Israeli
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state recognised by all and a viable Palestinian state. However, so long as the expansion of illegal settlements continues in occupied Palestinian territory and ever more Palestinian land is absorbed behind the so-called "security fence", we shall shortly reach a situation—if indeed we have not already reached it—in which talk of a viable Palestinian state will have become meaningless.
With an election pending in Israel, it will no doubt be argued that this is a difficult if not impossible time to persuade the United States Administration to bring pressure to bear on Prime Minister Sharon, or that we should resolve the question of Iraq before making serious moves towards a peace settlement. I would argue, however, that the situation in Palestine is far too urgent for that. Furthermore, the success of the United States in following the multilateral track in Iraq, the standing of President Bush following the congressional elections and the unstinting support which the Prime Minister has given President Bush on Iraq surely give both of them a unique opportunity to bring effective and immediate pressure to bear on Prime Minister Sharon and on Foreign Minister Netanyahu to reverse a process which is creating serious and possibly fatal blockages on the roadmap towards a just and comprehensive peace settlement.
On 31 st October, the Guardian reported that a recent opinion poll showed that almost four in five Israelis are prepared to dismantle almost all illegal settlements—which, as I see the Foreign Secretary confirmed in the other place, now account for an astonishing 41 per cent of the total land area in the West Bank, let alone occupied Golan. In spite of this, and in flagrant disregard of repeated calls by Senator George Mitchell and others to freeze all settlement activity, the Israeli Government continue to finance their expansion. Unless the United States Administration can be persuaded to bring effective and urgent pressure—and be seen to bring that pressure to hear—on the Israeli Government to reverse this illegal activity, then I see little prospect of any roadmap leading to anywhere other than renewed violence and killings on both sides and the continued tragic injustices of the situation in Palestine.
Can the Prime Minister not persuade President Bush of the seriousness and urgency of the need to reverse the illegal settlement policy which has been pursued, virtually without a word of criticism from Washington, by successive Israeli governments? If he can, it would give an important and much needed signal to the Arab world, and more widely to the international Muslim community, that the United States, with our encouragement, is at last ready to bring a more even-handed approach to a situation which, as I have said previously in this House, carries as great, if not a greater, threat to the security of the Middle East and to the war against terrorism as any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Indeed, it might even mitigate some of the popular backlash in the Muslim world that will inevitably follow any military action that turns out to be necessary in Iraq.

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I should like to remind noble Lords of two quotations. The first is the passage in the so-called Balfour Declaration—that is, Mr Balfour's letter of 2nd November 1917 to Lord Rothschild, in which he stipulated that it should be,
"clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".
The second is a quotation from the autobiography of Dr Weizmann, the first president of Israel, in which he said:
"I am certain that the world will judge the Jewish State by what it will do to the Arabs".
1.15 p.m.
Lord Brennan: My Lords, a week ago, the Foreign Secretary said of the situation with regard to Iraq that this was a critical moment for the world and for the integrity of our system of international law. He was right. It is a noble objective to seek world peace through world law, even if that occasionally means the use of force. However, that always means, does it not, a war within the law? I should like to make four short points on this theme of international action within international law.
The first point is on the role of international law. From the Kellogg-Briand Pact up to the charter and beyond, the nations of the world have sought to avoid future conflict by collective means. The Security Council, under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, carries the primary responsibility of action to preserve international peace. This is therefore a moment of considerable congratulation for the Government and for the government of the United States on, in the midst of serious tension with Iraq, choosing the route of law and going to the Security Council. Those who criticised the Security Council's past weaknesses have had to accept its current strength. The decision was made unanimously in the pursuit of international peace.
The second point is on America and the law. How right it was for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, so clearly to identify the present power of the United States of America. I would go further and identify the consequent need for the United States to exercise its power within the law that is recognised by the countries that have to accept that power as a fact. The hegemony of such a nation carries a special burden and also a special duty of self-restraint. Power demands leadership, and good leadership demands a special self-restraint when acting with others.
The wisdom of such an approach is surely evidenced by two consequences of last week's resolution. First, the resolution shows the United States that, in the proper exercise of its own power, it can achieve its objectives with its allies and companion countries within the United Nations. Secondly, it accords with the view of the majority of the American people. In this House we often talk of the United Kingdom and America in the context of governmental relations, but ours is an alliance of people. The majority of the American people and the majority of our people wish
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action on Iraq to be taken multilaterally and within the law. Collective security demands collective action according to the United Nations Charter.
In a short time we may face major decisions. It would be imprudent to make legal assessments of future hypotheses which may be confounded by future events but the law gives us a path of right action: first, in relation to the resolution of last week. A material breach will self-evidently depend upon the evidence submitted by the inspectors in whom the United Nations has reposed its confidence, not upon the individual political assessment of member states alone. A decision that there has been a material breach must be based on transparent and compelling evidence. If such evidence exists, then, as Kofi Annan said a few days ago, the Security Council must face its responsibilities. If we ask for action through the United Nations, we must accept the grave consequences of a war if the United Nations, through the Security Council, says that it is necessary.
If, however, there is no resolution in favour of war against Iraq, a critical question of law and of the public interest arises. In this morning's Guardian the Foreign Secretary said,
"Of course, military action must only ever be sanctioned as an option of last resort when all diplomatic means have been exhausted—and [most importantly] it must always be consistent with our obligations under the terms of international law"
If there is no Security Council decision for war against Iraq, and if there emerges an argument that there is some residual right of individual states to take action to secure compliance by a defaulting state, that is a totally different state of affairs in international law. There is no legal basis that convincingly shows it to be a residual right but if we have to consider whether it is, it demands serious debate. Its precedent value for unacceptable action in the future is immense. Therefore, with regard to the resolution, if there is a breach, legally and constitutionally it is surely the duty of our Government to ascertain the will of Parliament before war occurs, upon whatever basis it is said to be required.
If there is war with Iraq, let us expect the following: that it will be necessary and proportionate; that it will do its best as an operation to protect the civilians we seek to protect; that there is a plan for the post-conflict situation—regime change from dictatorship to chaos is no change—and, finally, that we observe the Geneva Conventions because we are decent people. We do not want legal black holes such as at Guantanamo. We want the world to respect the force of law.
I have spoken as a lawyer but I hope also as a citizen. In all the decisions I have outlined that may fall to be taken, the merit of such critical decisions is not to be found in the vigour with which they are made but more in the intellectual rigour which has led to them. But, above all, they should be based upon systems of law that command the confidence of us all.
1.24 p.m.
Lord Burnham: My Lords, I totally understand and accept the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, from this debate. I wish him the very best of fortune in his endeavours in Washington. Nevertheless, I intend, not surprisingly, to concentrate on a subject with which the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, is not entirely unfamiliar.
Events are moving so fast, in the Gulf and elsewhere where British forces are deployed, that anything that is said today may well be out of date tomorrow. It is with this problem that our political and military masters have to wrestle. The buzzword of today is "concurrence". No one denies that the 1998 SDR is now out of date. Since the publication date of that document British forces have routinely been deployed on more operations concurrently than were then envisaged. There is no doubt that frequent smaller operations are becoming the pattern. That pattern is difficult to handle, particularly in logistic terms for each operation needs a fleet of "enablers". It is one thing to find front-line troops; the back-up is more tricky—there is only my noble friend Lord Attlee. Those smaller operations, when a number are being conducted at one time, are so much more difficult to handle than one large one.
This week it has been announced that 15,000 men are being prepared to be deployed in Iraq. That is a large operation. But what will the Ministry of Defence do if Afghanistan and Northern Ireland blow up at the same time? We must ask if a war against Iraq and the war against terrorism can be conducted at the same time. The enabling assets include deployable headquarters, communications and communicators, deployed logistical support, engineers and movements personnel. If there are not the personnel to do those jobs, the efficacy of the operation will be severely endangered. Although in theory some of the holes can be filled by NATO or EU forces, in many cases that just will not work. We have to rely on what we can produce ourselves. The planners have to address themselves to those points. Some of the problems are relatively inexpensive. For this Government, and indeed for any other, life is a struggle between the Exchequer and the department that wishes to spend money.
Defence has been doing slightly better of late but there are still nothing like the resources available for all the jobs that need to be done. That was shown particularly in my noble friend's list of deficiencies in equipment, which I find simply terrifying. Some of the problems, such as the IT programmes, are relatively inexpensive. But any temptation to make short-term cuts in the hope that they will not be noticed because they are "invisible" must be resisted. Those problems for the planners must be brought into the open.
Front Line First was the title of a previous planning extravaganza. Today the front line is relatively in hand, it is the back-up that needs work done. Nothing
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that I am saying is new. It has all been included in published documents under the imprimatur of the Secretary of State. He has said,
"for some considerable time many of our servicemen and women have been working at or near, and in some cases beyond, the boundaries of what was planned in the SDR".
The problem of personnel is immense as material can alleviate but cannot remove the need for men. My honourable friend Bernard Jenkin and Mr Syd Rapson have been trying in another place to find out when the Secretary of State expects to publish the findings of the inquiry into Armed Forces personnel issues. They are not having much joy. They have been told that the first-phase findings are likely to be published in the spring next year with the final phase in the autumn. Sadly, things are going so quickly that we do not have that much time. Recruitment is to some extent holding up and certainly a number of regiments are getting more recruits than they are allowed to handle. However, the Government's policy is damaging the capability of the services to keep those men. The need for proper pensions, properly explained, is urgent.
It has now been established, I understand, that unmarried partners will be treated as spouses, but the Armed Forces have still not done enough to keep the womenfolk of their men happy. That is an absolute requirement. Failure to meet it will be fatal. It is bad enough at the moment. Our servicemen join the services to defend the country in the broadest sense of the term. They will not do so when so many of our units are, for instance, being temporarily laid up performing as firemen for when the "40 per centers" go on strike. Those strikes present immense practical difficulties, but the C-in-C Fleet is not the only one complaining about the destruction of our maritime capability. In a world of shortages, probably the worst is the shortage of fast pilots and trained and qualified submariners. I hope that the Minister will be able to assuage doubts that that problem, which is now extremely serious, will not become desperate in two or three years' time.
I must return to my old hobbyhorse, the tri-service discipline Bill. When are going to get it? I do not need to tell the Minister that it is, I believe, four general elections ago that we were promised it. The increasing scale of multi-service operations is making a Bill increasingly essential. Will the Minister tell us why we cannot go on and get it? Provided that it receives a modicum of pre-legislative scrutiny, it should not be too contentious. Most of the battles have already been fought—and lost. In principle, such a Bill will certainly be welcomed in both Houses.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 3 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 1.32 until 3 p.m.]

Fire Dispute
The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker): My Lords, with permission, I shall repeat a Statement made by the Deputy Prime Minister in the other place. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a Statement on the present national Fire Service strike. The Government believe this strike to be wrong, unnecessary and unreasonable.
"I last made a statement to the House on Tuesday, 22nd October, when I set out the history of the dispute and undertook to keep the House informed. The House will recall that the Fire Brigades Union's claim, which was made on 28th May and remains in place, is for a 40 per cent, 'no-strings-attached' pay increase for fire-fighters, a 50 per cent pay increase for control room staff, parity of pay for retained fire-fighters, and a review of the 1978 pay formula that has governed their wages for the past 25 years.
"At the national joint council meeting on 2nd September, the employers finalised their offer of a 4 per cent pay increase and requested a joint appeal with the FBU for an independent review of Fire Service pay and conditions. The FBU rejected the offer and the review.
"The employers therefore made their request direct to the Government and, three days later on 5th September, the Government set up an independent review under Sir George Bain. The Fire Brigades Union refused to participate in the review or to discuss its terms of reference and, indeed, attempted to discredit it. On 18th October, it announced a programme of 36 days of national strikes due to start on 29th October.
"My right honourable friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions and I held a series of meetings with the FBU on 24th and 25th October. Those discussions resulted in the cancellation of the first two 48-hour strikes and subsequently the first eight-day action was converted into the present 48-hour stoppage.
"Negotiations between the local government employers and the FBU resumed on 30th October. And, because the Fire Brigades Union was not prepared to wait until mid-December, Sir George Bain agreed to bring forward a 'position paper' on 11th November. Sir George's final report will be available in a few weeks' time. I am extremely grateful to Sir George and his team for their efforts and look forward to the final report.
"Sir George's position paper was made available to the Fire Brigades Union, the employers and the Government on Monday morning. The paper is comprehensive, practical and forward-looking. I urge all Members to read it carefully. It sets out a vision for a single, more broadly based and modernised service with multiple roles offering a wider range of services and expertise. It proposes a reward structure in which individuals are valued for
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the contribution they make. It encourages a more diverse workforce with a wider range of career paths, responsibilities and skills and makes clear that pay and modernisation must go hand in hand and be consistent with the Government's public sector pay policy. The paper recommends an increase in the pay bill of up to 11 per cent over two years, subject to necessary and long-overdue modernisation.
"The employers and the Fire Brigades Union met for further discussions on Tuesday morning and the employers tabled a revised offer. That offer proposed an immediate increase of 4 per cent backdated to 7th November and, subject to the modernisation proposals set out in the Bain report, a further 7 per cent increase in 12 months' time in November 2003.
"At present, a qualified fire-fighter earns £21,500 a year. Under this offer, a qualified fire-fighter could earn £23,960 a year and a leading fire-fighter could earn £25,656 a year. In London, where London weighting allowances apply, a qualified fire-fighter could earn £28,268 a year and a leading fire-lighter could earn £29,964 a year—just a few pounds short of the £30,000 a year demanded by the FBU. That compares very well with nurses, teachers and other public servants.
"Sir George always made it clear that his position paper was not designed to end the strike but to provide the negotiators with a menu of options for negotiation which would put in place substantial reform in exchange for substantial pay increases. The Government remain convinced that the Bain review is the key to resolving this dispute and to providing the basis for a modern fire service equipped to deal with modern demands.
"Unfortunately, when the employers tabled their pay offer on Tuesday morning, the Fire Brigades Union walked out and at six o'clock last night started a 48-hour strike. Under any reasonable circumstances, the FBU would be sitting down with the employers to discuss the Bain proposals. Instead, 18,000 members of the Armed Forces, supported by the police, are on the streets today taking the place of the fire-fighters. They are using the stand-by fleet of 'Green Goddesses' and sophisticated rescue apparatus and cutting equipment. I am sure the whole House will want to express its appreciation for the services of the Armed Forces, the police and all the others are actively engaged in providing cover during this strike.
"But this is an emergency, not a replacement, fire service. No matter how professional our Armed Forces and no matter how much they train, it is clear that they could not provide the same level of service that we normally expect, particularly where major incidents, such as a terrorist attack or a rail crash, are concerned.
"I spoke to the General Secretary of the FBU about that again this morning. He was unable to sign up to an agreement setting out how his

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members would respond in the event of a major incident. He has assured me that his members would consider responding to a 'catastrophic' incident if called upon to do so. I have no doubt that individual fire-fighters would want to help, as some did last night.
"But we cannot run a system on the basis that assistance might be available after precious minutes have been lost and with ambiguity about what kind of incident fire-fighters would respond to. So it is with huge regret that I inform the House that we have no agreement on major incidents. And the Fire Brigades Union has not given an undertaking to abide even by the spirit of the 1979 TUC Code on the Provision of Emergency or Essential Services. I believe that that adds to the wrong and irresponsible decisions that the FBU has taken. The Government and, I am sure, the House and the general public regret that decision to strike without any further discussion of the Bain proposals.
"It is with great sadness that I have to inform the House that overnight there have been four terrible fire-related deaths. I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House are with the families of those who died. Those deaths and the death of Leicester fire-fighter, Rob Miller, on 31st October tragically serve to remind us of the daily danger posed by fire and of the vital work that the fire-fighters do. On average, more than 11 members of the public die each week in fire-related incidents.
"I have to report to the House that we have received reports of a large number of hoax calls, which means that our already limited service is stretched even further, putting even more lives at risk. It is hard to understand the mentality of people who do that at any time, let alone during a fire strike at a time of heightened sensitivity. But let there be no doubt: the Crown Prosecution Service will take action against anyone caught making hoax calls, and I think that the public will hope to see hoax callers dealt with severely.
"Against that background, talking, negotiating and discussions are better than the withdrawal of labour. I continue to believe that the Bain report is the right way forward. In the past 24 hours we have heard that the Fire Brigades Union's General Secretary has an alternative vision for modernisation. It would have been better if that vision had been put to the Bain review to form part of the debate. Even now, there is an opportunity to make an input. Sir George's position paper is not a final report. It has been put forward at this stage to help negotiation.
"The employers have made clear that they stand ready to continue discussions at any time. Would it not be better to negotiate? Would it not be better to sit down again? An eight-day strike can lead to only more deaths, more injuries and more distress. Our joint obligation—that of the Government, the employers and the fire-fighters—is to provide the
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highest level of safety. That is our job. We all have an obligation to work towards it—all of us: the Government, the employers and the unions.
"And if, once this 48-hour strike is over, we then face an eight-day strike, the Government may have to review many of the issues which, until now, we have kept off the table. We have bent over backwards to be fair and reasonable. We have been met with action that is wrong, unjustified and puts lives at risk. Faced with that, the Government will do what we have to do to protect the public. I say: 'talk, don't walk'."
My Lords, that concludes the Deputy Prime Minister's Statement.
3.9 p.m.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and for keeping the House up-to-date with this dreadful situation. I thank him too for the courtesy afforded me of being able to see the Statement in advance.
This is a grave day. The Government have set up an inquiry which to all intents and purposes has been kicked in the teeth by the Fire Brigades Union. As the Minister indicated, the interim report was provided as a basis for negotiation, but the terms of a high percentage reward of some 11 per cent for revised working arrangements have already been rejected by the union. The union may feel that it has a good case, but there are men now out on the streets, our soldiers, doing the job its members should be doing, and receiving less reward than they were receiving for keeping our people safe.
To add to the current miseries, there are already stirrings among other die-hard unions. Many Underground stations are closed today and three London Underground lines are closed. We learn that Mr Bob Crow of the RMT has threatened to tell his members not to work, although the Health and Safety Executive has advised that those services can safely run. Fire-fighters at London Heathrow are also threatening action. It is clear that we live in dangerous times. There are threats from terrorists and people's lives are at stake from that as well as from the current action; indeed, perhaps from both.
I have one or two questions for the Minister. First, I repeat the question I asked on the occasion of the previous Statement. Why have our soldiers not been trained to use the modern fire equipment? It is clear that the Green Goddesses are a far from satisfactory alternative, as witnessed by the difficulties experienced yesterday when one crew of soldiers could not get the fire engines to go at all and others could not access water to put out a fire. Why was so much cold water poured on the question of the soldiers being trained to use proper vehicles? It has been suggested that the equipment was so sophisticated it would take up to at least three months for intelligent resourceful soldiers to master the technology. Is the Minister aware that the Retained Firefighters Union said that it would take less than two weeks to make soldiers proficient in driving and operating those engines?

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Why have the reserve engines plus those that are used for training, which are available all over the country, not been released to the troops to at least supplement the Green Goddesses? Can the Minister also tell the House, having particular regard to the Prime Minister's speech about the threat from Al'Qaeda, whether the Government are considering the use of the Emergency Powers Act 1920, and if not, why not?
Have the Government given consideration to implementing the powers contained in Section 2 of the Emergency Powers Act 1964, as did their predecessor Labour government in the firemen's strike in 1977–78? If not, why not? Have the Government sought the advice of the Attorney-General about taking action to seek injunctions under Section 240 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act to restrain any strikers or their leaders from committing criminal offences? If there is any possibility that the strikes can be stopped within current legislation, will the Government take it? The Minister said as an addition to the Statement of the Deputy Prime Minister that that is being considered, so perhaps he would update the House on that matter.
I endorse the remarks of the Deputy Prime Minister about the appreciation we would wish to express to the 18,000 members of the Armed Forces and the police who are doing the job of the firemen. As the Minister said, they have been plagued by false alarms, adding to the burden of genuine emergencies and the knowledge that there have already been fire-related deaths.
The Bain inquiry, set up late in the day, provided a framework for negotiation. The Fire Brigades Union will not get 40 per cent. Its leaders would be better off sitting down with the employers trying to thrash out an agreement rather than ignoring the Bain inquiry, which they have done so far, and now literally playing with fire.
The Government have a major responsibility to protect the public and to ensure that those who are dealing with this current crisis are given the tools to do the job. As I said on the previous occasion, fire engines do not belong to the Fire Brigades Union; they belong to the people of this country. A way must be found to release those fire engines to the people doing the job of the firemen while the firemen dither on the side.
3.16 p.m.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, we, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I could not help but note the tone of the Government, which is perhaps deliberately tough or perhaps reflects exasperation and weariness. We regard the strike as wrong and unreasonable. However, I wonder whether the Government are deliberately seeking to ratchet up the ante, which would be most unfortunate at this point.
Can the Minister confirm whether the union and the employers met on Tuesday or yesterday? It appears from the Statement that they did not, but there are different stories about that. There seems little surprise that the strike went ahead last night. Both sides seem
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to have got themselves into a position from which it is difficult to move. There is no doubt that the work clone by fire-fighters is held in high regard by the public and that individual fire-fighters are extremely unhappy about taking action. We recognise the attitude of those who attended fires last night when lives were at risk. We appreciate, too, the attitude of the retained firefighters.
Has the Minister anything to say about the anecdotes concerning older tire-fighters being less supportive because they remember 1977, and about the unhappy tales of intimidation; for instance websites which publish the names of "scabs"? If that is so, we must all condemn it. We condemn, too, the hoax calls made and the deliberately started fires which, although small, had the potential to become substantial. We extend our sympathy to the family and friends of those who have died in fires since the start of the strike.
Every death is a tragedy, not just those in major incidents. We regret that no undertaking has been forthcoming even to abide by the code to which the Minister referred. We would not want to put the FBU's assessment of public attitudes to the test of something less than a catastrophe.
A modernised country, which the Government seek to achieve, expects a Fire Service modernised in every way: on the one hand with terms and conditions which put working practices on a par with those in other parts of the public sector, including such things as flexibility, an end to a ban on pre-arranged overtime and so forth—the list is long—and on the other legislation which recognises the reality of the service which is today undertaken by the fire brigade and an extension of the statutory duties which recognises the work it does, which is not just putting out fires today people in different parts of the country will be experiencing the severe effects of flooding which could have been ameliorated had the strike not taken effect. That would mean a knock-on effect on investment in equipment, capital grants and so on. The Government need to play their part in that, which includes a major shift towards work on fire prevention. That is not just an add-on.
All additional costs are borne by the taxpayer, but we believe that the Government should bear the cost above the 4 per cent originally offered, giving the employers the tools to do their part of the job.
Perhaps the Minister can tell the House what the costs of using Green Goddesses are—the costs of maintaining them and training the military to use them? I put that in the context of what the noble Baroness has just said about access to equipment, that there must be a balance here. I do not think that we have seen the accounts—the debit and credit side—on this. What are the costs, too, of the police escorts and the effects on their diversion from normal policing, and the costs and effects of what one might loosely call "associated action"? In particular, I refer to the London Underground. It is quite unacceptable that whole sections of the Tube should be out of service because of driver action. Any driver who has real

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safety concerns because of the lack of fire-fighter cover should be talking to the management. The management will be advised by the Railway Inspectorate. It is there to judge what is and what is not safe for the travelling public. One cannot help but suspect that this is unofficial secondary action.
We hope that the FBU will go back to the table and submit its alternative vision, to which the Minister has referred—an alternative vision which, I may say, has been due for a couple of decades—and that central government will state publicly that they will finance the I hope to be agreed reform and pay package.
3.22 p.m.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful for the tenor of the comments and for the points raised by the two noble Baronesses. I shall not repeat them but shall do my best to answer their specific questions.
The subject of vehicles being removed from the stations was raised before, and was certainly raised in the other place. We have made it abundantly clear that we are working on military advice in that respect. We did not want the strike to take place. Noble Lords must remember that so far negotiations have saved 10 days of strikes. We would have had 12 days by now. So we have saved 10 days, and indeed lives as a consequence. So the matter is not straightforward. We are reviewing the matter on a constant basis now that we have a 48-hour dispute.
I do not have all the details, but I turn to the argument that we could do fire training in two weeks, and, specifically, who could drive the vehicles. I have no doubt that one could train to drive the vehicles in two weeks, but training to use the vehicles, which are mobile starship enterprises, I think will take a little longer than two weeks. Anyone who has been on a modern appliance will know that we are not talking about a Green Goddess plus. It may be that one could be trained to drive it in two weeks. All the evidence is that it takes much longer to make good use of the appliance and of the equipment.
We are looking at the issue of reserve engines. This morning the Deputy Prime Minister said that there are about 100 that would be of use. The 18 at the Fire Service College were put at the disposal of the Armed Forces earlier today.
The Emergency Powers Act 1964, the Trade Union Act 1992, all the other Acts of Parliament and issues in respect of the Attorney-General—and this is not a glib answer—are being reviewed. The strike has started and all previous advice is being revisited now that we are in the position of a 48-hour dispute. As I said at the end of the Statement in quoting the Deputy Prime Minister, if once the 48-hour strike is over, we face an eight-day strike the Government may have to review many of the issues which until now we have kept off the table.
The noble Baroness was quite right, the fire-fighters will not get 40 per cent. That has been made abundantly clear. At the end of the day there will have
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to be a negotiated settlement of the dispute. But it will not be on a 40 per cent provision with no strings attached. That is absolutely certain.
I do not accept the point that the Bain report was late in the day. From the chronology of what was said, Bain was set up when there was a complete breakdown. It would probably have been fruitless to set up Bain while negotiations were taking place.
As to the question about whether there was a meeting this Tuesday, my information is that the National Joint Council met on 12th November. The Fire Brigades Union rejected the offer. It is reasonable for an ordinary person to assume that they were in the same room. I shall not say that; all I shall say is that my brief says that the National Joint Council met on 12th November and the Fire Brigades Union rejected the offer. That is the best information I can give in answer to the question.
I do not know anything about the point about the websites and the older fire-fighters. It would be quite disreputable for people to be attacked on websites for doing what they would argue is a humanitarian job. Fire-fighters are humanitarian people.
The number of hoax calls is quite horrendous. I have seen the figures on the news since the Deputy Prime Minister made his Statement. We get many hoax calls every day. It is par for the course, disreputable though it is. People who make them, rightly, will be severely treated.
I shall not go into the issue of terms and conditions. This is not the place to try to negotiate a settlement.
I do not have details of the costs of the Green Goddesses or their storage. There is certainly no asset value in anyone's books—that is for sure.
I turn to the effect on the police. The strike is a little over 21-hours old. It will last for another 27 hours. I hope it will not be repeated. One cannot put a cost on the Armed Forces because the service personnel are there to start with. As to the London Underground, 19 out of 275 stations are closed. Seven per cent of those stations are closed on safety grounds. Other than that, there is no excuse, according to all the relevant statutory authorities, for any disruption to the London Transport infrastructure. If indeed there is disruption, then, yes, it would look like secondary action.
3.26 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, can my noble friend say something more about hoax calls? They are regrettable at all times, but now that is particularly so. Under what Act is the Director of Public Prosecutions, or whichever the authority concerned is, taking steps to ensure that hoax calls can be abated as best they can? What are the sanctions currently available?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the point about hoax callers is that one has to catch them. I understand—I repeat from the news and not from anything I know from the background—that one person was arrested in the northern part of the country early this morning. I do not know under which Act of Parliament, but hoax

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calls to fire brigades are definitely illegal actions. Whatever Act of Parliament it is, if people are caught we hope that the Crown Prosecution Service will arrange for their quick apprehension and prosecution, and that the courts will deal with the matter severely.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I hope that this is not a naive question. At the beginning of the Statement the Minister referred to the pay of the fire brigade being equivalent to that of teachers and nurses. But the difference surely is that teachers and nurses do not have to put their lives in danger as part of their work. Can the Minister say whether part of a fire-fighter's salary is a danger allowance and whether any allowance has been made in the offers made for a danger allowance to be paid as part of future pay?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I do not know the exact details. I gave the figures that would apply if the current offer was accepted—that is, 11 per cent over two years. In other words, this time next year the 7 per cent would have been paid. Those are the figures I read out. I then said that those figures compare very well with nurses, teachers and other public servants. The implication is that they are well ahead of nurses. They are well ahead of the Armed Forces, who are out on the streets at the moment, I might add. I cannot say. and I suspect that no one can, what element of the present Fire Service pay is related to—as the noble Baroness puts it—danger. I just made the point that those offer figures compare extremely well with those for other public sector workers.
Lord king of Bridgwater: My Lords, is it not important to recognise that, although the whole language in which we are conducting the debate concerns fire-fighters, the Bain inquiry makes clear that less than 10 per cent of their time is spent firefighting? Helping with traffic accidents and flooding forms an important part of their work. The impression has been given that it is now impossible to pump out anyone's house because the fire brigade is on strike. If ever there were an elementary piece of equipment that could be made available, it is a pump.
No one can pretend that we could not see the strike coming. On the radio this morning, the Secretary of State for Defence seemed to be unaware that a substantial number of reserve fire engines could have been used for training. The Minister, who was, I am sure, faithfully following his brief, did not seem to have been advised of the training requirements or whether what the retained fire-fighters say is right. It worries me that that does not appear to have been properly examined to see whether people can be properly and quickly trained—and now—in those alternative vehicles, although we hope that we will not have the further eight-day strike.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the short answer is that the period cited to train—two weeks—is incorrect. That is the advice that I have received; there is no argument about my brief. The figure is incorrect. It is one of those urban myths that get around that it takes only
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two weeks to train a fire-fighter. Fire-fighters will make it abundantly clear that it does not. I fully accept that it might take two weeks to train someone to drive a fire appliance. That is not the same as being trained to use it when a fire is reached.
Like everyone else, I regret that pumps are unavailable for flooded homes at present. Because of the inclement weather, that is a problem. We regret that. That is a further reason why there should not have been a strike in the first place. The noble Lord is right: the success of fire-fighters is measured by the smaller amount of time that they spend lighting fires than they used to. Their success lies in all the work that they do on prevention during most of their shifts. People see them around and about, checking equipment, entering buildings, checking factories and offices. That is the measure of their success: prevention. Fighting fires is important, but a major part of the job is prevention.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, are there sufficient beds in the burns units of the National Health Service hospitals if more people are to be at risk from burns? Does the Minister agree that burns units throughout the country will need more resources and emergency help?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I cannot answer that question. If we have lots of extra fires, I suspect that the answer to the first question will be no. On the other hand, when there are emergencies, such as a major motorway accident, the NHS clears the decks. Systems are in place to make facilities available and to reorganise the health service. We will not have the nurses walking out, either.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, we all have confidence in the ability of the Armed Forces to operate the Green Goddesses, but would it not be possible to provide them on a permanent basis with vehicles and equipment that are less than 50 years out of date? Could not vehicles that have fallen out of use by professional firemen be acquired for that purpose, so that the Armed Forces could be trained on them for a proper period?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I assure noble Lords that all such sensible suggestions are being actively considered at present.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the Minister tell us the attitude of other major unions to the strike?
Lord Rooker: No, my Lords, because I have not been involved in negotiations; they have been conducted by my right honourable friends Nick Raynsford and the Deputy Prime Minister. I am not sure to which unions the noble Lord refers: whether the other fire unions or other unions in the Trades Union Congress. Most people are working normally; there is no excuse to do otherwise.
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, further to the previous question, does my noble friend agree that it is

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not the policy of the trade union movement to stand by and watch the dispute escalate? The TUC must be given scope to use its good offices to facilitate a settlement, because there is great difficulty revisiting a formula that has been used unchanged for the whole of the Fire Service since 1978.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, with reference to the formula, the present FBU general secretary is on record as saying two years ago that the formula's use since 1978 had provided fire-fighters with a very good deal on wages. The idea that the issue has been festering away for a couple of decades is arrant nonsense, based on what he said. The formula has never been raised as a major issue. If it needs to be renegotiated, the Fire Brigades Union knows as well as I do that the offer to renegotiate the formula formed part of the offer made before it went on strike—in fact, before the Bain inquiry was set up.
Lord Hayhoe: My Lords, recruitment and retention tend to be the basic determinants when dealing with pay claims. On recruitment, is the statistic correct that I have heard on the radio and read in the press that there are 40 applicants for every job? On retention, what is the wastage—to use a rather emotive term—of people in the Fire Service who are moving out to get better pay elsewhere?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, unlike the position for nurses in the NHS, recruitment and retention is not a problem in the Fire Service.
Lord Tebbit: My Lords, has the Minister or his colleagues sought advice from the Law Officers on whether 1980s trade union legislation is still effective? That offered the possibility of taking action in tort against those who engaged in sympathetic action.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, that is a detailed question. The Law Officers, in their role as such rather than as straightforward members of the Government, were reviewing the legislation and state of play prior to the dispute. They are naturally revisiting the situation now that we have a strike on our hands—albeit a 48-hour strike, but with the threat of an eight day strike in a few days' time. That changes the situation.

Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech
3.38 p.m.
Debate resumed.
The Lord Bishop of Winchester: My Lords, I was glad to note at the end of the gracious Speech, and I welcome, the Government's renewed commitment,
"to work for a more effective global effort to reduce poverty",
their commitment to increase the aid budget and to the implementation of the Africa Action Plan in response to the New Partnership for Africa's Development. As
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a contribution to those commitments, I intend to speak about the Democratic Republic of Congo and to seek clarification of the Government's intentions in response to two recently published documents: the final report of the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the DRC; and Cursed by Riches: Who Benefits from Resource Exploitation in the DRC?, produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention. I need to declare an interest as a member of that all-party group, as bishop of the only diocese in the Church of England that has a partner relationship with the Anglican Church in the Congo and as patron of the Congo Church Association.
In the last two of those capacities, I returned just under a week ago from spending two and a half weeks in the region at the invitation of the Congolese archbishop and in the company of Congolese. I spent two of those weeks in the eastern DRC. We visited three of the six Anglican dioceses, spending time in areas under the control of the Kinshasa Government and of three other groups. We were able to talk at length to all six Anglican bishops, with Roman Catholic and Protestant leaders and with the ecumenical group engaged, with great courage, in mediation and in the search for peace and reconciliation in and around Bukavu and Uvira. Many Church members and many clergy came to talk to us. Many had travelled long distances to do so on foot or on bicycles. They came to talk about the life of the Church and about the dire conditions in which they and many hundreds of thousands of others are living. In each area, I was also received by those responsible for government: the governor of Katanga—controlled by the Kinshasa Government—in Lubumbashi; the vice-governor—RCD-Goma—in Bukavu; and the administrator—UPC—in Aru.
I should say, too, that, because the Bishop of Bukavu was invited to address the all-party parliamentary group in April, it was known in the Church that I was a member of your Lordships' House. It proved to be of considerable interest to the representatives of the Government and of the various governing groups, as well as to the Church—to which I was able everywhere primarily to bring the greetings of the Archbishop of Canterbury and to represent the Anglican communion—that a British parliamentarian was among them in such a way at such a critical, dangerous time for the people of the DRC. People of all sorts have a great deal that they want the UK Government to hear and to act upon. Your Lordships will also know that I am by no means the only occupant of these Benches to have had that experience while visiting, as a bishop, one or another of the world's most troubled and troubling areas—a fact of which members of the Joint Committee on the reform of the House should in my view take note.
That very recent experience and the trust reposed in me by the many men and women who spoke to us in Lubumbashi, Bukavu and the hills above it, Goma and Aru—the English priest who accompanied me has served there, is well known in the Congolese Church

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and speaks Swahili, as well as much better French than I—requires me to take the opportunity presented by this debate. I also intend to seek an Unstarred Question debate, which will give time for Members of your Lordships' House to engage, from their own experience and knowledge, with the pressing questions presented by the DRC and the whole region, particularly to this country and to our European colleagues, with whom we share so much historic and, still more, contemporary responsibility for the countries concerned.
Since my return, I have been able to read the two reports that I mentioned as I began to speak—that from the UN panel of experts and that from the all-party parliamentary group. The latter makes reference to the former and to its interim predecessors. I have been struck by how very closely both reports tallied with what we were consistently told by those who talked to us and also with the documents and reports, which were often still more shocking than what people said, that many were eager that we should read.
The two reports collect a great deal of detailed information, and each makes a comprehensive series of recommendations. The report of the UN panel of experts makes recommendations primarily to the UN but also to a range of other governments and organisations, as appropriate. The report of the all-party group is addressed especially—but not only—to our Government. In commending the report of the panel of experts, the all-party group,
"urge the UK government to make a statement in the House of Commons"—
and in this House, too—
"and ensure that the main findings are acted upon in the UN Security Council and the European Union".
I hope that the Minister will be prepared to respond wholeheartedly to that request in her closing speech this evening, while also outlining the Government's thinking and intentions in response to the troubling—at times, profoundly shocking—information presented by both reports.
For here is a country in which some two and a half million people have died as a result of war, chronic theft and pillage on the grandest scale and disorder in the past four years; in which the armed forces of as many as six neighbouring countries have operated in recent years; in which many hundreds of thousands of people live in the constant fear that a lack of order and security imposes upon them. For instance, knowledgeable local people said that as many as one third of the people of South Kivu—a big region—were taking to the bush and leaving their houses every night out of fear. Virtually all the proceeds of the Congo's enormously rich mineral resources continue to be stolen by its neighbours or to benefit a minute fraction only of its people. Over wide areas, the Churches are the only organisations left in being and the only providers—to an inadequate extent, in spite of heroic efforts and sacrifice—of schooling and medicine. Tribal and regional conflicts have been manipulated to near-genocidal proportions by neighbouring states or by sections of their armed forces in their own interests.
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In the DRC, there is a pathetically small and weakly composed United Nations force, with an inadequate mandate for a task that cries out for energetic attention. Many Congolese—if those who spoke to us are at all representative—hold the major European powers substantially responsible for the origins and the perpetuation of a good deal, at any rate, of their oppression. The UK has substantial interests and influence in Congo's two most significant neighbours.
I could say much more, and I shall look for another appropriate occasion on which to do so. I look forward to the Minister's response at the end of the debate.
3.47 p.m.
Lord Parekh: My Lords, in the first paragraph o f the Queen's Speech, three main priorities are mentioned, including a constructive foreign policy. That is a roost commendable goal, and I shall say something about it.
In our increasingly interdependent world, the foreign policy of any nation—however great—cannot be concerned with narrow national interest alone. The way in which other societies live or conduct their affairs affects us deeply. Therefore, self-interest and principles of morality require that we should pursue our national interest consistently with the demands of global stability and justice. I am delighted that the Queen's Speech refers to our role in the European Union and our responsibility to combat terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It also refers to our responsibility to tackle climate change and attain the UN millennium development goals. Not only are those and other goals consistent with the great traditions of the Labour Party. but they are consistent with—in fact, they are demanded by—what Britain stands for in the community of mankind.
Thanks to the great history of this country, Britain's national identity is inherently three-dimensional. We are a European country and are a part of Europe not only geographically but culturally and politically. We share with other European countries certain basic values, sensibilities and profound historical experiences. We are also an Atlantic country, sharing much with the United States, including its language, political and legal institutions and history.
Finally, we are a global country whose history was enacted in different and distant parts of the world, whose kith and kin are scattered all over the world, and whose trade, political and cultural ties encompass the globe.
Therefore, Britain is at once European, Atlantic and global. It is uniquely equipped to act as a bridge and a mediator between Europe, the United States and the rest of the world. While loyally standing by the United States, Britain must have, therefore, both a right and a duty to alert the United States to the opinions, views and interests of both Europe and the world at large, and to exercise a restraining influence. That is what we did in relation to the events of September 11th and Iraq. While condemning those barbaric events, the Prime Minister rightly stressed the need to tackle the deeper roots of terrorism, including the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict and global poverty and injustice.

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So far as Iraq is concerned our overall approach has shown considerable wisdom and maturity. We insisted, rightly, that our policy towards Iraq should be one of containment and deterrence; that is to say, exercising enough pressure to ensure Iraq's compliance with the United Nations' resolutions and relying on sanctions and watchfulness to ensure that Iraq did not develop weapons of mass destruction. Regime change in Iraq was not our business because it tended to escalate conflict, shift the goal post, personalise a highly intractable situation, and made it harder to achieve the basic goal of removing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Furthermore, it is easier to disarm Iraq if we also follow the policy of gradually lifting sanctions in response to the progress made in the area of weapons inspection and destruction. That gives Saddam Hussein an incentive to disarm and, more importantly, it generates an internal pressure and momentum to disarm. We should not make the mistake of thinking that Saddam Hussein is mad, irrational, bent on self destruction or runs the country single-handed. He also has interests to accommodate, groups to assuage, and the policy of carrot and stick upon which we have long insisted allows us to generate the right kind of pressure on him.
That line of thinking has not always aroused a positive response from the influential circles in the current US administration. They tend to take a simplistic, somewhat crude, militaristic and rather Manichaean view of the world. For those influential circles in the United States terrorism is the sole enemy and can be fought only by force. They also seem to think that September 11th gave the United States the opportunity, the right and, indeed, the God given duty, to set the world right once and for all and to reshape the world in its own image.
In their simple minded view the conflict today is between good and evil—the US embodying the good and happily having the power to defeat evil. When politics is moralised in that way and becomes part of an eschatology it tends to forget its limits. It nurtures hubris and becomes a site for suicidal fantasies. Some of the advocates of that Manichaean view have produced bizarre plans published in the New York Times and the Washington Post—for example, such as creating a greater Israel, dismantling Iraq, giving Jordan to Palestinians, subduing first Iran and then China, and so forth.
Happily, many Americans do not think like that at all. Sadly, some do, including the fundamentalist Christian Right, the Cold War hawks and those too traumatised by the events of September 11th to think clearly. While the international pressure, including our own, has so far managed to restrain that influence, they still continue to exercise considerable influence and set the agenda. They are unlikely to disappear, both because their ideological fervour keeps fuelling their propaganda and because the simplistic views continue to enjoy favour with the bewildered electorate.
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Therefore, we shall have to keep fighting them by aligning ourselves with the progressive forces in the United States and by offering a better alternative. I am delighted to see that our Government are doing so.
It is in that context that I suggest we need to take a cool and detached view of Iraq. Although there is a lot of loose talk about war on Iraq, such a war would be most unwise. First, to much of the rest of the world our whole attitude to Iraq, rightly or wrongly, appears vindictive, partial and excessively punitive. It is the first and, as far as I know, the only country that the United Nations has singled out for disarmament for invading another, although such invasions have occurred in other cases as well. Therefore, going to war would alienate a large swathe of global opinion.
Secondly, war would particularly alienate Muslims the world over. They are bound to see it as an attempt to keep them weak and powerless, to punish the misdeeds of one of them while conniving at the similar misdeeds of another, and an attempt on the part of the West to dominate their religion. It is that kind of widespread feeling among Muslim countries that has fed religious fundamentalism and led to Islamic governments in Turkey and Bahrain.
Thirdly, any war on Iraq would destabilise Iraq and lead to revenge killings on a massive scale and even to a civil war. It could even lead to the fragmentation of the country into its three constituent provinces and cause massive upheaval. Fourthly, even if the war resulted in the removal of Saddam Hussein, it would not be the end of the problem. Democracy cannot be built in a day and Iraq would remain highly unstable for decades to come. Many innocent civilians would suffer in the war and could become desperately hostile to the West. It is not inconceivable that they might democratically elect a government committed to a programme of weapons of mass destruction. Indians, Israelis, Pakistanis and others, have democratically elected governments committed to weapons of mass destruction. What do we do then? Do we follow Henry Kissinger who, when Chile elected Salvador Allende, said:
"Chile should not be allowed to go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible"
Finally, war is said to be necessary to uphold the authority of the United Nations. That is a specious argument. The United Nation's authority has been challenged by many countries and it has done nothing. The United States itself has long wanted to go alone and still talks of doing so, and has hardly shown much respect for the authority of the United Nations. Besides, when UN resolutions are widely seen as products of arm twisting, bribes and intimidation, they do not carry moral authority.
In short, we need to think carefully about the current international situation, especially Iraq. There is a commendable tendency in certain circles to think of Iraq in terms of the idea of a just war. Although that is an important concept, it is problematic. The idea of a just war is dated and needs to be revised in the light of modern situations. I can think of situations where the war is just and still ill advised. Instead, we should be asking whether a war is likely to create regional and

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global stability, likely to set good precedent, likely to address the causes of terrorism and injustice and whether it can sustain the spirit of international cooperation. By that criteria, war on Iraq is ill conceived. What we need instead is a realistic policy of carrot and stick with respect to Iraq and a wider and determined attempt to create a more democratic international order and global justice.
3.58 p.m.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I am glad that I decided, regretfully, not to speak about Iraq and terrorism. The admirable speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale, said it all. much better than I could. I shall speak about Zimbabwe. I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, but it needs speaking about in the context of the Commonwealth; and the Commonwealth is one of the pillars of British policy.
Like us, Zimbabwe is a member of the Commonwealth and we have been justly proud of the institution that we helped to create. However, from the moment that the Commonwealth managed to send only 42 observers to the vital election—it would have been only 30 but for a last-minute injection of more money. after an intervention in this House, by HMG—instead of the 100 observers who covered Zambia, Cameroon and Tanzania elections respectively, and from the moment that Abuja failed and then the Troika was flouted, the Zimbabweans should have understood, sadly, that membership of the Commonwealth may not be much more significant for them than belonging to a club on stamp collecting or folk dancing. The secretariat has never managed to persuade the African and Asian members that black Africans are being starved and tortured in Zimbabwe by a black ruler. Our Government have tried hard to do that, I know, and I make a distinction between them and the Commonwealth Secretariat. The secretariat has never managed to persuade them and they are content to leave the initiative for such action as is taken—such as the, I am sorry to say, ineffective financial sanctions which have only just come into force—to the EU.
This country has, however, so far done its honourable best with others to provide aid and to exert what influence it can in Africa to contain Mugabe who has succeeded in building an iron circle around his country within which he is free to murder, rape and destroy, secure in the knowledge that the press and the media cannot report what is going on to the outside world.
Would not your Lordships expect our country to strive to find ways to help those beleaguered people who speak our language, strive to preserve our legal system even under the direst threat, and are among the most skilled professional men and women in Africa? We have of course been glad to take their trained social workers and their nurses. But it seems that now that some of them urgently need to come to the free world, as the persecuted Jews did from Germany, the Home Secretary has decided that Zimbabweans, with immediate effect, will need a visa to enter the UK.
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Some tried to come in earlier this year. Some who had suffered torture were told by helpful officials that they could return quite safely through the simple expedient of moving to another part of the country. Between April and June this year, 1,345 persons applied for asylum and there have been 300 asylum claims at Gatwick alone in recent weeks. The Home Secretary says—and I understand his difficulty—that his visa programme is designed to deal with,
"very significant abuse of our immigration controls by Zimbabwean nationals".
The British High Commission states that an increasingly large number of "unfounded" asylum claims are being made. Large numbers of Zimbabweans are being refused entry and returned and, of course, have no access to legal advice before being put back on the aircraft. Of 2,115 asylum seekers from that country this year, only 115 were granted asylum.
Those people come from a far more dangerous and life-threatening environment than any Afghan or Kosovan and they are Commonwealth citizens. Have they no special claim? Would not those who stay, and who all speak fluent English, benefit the economy at once? Has everyone forgotten the Ugandan Asians? Why can the Zimbabweans not, at the very least, benefit by something like the special regime—I believe it was a one-year initial stay in the UK, then subject to review—which the Kosovans enjoyed?
Mugabe has done his best successfully to exclude the outside world so that no one shall know what he is doing to his people, and now we complete the process and close the ring by making it virtually impossible for Zimbabweans to come out and tell the world what is happening. For how is this visa process to work? Thought has been given to it. It was announced in Harare that no one need visit the British High Commission to apply—a proceeding which would have had obvious dangers for any applicant. Those wanting visas will apply to a branch of a commercial firm called Fed-Ex which has several branches in the country. This is presumably another private finance initiative. Fed-Ex will handle the applications and pass them on to the High Commission for processing. Fed-Ex will then issue the visas. If there is a query, the applicant will be invited to the High Commission for interview.
The passport plus the visa is to be delivered, presumably by post, to the home of the successful applicant. How truly thoughtful this Rolls-Royce service is and how unlikely it is that, for instance, such people as the three brave men from Matebeleland who came out recently to tell us what is happening—and who have returned—will ever dare to use such a service. There will be ZANU-PF representatives or observers in every Fed-Ex office and it will be a crazy man indeed who expects to see his passport again before he is arrested.
That is not all. The visa will cost each applicant £36 and in order for the Exchequer to receive its full pound of flesh the exchange rate used will not be the official rate of 88 Zimbabwe dollars to the pound but the black market rate of 2,000 Zimbabwe dollars to the pound.

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Passports, incidentally, can now also be obtained only through payment of the black market rate. Pensions, on the other hand, are paid out by the banks at the official rate only. How many teachers, lawyers, still less social or church workers or journalists, can afford 72,000 Zimbabwe dollars for a visa, or the equally obligatory 54,000 Zimbabwe dollars for a transit visa now required for travel on from the UK? The High Commissioner said in outlining the scheme that the move to visas was made necessary by the increasing number of Zimbabweans being turned away at British airports and he added what I found a very strange statement; that,
"the final arbiter is the immigration officer so the visa is not a guarantee".
It will be said that the cost of the visa is unlikely to be a problem for the would-be travellers who can find the money for the air fare. But the trip may represent the savings of the whole family or of a group desperate to send out a message to the free world. What price Commonwealth membership in all this? How can we live with ourselves after slamming the prison gates shut?
It is hard to see how we can justify continuing with this policy while at the same time people are streaming in daily from the Continent who are neither under the same deadly threats of starvation and torture, nor able to offer the country the valuable human investment that most Zimbabwean citizens can offer; nor are they fellow members of the Commonwealth; they simply want to come here. Fair enough. The Zimbabweans, however, were they to come, would with very few exceptions be prompted to return to rebuild their own country as soon as there was any hope of them doing so. I believe that it is wrong that a decision of this political and humanitarian importance should have been taken purely in the context of the integrity of our borders and of the genuinely alarming uncontrolled influx of a wide range of nationalities, few of whom have the extensive traditional cultural and social affiliations with Britain which Zimbabweans enjoy. This is a political decision, not an administrative measure, and its significance is far-reaching not least because it raises the whole question of what the Commonwealth is for.
This is not a purely domestic administrative problem. I do not see how we can expect serious attention from the Commonwealth if we are seen to give membership so little value in times of trouble. I gave the Minister, whom I greatly respect for all the work she has done in Africa, notice that I would raise this issue; and I look to the Government to reconsider such a short-sighted policy.
4.6 p.m.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, there is no lack of crucially important foreign policy issues which are likely to come to a point of decision during the next Session of Parliament. Quite the contrary. The problem is to select among them those which will significantly affect this country. I will focus my
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comments on just four: Iraq, Arab-Israel, the convention on the future of Europe and, if time permits, Britain's membership of the euro.
The unanimous Security Council resolution on disarming Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and of the programmes designed to produce them was not just a triumph for our own and US diplomacy, although it was certainly that, but it was a triumph also for the United Nations and for the multilateral approach to handling a challenge like that posed by Saddam Hussein. This is not just a question of international law, important though the legal aspects are.
My own view is that by his serial material breaches of the 1991 resolution requiring the abandonment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the programmes behind them, Saddam Hussein has in fact already put himself at risk to the use of force and that there will be even more of a case if he fails to comply fully and promptly with last week's resolution. But it is the politics of the situation which make that unanimous resolution so vital. If Saddam does again bring down on himself the use of force, it will be important that the widest possible coalition is mustered and that not a scintilla of ambiguity exists about who triggered off that action. That is the argument for putting our trust in Dr Blix and his inspectors and that is the argument for not listening to the denigrators of such international mechanisms.
It is sometimes suggested—and it was so in this House last week, for example—that the new resolution, with its tight timetables and its clear and tough language is somehow unreasonably robust, even provocative. But there is surely a logical flaw in that argument because, if Saddam Hussein simply took the policy decision to abandon once and for all his weapons of mass destruction programmes, there would not be the slightest problem about fulfilling all the deadlines. After all, when South Africa decided to drop its nuclear weapons programme, it got a clean bill of health from the international inspectors in about one tenth of the time that it has taken Saddam Hussein not to get one. The problems arise because Saddam has not taken the decision to give up his weapons programme. Indeed, he has taken the opposite decision—to do everything he can to hang on to them.
Let us hope that now, faced with the unanimity of the international community, he finally does take that decision, because that is the only way of avoiding the use of force. I really do hope that, differing though many people's views are on this matter, we can all join together to get that one simple message across. If we do not, if we continue to disagree among ourselves about what to do if he does not comply, and how to do it, and about whether or not we need another Security Council resolution to authorise any military action, then the risk is that Saddam will get the wrong message and will think that, yet again, he can wriggle out of his predicament with impunity.
Elsewhere in the Middle East the options are less clear-cut and the chances of avoiding a continuing deterioration of the situation are even more

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problematic. With an Israeli general election now looming, the temptation to conclude that nothing much can be done for several months will be very strong. And yet to yield to that temptation will simply be to leave the agenda where it has already been for far too long, in the hands of the men of violence. So long as a complete cessation of violence is a prerequisite for the resumption of a meaningful and purposeful peace process, those same protagonists of a violent solution can dictate what happens. That is surely not the intention of those on either side who want a peaceful, negotiated outcome.
Moreover, the absence of any progress back to the negotiating table is what, above all else, makes it so difficult to separate the moderates from the extremists in the Arab world, and yet that separation will have to take place if ever there is to be effective action taken against the extremists.
Over the past few years the European Union has become an accepted, if not at all times an entirely welcome, player in the efforts to move towards a negotiated solution. It is now more than ever necessary that it plays an active and imaginative role. That cannot be to take sides. We may from time to time be compelled to criticise or to condemn certain actions which we consider to be disproportionate or unjustified or contrary to international law, but we must not become systematically engaged on one side or the other or we will lose all influence.
We must work closely at every stage with the United States, because we know full well that without its active engagement and co-operation nothing will be achieved. But that does not mean that we should hold our tongue if we believe that the United States role is too passive or too reactive.
So I would hope that the Government will ensure that Javier Solana, the High Representative of the EU, has all the resources that he needs to play an active role as a member of the quartet—the US, the European Union. Russia and the United Nations—and will continue, as the Prime Minister recently called for, to work for an early decision to resume peace negotiations, and that we should continue to feed in ideas and lend serious political support to that European effort.
In the end, one has to recognise that, while it is unwise to establish any precise linkage between the Arab/Israel dispute and the task of getting Saddam Hussein to comply with the Security Council's unanimous will, there is an interrelationship between the two issues which cannot simply be wished away or made to disappear by denial. If we want the Arab countries to support any action which has to be taken against Iraq—and that will be a matter of the highest priority to us—we need to demonstrate that we take seriously their priority of priorities, which is to try to find a way out of the dead end in which the Middle East peace process is currently stuck.
It may seem a long way from the Middle East to the Brussels debates in the convention on the future of Europe, which are due to conclude next summer, but it is perhaps not quite so far as one might think. After
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all, one of the main focuses of the convention's work is on how to make a reality out of the steps—the halting progress—that have been taken towards a common foreign and security policy.
But the convention goes much wider than that. It represents a serious attempt to break out of the esoteric games of institutional tiddlywinks which have characterised the last three inter-governmental conferences—at Maastricht, at Amsterdam and at Nice—and to lay a solid, transparent and comprehensible basis for the future development of a European Union of 25 or more members.
The Government are to be commended on the constructive input they have made so far to the convention, in contrast to past occasions when the British representative so often arrived at the conference table with an endless list of other people's ideas to which we were going to say no and a remarkably short list—if, indeed, such a list existed at all—of ideas which we wished to promote. We have on this occasion made a good number of constructive suggestions and made it clear that we wish to shape the debate, not by constant jabs on the brakes but by playing a full role. Not every idea we put forward will survive the triage of European negotiation; not every idea that others put forward will need to be shot down in flames. It seems to be understood better now that these discussions are a dialectical process, not a confrontation. No longer do British representatives recoil in horror if the word "constitution" is mentioned, and that is all to the good.
Above all, this is not some titanic struggle between the two completely different approaches to the Union's development—between the Community method, also known as federalism, and the intergovernmental approach. If we view the negotiations in that light, we will end up isolated and empty handed.
In some areas—justice and home affairs, immigration and asylum—it will make sense to extend the Community method. It will also make sense to strengthen the Commission—perhaps by reducing its numbers well below those that will provide one commissioner for every member state—and we should not shy away from more majority voting, so long as this is not extended to areas of fundamental national sensitivity such as the level of taxation.
In other areas, the Community method does not make sense, either functionally or politically. That in my view is the case for common foreign and security policy, which bears no resemblance to legislation, nor to trade negotiations, where the Community method was designed to operate. Foreign and security policy is a mosaic of often procedural moves which may end up in the use of force and loss of life in the armed forces of the countries which decide to participate. I believe that the Commission will have to be told that in this area it has reached too far.
Time does not permit me to say a word about the euro. I suppose that the Chinese reaction to all that we are discussing today would be to say that we live in interesting times. I fear they would be right. My

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closing plea to the Government would be to ensure that we in this House have plenty of opportunity to debate all these issues, and more, in the months ahead.
4.17 p.m.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I congratulate the Government on helping to persuade the American Administration to work through the United Nations on Iraq. I support also those who have spoken about the importance of the United States and the European Union working urgently to bring about progress on a Middle East settlement. I am glad that the quartet are working at the present time towards a two-state solution. I agree that it is important that they should not stop work simply because an election in Israel is pending at the end of January. This is an urgent matter.
The United States Administration displays a quality which the Clinton administration did not possess. It understands the importance of the ancient Roman maxim that if you wish peace, prepare for war. Of course the United States Administration—the most powerful in the world—should use restraint, but it should also be ready, when appropriate, to use its strength and, if necessary, to take casualties. That is something that Clinton did not accept. If Saddam Hussein does co-operate with the inspectors—and that is still open to question—it will be because he understands President Bush's determination. That was Clinton's potential weakness which nearly brought about a failure in Kosovo. President Bush's understanding of this point is also relevant in that it has helped to produce a very big success for the United Nations. So, on Iraq, the Government deserve good marks.
Like my noble friend Lady Park, I, too, will speak of Zimbabwe and Gibraltar, incurring, I know, the scorn of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, but confident of the support of the many millions of people in Zimbabwe who have been suffering from the reign of terror of Mr Mugabe and of 98.7 per cent of the population of Gibraltar.
The Government's policies on Zimbabwe have been inadequate since the election in 2000, which was declared by every official group of international observers not to have been free and fair but to have been stolen by Mr Mugabe. That was the time when this Government should have taken the lead, in the United Nations and in the European Union. Britain has experience as the colonial power; it understands Zimbabwe. It was the author of the settlement of 1979–80.
But, sadly, the Government did nothing for well over a year, in spite of being urged from these Benches to take steps that would be useful. They expressed great concern, intense concern and extreme concern—but the effect was to give Mr Mugabe the firm impression that he could get away with murder if that was the worst that would happen. That is what he has done—plus rape, torture and theft.
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I can only suppose that the reason for the Government's inaction was their fear of being accused by Mr Mugabe of neo-colonialism. But they were accused of that anyway, even if they were not on any possible grounds guilty of such a thing. I am told by people I know in Zimbabwe, black or white, that no one there believes such an accusation. So it is only recently—much too late—that action of any kind has been taken—a slap on the wrist by the Commonwealth; travel sanctions which do not apply to the spouses of Mr Mugabe or to his cronies; and the seizure of assets, which has yielded only half a million pounds according to the latest figures I have seen, at a time when Mr Mugabe and his cronies have their arms in the till right up to the elbow in the Congo in connection with diamonds and timber.
It is extraordinary that no action has been taken by the G8. It had a wonderful opportunity last summer in Canada when considering NePAD and other African aid matters. I cannot understand why the matter of putting pressure on the other African countries to put pressure themselves on Zimbabwe was not raised by Her Majesty's Government. Mr Mbeki, the President of South Africa, has been an intense disappointment. He has taken no steps that I know of urgently to activate SADC to take action to show its displeasure.
I wonder whether the Government are fully seized of the potential disaster that is occurring in southern Africa. The region is in almost a terminal state. Millions will be starving within a very short time. I believe that when historians write their account of these days in southern Africa they will hold the leaders of southern African countries to account for not taking steps to prevent President Mugabe from conducting the reign of terror in which he has been engaged. I do not believe that the present rulers of the developed countries will escape without criticism. I cannot, therefore, give the Government high marks over Zimbabwe.
On Gibraltar, the activities of the Government have been even more unsatisfactory than they have been over Zimbabwe—although the issues there are not quite so terrible as those in southern Africa. My noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford referred to the report published last week by the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place. Perhaps I may quote one paragraph from the committee's conclusions:
"We conclude that the Government was wrong to negotiate joint sovereignty, when it must have known that there was no prospect whatsoever that any agreement on the future of Gibraltar which included joint sovereignty could be made acceptable to the people of Gibraltar, and when the outcome is likely to be the worst of all worlds—the dashing of raised expectations in Spain, and a complete loss of trust in the British Government by the people of Gibraltar".
I shall not read any more from the report. It is better that noble Lords should read it for themselves.
I still do not understand what the Government were hoping to get from the Spaniards when they gave away the principle of shared sovereignty over Gibraltar. Why did the Government expect the Gibraltarians to vote for shared sovereignty after decades of harassment by the Spanish? Why did the Secretary of State and Peter Hain, the Minister for Europe in

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another place, alienate the Gibraltarians by dismissing in advance the results of any referendum held by Gibraltar, among other slighting remarks. Did not Mr Hain realise that to describe, in the House of Commons, an important piece of Gibraltar legislation as a "scam" was not likely to win friends and influence people in Gibraltar? Is not this the same Peter Hain who has recently been promoted to the Cabinet and who, alarmingly, is the Government's principal representative in the discussions on the Convention on Europe. That does not give me very much confidence. Did not the Government realise that giving away a part of sovereignty would weaken the position of any future United Kingdom government in any further negotiations? I believe that anyone assessing the Government's performance in the context of Gibraltar would say that the Government are obviously out of their depth and should drop the whole matter.
4.26 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, we are all constrained by the guidance—somewhat unfamiliar—on speaking times, and I shall do my best to adhere to it. However, I had great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Marlsford, this morning when he complained slightly—I believe genuinely—that this would stifle debate. Any form of limit or guidance discourages interventions and I believe that it stifles debate That said, I shall try to be brief, but I hope that my remarks will not be diminished by their brevity.
I want to talk about the Alexandria process, to which my noble friend the Minister made a glancing reference in her introductory remarks. An examination of many of the flash-points in the world at present shows that over the past few years there has been a breakdown in what is normally regarded as the political process. The reason seems fairly clear. So many of these flash-points are bedevilled by controversy and often enmity between different religions and—I hate to say this, looking at the phalanx of right reverend Prelates in front of me—between different sects of the same religion. If that is true—and I believe it to be true—it further seems equally clear that we need some mechanism that is by definition not political or official, but which commands respect and which can meet the animosity, real or imagined, between different faiths and lead to a process of de-fusing the religious electricity in these conflicts; and which in the end—although the end may be a long way away—can lead to a resumption of normal political dialogue.
In short, if we can solve, or at least mitigate, by sensitive and sensible dialogue the apparent conflicts between different faiths, we may at least be able to lay the groundwork for the political resolution of conflicts where they have become infected by religious animosity.
I do not mean to be starry-eyed about this. Sensitive and sensible dialogue is no longer possible with extremists who are determined to kill themselves as long as they can take with them what they regard as a suitable number of their enemies. Terror of that sort has to be fought without remorse. Force, with
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discretion, is also appropriate in cases such as that of Iraq. But there are other conflicts where dialogue is still possible even though the political process appears to have come to a dead end.
To my mind, one of those—as we have been reminded by various speakers is in the Middle East. I refer in particular to the antagonism between Israel and its neighbours. There is no doubt that that antagonism is fuelled by religious differences. After all, it takes only a very limited knowledge of history to understand the significance of Jerusalem as a holy city for three of the great religions of the world—Judaism, Islam and Christianity. The "political process", such as it is, or perhaps ever was, seems to have broken down. Now the question is: where do we go from here?
It may surprise your Lordships to know I hat in the summer of 2001, a canon of Coventry Cathedral, Canon Andrew White, was approached by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was asked to see whether there was in his view any way of engaging the religious leaders of Israel and Palestine to help with what was then—and clearly still is—a faltering peace process. Out of acorns, as we know, great oaks may sometimes grow. The International Centre for Reconciliation based at Coventry Cathedral took up the challenge. After a series of secret meetings with Chairman Arafat, Prime Minister Sharon and leaders in both Egypt and Jordan, there was a meeting in Alexandria to discuss the matter. That meeting was chaired by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, now Lord Carey of Clifton. The result was the signature from representatives of all faiths in the region of what has now become known as the Alexandria declaration. This gave birth to what my noble friend referred to as the Alexandria process.
The declaration contained a joint pledge—joint, my Lords—signed by Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious leaders of the region to commit themselves to condemn violence, to work for peace and to work for the implementation of the Mitchell and Tenet proposals. Not only that, but a specific and dedicated committee was set up to pursue those objectives. I have little hesitation in saying that that committee and its dedicated members are now perceived by many in that region and in the international community as one—and possibly the only one—of the viable bridges to span the religious and political divide between the Israeli and the Palestinian leaderships.
The Alexandria declaration was much publicised in the region but not here. Therein lies my point. In our secular society, we have perhaps forgotten the power of faith. This can no longer be ignored. Throughout the post-imperial world—India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia the Philippines and even Russia—religious faith, as far back as history shows, either produces conflict, or, as St Paul wrote, leads in the end to reconciliation. In all this, my personal vote goes to St Paul rather than the warmongers. In the Coventry centre there is a nucleus for the slow but steady reconciliation of conflicts bedevilled by religious controversy. They deserve our support. I hope that our Government and your Lordships will give it.
4.33 p.m.
Baroness Flather: My Lords, the big issues of the day have been well aired, but very little has been said about international development. I intend to address my remarks in that direction.
By the time our grandchildren are our age, the world's population will have increased by 50 per cent. This is not a science-fiction scenario. At present, on last year's figures, there is a population increase of 77 million per year. The population of the 49 least developed countries will triple by 2050. Most of the growth will be accounted for by six countries: China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
How can international development keep pace with such a population increase? From time to time, these issues are addressed. The Cairo international conference on population and development took place in 1994 and was followed by the Beijing conference in 1995. A very clear link between gender equality and poverty eradication was established at those conferences. The reproductive health targets clearly included contraceptive and family-planning advice. I shall read some very important quotations from a speech made by the Secretary of State for International Development in June 1999:
"The Cairo Programme of Action was a landmark … It gave us the right agenda for population … We paid particular attention to reproductive health."
She continued:
"We must do everything we can to reduce the rate at which unwanted pregnancy occurs."
The Minister added that,
"when a woman does decide that she does not wish to go through with an unwanted pregnancy, she needs services and care that are safe, accessible and respectful of her decision. She is the one best placed to make the moral decision this involves."
She also stated:
"And that includes having enough respect for the poor of the world—most of whom are women—to ensure that they are able to control their own fertility, have healthy wanted children and be able to live to see them grow up as educated and creative citizens".
Nothing has changed on the ground, but the department's policy has certainly changed along with the Secretary of State's rhetoric.
The only objective mentioned in the millennium development goals is the elimination of gender inequality in education. There is no longer any mention of family planning or the provision of advice on contraception. The Secretary of State now speaks of a new kind of aid that is not charity; it is part of the process of building modern, effective states. The NGOs are to be bypassed, and money is to be given directly to states. At least one state—Tanzania—is thinking of buying a presidential jet at £15 million and an air-traffic control system at £28 million. How much of British taxpayers' money will reach people at the very bottom, who need it most?
Some of us have our origins in developing countries. We know how this money sticks to the hands through which it passes. How much of it reaches anywhere, even as part of infrastructure projects? It is extremely worrying to think that, in supporting these states, we
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will be expecting them to provide programmes that will not be monitored and cannot be evaluated. Who will carry out that monitoring? Who will go to any African and Asian state and ask to be shown what has been done with aid money? If we want to give those countries autonomy and to build them up, it is a complete contradiction to claim a right to look at what they are doing with aid money.
The United States is a great friend and a great ally that we have supported in every respect. They have just withdrawn 34 million dollars from the UNFPA in China because they do not think that they should support anybody who provides abortions. Nobody in this Chamber or outside would say that abortion should be used as a means of family planning. However, the less provision there is for family planning services, the more likely it is that women will resort to abortion. That is incontrovertible logic. We should be saying loud and clear that family planning provision should be made so that women do not have to resort to abortion. There will be unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children. That could lead to more back street abortions, which have been with us since time immemorial, because services are not available.
The difference between what I saw when I visited China 10 years ago and what I saw when I went back recently is unbelievable. The position of women has improved. The way people are, the way they live and the way they dress is totally different. There is more education and a greater availability of the things that we would like our children to have.
Everything is not always bad. Although we would not like such a repressive regime, we hope that some of the other developing countries will think about this difficult issue. Eighty per cent of the world's population lives in developing countries. The vast majority of the women in those countries have nothing. They are virtual slaves. Who speaks for them? If our Secretary of State—a woman—does not speak for them but is happy to spend her time with the presidents of the African states, who will speak for the women? It is not the men who will change things. It is not in their interests. How can it be in their interests? Women do not want large families if they know how not to have them. Women want education for their children if they can get it. They want to improve their communities and their own conditions if they can. There are banks—a very few—that have 98 per cent return on the loan, and still it is not taken up.
Women are the key to international development. It is time that I heard more about that from the Government. I want to hear more from our Secretary of State for International Development. She is a caring woman. I want to hear about what she is doing for these women who live in virtual slavery today with very little access to anything.
4.43 p.m.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Williamson has kindly agreed to swap places

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with me in the debate. I have given notice to the Front Benches that I have to attend a family funeral. I regret that I shall have to miss the winding-up speeches.
A year ago we were in the thick of an anti-terrorist campaign, then directed at the Taliban and the so-called Al'Qaeda remnants in Afghanistan. The agenda has since changed into something different—the US-led war against Iraq, now thankfully conducted through the United Nations, into which even some of Iraq's neighbours have been drawn somewhat reluctantly.
The threat from Al'Qaeda has spread out from a well targeted enemy to an ill defined Islamist terrorist network worldwide. While Iraq has no confirmed links with Al'Qaeda, US foreign policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, cleverly described, is based on the crude concept of an axis of evil across the Middle East and Asia, ranged, presumably, against a trans-Atlantic axis of good. Even extra-judicial killing now seems to be regarded as a legitimate weapon of undeclared war, as we have seen recently in Yemen.
I fear that through this alliance Britain has separated itself again from the Middle East and is losing some of the trust of those friends who have respected and absorbed our culture through education, diplomacy, business and social contact. I fear that this is at least partly a result of our paper policy on Israel-Palestine, which, as other noble Lords have said, is an urgent matter but never seems to get beyond the road map.
There is a wider concern in the Middle East that, while on the one hand we stand for international values and human rights, on a political and military level we are prepared to be identified so closely with the moral high ground of the White House. I recognise the Prime Minister's restraint on the president, but in this semi-war we are plainly associated with a US-driven—and no longer an international or even NATO-led—campaign. What has happened to the broad coalition against terrorism that existed last year and to the painstaking efforts we were then making to keep our friends on side?
The results of any war with Iraq must be measured against the damage it would do to our relations with the Middle East. While there may be no official love lost for Saddam at the Arab League, below the leadership level there is much private resentment of western attitudes and policies that are seen as interfering with Arab traditions and lead to open expressions of discontent with both the West and their own rulers. Short-term gain in Iraq, which will be hard enough, may be offset by an increased sense of humiliation among Arabs, who feel that the US in particular has walked over them enough. Such feelings help to fuel the anger that generates new cells of Al'Qaeda.
In Saudi Arabia, for example, anti-US feeling has reached a new high with the Iraq resolution. Foreign Minister Saud-al-Faisal has strengthened his government's position. Bases in the Kingdom cannot now be used under any circumstances. Regardless of the bin Laden connection, which is officially outlawed,
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the Saudi authorities cannot risk any public demonstration of the ties with the US for fear of inflaming social unrest, already latent in a country where 80 per cent of the population are under 35 and unemployment is on the increase. The US failure to get behind Crown Prince Abdullah's peace plan and its undisguised protection of Israel are further causes of resentment.
There is now a deep suspicion in the Middle East of what is seen as the hypocrisy of the West in its political campaign against Islam. Muslims reject the latest western attack on Islamic charities, for example. The Saudi Gazette of 29th October pointed to Sudan, where it said that Christian Churches and charities were,
"used as a conduit for western foreign policy goals".
Arab and Muslim charities, by contrast, were,
"building bridges between Muslims in various countries".
Unfortunately, in this vicious war of words the genuine humanitarian work going on may be ignored. Yet it is essential to continue such work through DfID and the NGOs. This is not the time, for example, to prune the budget of the British Council in the Middle East. Rather the contrary, when we consider its excellent work, which is the most defiant answer to Islamist propaganda. Education standards are low in the Middle East. The council's contribution in equipping young Arabs with skills for the job market cannot be over-estimated.
This is also not the time to reduce the efforts of DfID and our aid workers in Afghanistan. Only a year on, there are real fears that ISAF, although now supplied by 22 nations, may not be able to expand its force and that the humanitarian budget is not being met. I have figures from Care International that may be of interest. Funding for Afghanistan is well below the levels for post-conflict reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia. Aid to Bosnia in 1996–99 amounted 326 dollars per head. Pledges to Afghanistan this year amounted to 75 dollars per head, with only 42 dollars per head projected over the next four years. President Karzai told the General Assembly in September that the financial pledges are still unfulfilled. The World Bank has stated that current pledges worth 5 billion dollars over five years need to be doubled, but most experts believe that that figure should be increased sixfold.
It is true that the capacity of the Afghan institutions to absorb these sums is much less than in eastern Europe, but if the country's infrastructure—the roads, runways, schools, hospitals and government offices destroyed in the war—is not rebuilt in the next five years, there will be no incentive for the private sector to re-enter Afghanistan and reconstruction will not take place.
To express it another way, out of all the funds spent in Afghanistan, the war and peacekeeping have absorbed 88 per cent, humanitarian work nine per cent, and reconstruction only three per cent. One year on, therefore, the Afghan people are wondering whether the war really achieved its objective of driving

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out the enemy and rebuilding the nation, when so many warlords and Al'Qaeda elements are still at large and the ruins of their country still lie around them.
The ISAF is providing essential security in Kabul, soon to be under German/Dutch leadership, but its present level of manpower and training makes it unlikely that the present government will ever assume control of the whole country. During her visit last month, the International Development Secretary promised further UK help with the national army but other countries have been less forthcoming.
Within the international aid community in Kabul, Afghan leaders are still largely bystanders, rather than participants. One neglected area of reconstruction has been support for the transitional government of Afghanistan. Only the transitional government can plan, co-ordinate and monitor the humanitarian, reconstruction and development effort. Yet of all the international funds pledged or delivered, only 90 million dollars has been given directly to the government. If Afghanistan is to develop a stable, functioning state—which, after all, was our original objective—the international community, including the UK, must help that state to gain greater self-determination.
Muslims the world over, including those in our own community, applauded the overthrow of the Taliban. But they will now be looking to the West, not only for the funding that we are prepared to invest in countries like Afghanistan but, even more, for the building of trust that we should be prepared to place in Muslim societies, which are among our friends and allies around the world.
4.51 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, in some ways, I am probably reflecting the remarks of a number of other speakers in this debate when I say that I believe that the future of the United Nations is something that should be uppermost in our minds today. Far from perfect in its performance over the 57 years of its life—indeed, sometimes deeply disappointing—it is none the less the most precious possession of the world's peacemakers.
In comparison with the principles of government of those nation states that aspire to democracy, the UN is far from a democratic organisation. Selected by a quirk of history, when in the Second World War good triumphed over evil, five nations—five only—have the supreme power and responsibility for exercising the ultimate assent or veto on Security Council resolutions, which have the force of international law. We are one of those nations. It is a privilege and a responsibility beyond measure. Within the constitution of the United Nations, it cannot be taken from us, or from any of the other four nations, without consent, because any proposal to change the rights of the Permanent Five would itself be subject to veto.
The Security Council is potentially the fastest legislature in the world. It is the only non-military international superpower. Yet until 12th September it seemed as if the United States, out of frustration, anger
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and fear, might consign the UN to effective oblivion. I believe that a great tribute is due to our Prime Minister for his personal contribution in ensuring that that did not happen. It was a close-run thing.
To contemplate a world in which only the military power of individual states determined the outcome of international disputes would be to gaze into an abyss of international anarchy. Although I defer to no one in my personal confidence in the benign motives of the United States, we now live in a world where even the greatest superpower is unable, on its own, to defend itself against the evil force of terrorism; and the past century has taught us that possession of the greatest military power can easily go with the greatest of evil intent.
Whether or not the world should accept that despotic rulers have the right to abuse, exploit, starve, torture or murder the citizens of their own states is a much harder question to answer than whether they should be allowed to invade other states. It is not morally harder; but it is harder in terms of the practical politics of the world. The moral answer is clearly that such domestic behaviour of despotic rulers is no more acceptable than aggression against other states. Once that is accepted, practical action can follow. It will not be practicable in every case to take UN-based action. But it will be so in some cases. To take action in one instance but not in another does not, in my view—here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Parekh—imply double standards. Indeed, it reflects the deterrent effect of international law; and deterrence is an important role for any system of law.
The UN action that followed Saddam's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait was an important precedent for the passing of Security Council Resolution 1441 against Iraq last week. One of the most significant differences between then and now has been the growth of international terrorism using the resources of states. This has blurred the distinction between internal and external misbehaviour. That is why military enforcement in the event of non-compliance with SCR 1441, leading as it surely would to regime change in Iraq, will be both expedient and morally justified. Provided that it is with the authority of the Security Council, it would be both right and appropriate for Britain to take part in it.
However, I must refer to the serious doubts expressed by my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford as regards our technical capability to do so. I shall focus only on one of the examples that he gave; namely, that of a communications system to replace the Clansman system for our land-based forces. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, assured us this morning that there will be a new communications system. Of course there will be; but Bowman, the replacement for Clansman, will certainly not be available for any spring 2003 Gulf campaign.
Provision of the new "personal role radios", to which the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, referred on 7th November (at col. 925 of the Official Report) is in no way the answer. It is a very short-range radio, which is excellent for its purpose; namely, use at platoon or

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company level. We really must not commit our forces to battle equipped with Clansman. It is insecure both with regard to the interception of messages, because the manual cypher system it uses is not practical in today's high-speed warfare, and because it lacks the frequency-hopping facility of Bowman, which inhibits enemy direction-finding location methods. This could cause serious casualties among our forces.
Therefore, I ask the Government, as I did during our emergency debate on 24th September—repetition does not matter if the request is worth making in the first instance, and if nothing appears to have happened—to use the coming weeks to re-equip those of our fighting vehicles that would be used in any military operations in the Gulf with the current American communications system. A suggestion has been made that action against Saddam would be a distraction from the wider war against terrorism. I believe that they are two sides of the same coin. They can, and must, be fought together.
New and deadly techniques for fighting terrorism are evolving. We saw one example last week in Yemen, when the Americans were able to use a remote missile from an unmanned aircraft to destroy a car full of Al'Qaeda terrorists. Here in Britain, however, we have to make much greater use of some of the simplest security arrangements. I believe that we now urgently need to introduce national identity cards incorporating the latest biometric devices. I ask the Minister to tell us where the Government are on this long-running process.
Furthermore, we really must improve at once the passport control at all points of entry into the United Kingdom. Many other countries have already done so, making travel much more hazardous for terrorists. I end with a recent personal example. Last month, I flew into London's City Airport from Belgium. Arrivals were directed into the usual two queues: EU and non-EU passport holders. Let us remember that any passenger can decide which queue to join. There was no immigration officer at all at the end of the EU line, and thus absolutely no inspection. That is not good enough.
5.1 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, in the short time available, I should like to speak briefly on the subjects of foreign affairs and international development.
On foreign affairs, I take up a theme dealt with by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. We are at a crucial stage in international affairs because America—the only remaining superpower at the end of the 20th century, and a superpower because of its strong economy and the sums it spends on defence—has been shaken. America feels vulnerable and frightened. It is a rare situation for a superpower to feel frightened. Unless we understand why Americans think as they do, we are very likely to misinterpret their behaviour as sheer arrogance of the old sort. We should realise that 11th September 2001 made
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America feel vulnerable for the first time. Americans literally feel that they are in a continual worldwide war against terrorism.
It is no good saying that we Europeans have known terrorism all our lives; the terrorism we have known has been specifically focused on "national liberation", be it in Ireland, the Basque country or Catalonia The new type of terrorism is diffuse and global. It has no particular territorial ambition, but is simply, for various reasons, directed against Americans. Americans are therefore asking themselves whether the multilateral institutions that they established at the end of the Second World War, such as the United Nations, are as useful as they had wished.
Many current American publications which I could cite—especially a very large book by Professor Philip Bobbitt—argue that there is a totally new configuration in international relations. They argue that America should ask itself whether a totally new world order would not be more useful in fighting this diffuse type of war, as against the United Nations model which was useful in fighting other types of war.
It is therefore important that we have maintained America's commitment to the United Nations process. I join many others in paying tribute to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister for securing that outcome. It is also very important that—when the inspectors find something, or when Saddam Hussein makes a mistake and throws them out, both of which are very likely outcomes—the matter of resuming hostilities is dealt with in the United Nations. At the same time, however, we must understand that the United Nations has historically not been a very effective instrument when it comes to taking urgent action. It is a very good talking shop, but not so good at taking urgent action. After all, we went into Kosovo without United Nations approval because, had we waited, Milosevic would have killed many more people.
It is therefore important that we talk to our other allies and to the other permanent members of the Security Council and persuade them that, when push comes to shove, people should not make other excuses and prolong this agony. The United Nations will face its biggest challenge if Saddam Hussein is found in multiple material breach and we fail to do any thing about it. If that happens, the United Nations might be considered useless.
It is no good avoiding the challenge. I believe that Americans feel that this action is part of their right of self-defence. It may be true, as my noble friend Lord Brennan said, that various tricky legal issues will arise, but we must understand how the American mind works. We should not take it for granted that they are acting from perverse delight or because George W. Bush's father was president during the Gulf War. We should reject such trivial nonsense. For Americans, the world has changed. Unless we understand that, empathise with their understanding of the world, and try to reason with them to persuade them again to accept some form of multilateralism—a more efficient form of multilateralism; the old form of

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multilateralism will not do—I think that the United Nations will break down. Many American publications make that point, which I think we should take seriously.
As that is all the time I have to deal with foreign affairs, I turn to international development. We are facing enormous famines in Ethiopia and southern Africa. We are yet again revisiting the desperate situation regarding development in Africa. We often ask ourselves why Africa is such a bad case in terms of development. However, I recall that, in the 1960s, we were asking the same question about Asia. There was a famine in China, in 1962; two harvest failures in India, in 1965 and 1966; a massacre in Indonesia; and perpetual war in Indochina, as it was then called. I also remember that, in the 1960s, people said that the world would be all right if India and China could feed themselves. In those days, Africa was all right and China was the problem.
Today, the situation is reversed. One of the major tasks for those who run NePAD is to understand how Asia reversed its situation and to determine whether lessons learned there can be applied to Africa. Asia and Africa have many similarities in terms of colonial history, the multi-ethnic and multiracial character of their regimes and the behaviour of their politicians.
Asia offers two remarkable lessons. The first is that it managed to implement an agricultural revolution—the "green revolution"—to transform its food-growing capacity. Although that was accomplished with technology pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, it was achieved also because local politicians invested in rural areas to allow the provision of water and the purchase of fertilisers and training for farmers. Agricultural development is without question the major factor in removing Africa from its recurring cycles of famine. The major factor is not land reform; Ethiopia is currently suffering from its disastrous land reform. Africa has to alter its food growing technology, not its technology for commercial crops such as coffee and cocoa in which it has a good record.
We must also try to understand how the Asian regimes, some of which were very corrupt, delivered goods and services to their population. There is a connection between the Asian ruling elites and the Asian people which has not been reproducible in Africa. The African governing elite is far more alienated from the mass population than is the case in Asia. I do not know why that is the case. We must investigate that major question. If we could understand how to make the political process work in Africa as it has in Asia—I refer to democracy in Asia—we would understand how to bring Africa out of its current crisis. I hope that my noble friend will comment on what the Government are doing about that.
5.10 p.m.
Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I have often wondered why foreign affairs and defence are given such priority in
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our debates on the gracious Speech when for many years governments have rather sought to withdraw from the international world, perhaps post-Suez.
But I wonder even more today, when we have accepted that international events are of greater importance than ever, that we should be the only House debating this issue. I learnt today that Members of the other place consider it insufficiently important to devote attention to. They have therefore left themselves entirely in the hands of the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, which I think is a wise decision.
I wonder what it would have been like in the past when we were a great nation and one had to report on events of the year. With a certain whiff of schizophrenia I imagine myself in the other place standing on the Front Bench, or sitting on it, or standing before the Box. I put on my glasses, take up a piece of paper prepared by my officials and, in stentorian tones, I would advise the other place of the following.
In the Balkans riots between Croats and Serbians led to martial law in the Croatian capital, Agram. In the Gulf we sent a British warship to patrol and to keep the peace following the quarrel between the ruler of Kuwait and Bin Rashid who had proclaimed himself King of Arabia. In Iran, Major Showers captured the fort of Mobiz and broke up a terrorist band under Muhammed Ali, who was killed. In Baluchistan, Major MacMahon took a force to sort out the Perso/ Afghan border dispute. In Afghanistan the new ruler, Habibullah, released 8,000 prisoners on the occasion of his coronation and then tried to introduce compulsory military service. The natives felt that they would rather join the British native levy.
In the North-West Frontier, General Egerton took four columns of 700 men into Mashud territory to combat terrorist raids and thefts of arms by the Afridis. In Somaliland the Mad Mullah, Abdullah Mohamed, resumed his raids on the British Protectorate, and Colonel Swaine and his native levies restored stability but with heavy losses of men and camels. In Kano, Nigeria, diplomatic efforts failed and the Emir assembled 1,000 mounted men and fortified the city. Colonel Moreland, with 1,200 men of the West Africa frontier force, restored order. There were no problems in Lagos or Sierra Leone.
In South America revolutions in Venezuela and Colombia continued and British trading vessels were seized. Lord Lansdowne, with German support, blockaded the coast and seized Venezuelan warships. Customary political unrest continued in Uruguay. In the Caribbean there were major eruptions of volcanoes in Martinique and St Vincent that required humanitarian support. In South Africa, Kitchener confirmed the end of the Boer war and a peace-keeping contingent of Commonwealth troops left Australia for the Cape. In London there was speculation that the bank rate might fall from 3.5 to 3 per cent.
I refer to the year 1902, 100 years ago. Dare I use the French language for a moment and say, Plus ça change? We were active around the world at that time for reasons of trade, our requirements for raw

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materials and for economic benefit. In those days the British Army consisted of 615,000 men, apart from native levies. There were 96,000 in the British Navy, but there was, of course, none in the RAF. Is the situation today as serious or as difficult as it was then? Today we have only 215,000 people in the British Army. One wonders, therefore, what we shall be able to do if the activities that we hear are likely to take place—I refer also to those that have taken place—arise. Will we have enough troops?
As my noble friend on the Front Bench is wearing with pride his brigade tie, I recount an event that took place a couple of weeks ago when I was asked by the Grenadier Guards to address their association down in Cheltenham—a pretty blue territory. I thought that there would be a couple of battalions. When I was in the navy a battalion was meant to comprise 1,000 men and one chap called the colonel. There were 520 men—only one battalion. So these days a regiment is only half a battalion. The Grenadier Guards has probably as great a name as any regiment. Its men had just been off on exercise in a flat-bottomed boat to Norway. There they trained in the mountains in preparation for an attack on Afghanistan, Baluchistan or somewhere else mountainous.
When we discussed the firemen's strike I suddenly realised that there are six men in the front and six in the back of a Green Goddess and therefore we need 20 regiments to operate them. Is that right? How many regiments do we need to be able to take action around the world if we are required to do so? Has not the moment arisen when men are more important than machines? To keep the Grenadiers alive for a year is the price of one unequipped Apache helicopter. I refer to machines that are kept in sheds, as we do not have the ability to train people to operate them to full capacity. Why is that?
The Grenadiers told me that these days the average length of service is three years and therefore one-third of the personnel leave every year. That seems to contradict the idea that men need to be highly trained, with five or six years' service, before they can fight. Perhaps that was the case when they had to participate in sophisticated activities in major conflicts or potential major conflicts. I could raise a regiment with a capitation cost of £40,000 per man. When there were five battalions, the fifth battalion was always voluntary or was raised by someone who sat on what is known as the Barons' Bench. If we are to perform our role in the world in future, we shall need more men.
I turn to a separate point. Your Lordships will be aware that in the First World War some 4 million Commonwealth troops fought alongside us and 5.5 million in the Second World War. Your Lordships will know that today the total of the American armed forces stands at about 1.3 million. NATO has 1.7 million and the Commonwealth has 2.8 million. I ask the noble Baroness whether, as regards the current resolution of the United Nations, consultation has taken place with the Commonwealth? Surely when 40 countries of the UN are members of the Commonwealth we might be able to demonstrate that we. the British, with 40 historic allies, blood brothers,
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or whatever we may call them, have great political clout as well as having the armed forces of men on our side. I am not suggesting that we should raise native levies but, if we think of the alternative, we know that the machinery does not work. We know that in general the sort of equipment that is available is unsuitable for walking around in the mountains with packs on one's back. We need men and we need a stronger army.
As, formerly, the most junior naval officer, always temporary—rather like in your Lordships' House and as some form of chinless wonder standing on the Back Benches, I say that we should look for greater recruitment. That is all I have to say. I never thought that I would stand here supporting wholeheartedly the Grenadier Guards.
5.19 p.m.
Baroness Cox: My Lords, in the debate on the gracious Speech in 1999 I first voiced my concerns over the dangers of Islamist terrorism. Since then the horrors of September 11th, the attacks on ships, the nightmare in Bali, the tragedy in Moscow, attacks on German tourists in Tunisia and French workers in Pakistan are a few examples that have hit the headlines. But before I proceed emphasise this caveat. Of course, the vast majority of the world's Muslim population of over 1 billion are peaceable, law-abiding people, often renowned for hospitality, generosity and graciousness. It is therefore very important to make a distinction between them and the minority Islamist groups that interpret the Koran to justify jihad in its most militant form, resulting in military conflict or terrorism. Many such militant Islamist movements in the West and elsewhere are associated with the ultra-Salafi movement.
As terrorism increases, it is increasingly important to do everything possible to prevent the spread of Islamophobia and to extend the hand of friendship to moderate Muslims and to moderate Islamic Governments, especially those who are trying to curb the spread of militant Islamism. It is therefore my privilege to be involved in setting up, for example, the Islamic-Christian Council for Reconstruction and Reconciliation, with a primary focus on Indonesia.
However, it is equally important that the threats posed by militant Islamists are taken very seriously by non-Muslims and moderate Muslims. Otherwise, there is a risk that Islamist activities will generate fear, which blurs distinctions and may promote a backlash against all Muslims. Perhaps the quintessence of the quandary facing the West is that while the vast majority of Muslims are of course not terrorists but peaceable, the vast majority of terrorists in the world today are Islamists.
However, before addressing the problems, it is important to highlight successes, such as the outcomes of the operations by the coalition forces in Afghanistan, to which the Minister referred in her speech. They include the end of the brutal Taliban rule; the scattering of Al'Qaeda and the closure of its terrorist training camps; the vast improvements in the

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situation for women, with opportunities for education and work; and the establishment of a relatively stable government.
However, success breeds new problems. The dismantling of Al'Qaeda networks in Afghanistan may be succeeded by their strategic dispersal. It is claimed there are now Al'Qaeda cells in more than 50 countries, bank accounts in many more and links with established terrorist training camps in countries such as Iraq, Sudan and Indonesia.
While the dreadful events on September 11th last year highlighted the danger of Islamist terrorism to westerners, they reflected a reality that had already caused suffering on a huge scale in many other parts of the world. So, when President Bush and our Prime Minister described the war on terrorism as the first war of the new century, many people were surprised, including those who had already seen large numbers of their compatriots killed by Islamist terrorism. A few examples must suffice. First, there is the National Islamic Front regime in Sudan, which took power in 1989 by military force, supported by Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. Its jihad has been responsible for 2 million dead and 5 million displaced from war-related causes. Secondly, in Indonesia, Jemaah Islamiyah and the ostensibly disbanded Laskar Jihad, with Al'Qaeda links, have been responsible not only for the Bali bombing but also for the deaths of thousands in Maluku and Sulawesi. The nominal disbanding of Laskar Jihad, which was warmly welcomed by the noble Baroness the Minister in your Lordships' House on 28th October, can in reality be seen only as a facade and a redeployment. More than 1,000 remain in Ambon and the rest have redeployed mainly to Java and Papua.
Thirdly, the second Chechen war, contrary to most media representations, has long ceased to be a simple war of independence; it is an Islamist-resourced war against Russia and an attempt to obtain the oil resources of the Caspian Sea for militant Islamism. That has been well documented. It is disturbingly ironic that the jihad against Russia for Chechnya was announced in London in Friends Meeting House—of all places—in 1999, at a very well attended meeting at which highly provocative and militant tirades urged men to fight in Chechnya, women to encourage them and everyone to give money to the jihad. My final example is that of the bitter conflict in the predominantly Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh, which began with Azerbaijan's self-avowed policy of ethnic cleansing. In a war of apparently impossible odds, the 150,000-strong—or weak—Armenian population defended themselves against 7 million-strong Azerbaijan, who were assisted by Mujaheddin warriors from Afghanistan as well as Islamist fighters from several Arab countries.
Moving towards home, in Britain, there is concern that well-known Islamist militants have been recruiting and training new supporters, apparently with impunity. Although there have been some arrests, prominent leaders such as Abu Hamza al-Masri and Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed are still at large. That
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is in spite of their involvement in subversive activities. For example, they were portrayed on British television in August 1999 teaching followers to disregard the laws of this land and to undertake terrorist activities, such as developing weapons to bring down civilian aircraft here in Britain. Abu Hamza was also closely involved with the British-trained Islamist terrorists arrested in Yemen. There is no evidence that those Islamist leaders have changed their ideology or their practices. So I ask the Minister: is there is any information on how many recruits have been trained in these terrorist training schools in the United Kingdom? How many have been sent abroad to fight in jihads such as that in Chechnya, and are there any policies to curtail such terrorist training schemes in this country?
Another concern involves the financial penetration by militant Islamists of key institutions. Last year, I referred to the case of Salah Idris, the owner of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and therefore presumably with good relations with the Islamist NIF regime. He then owned 75 per cent of shares in the firm IES Digital Systems, which was responsible for security surveillance here in the Palace of Westminster, in British Airways and in other significant institutions. He also had a 20 per cent shareholding in Protec, a security organisation with security projects in Ministry of Defence institutions and nuclear installations at Dounreay and Sellafield. I asked the Minister whether the anti-terrorism legislation prevents the financial penetration of key institutions. To date, I have received no reply. That appears to be an important issue and I hope that the noble Baroness will reply, if not at the end of the debate then at least in writing and fairly soon.
Finally, there is concern about the apparent freedom of militant Islamist organisations to operate in the United Kingdom, even when they are forbidden abroad. I refer, for example, to Hizb-Ut-Tahrir. That Islamic liberation party has been described by the reputable academic Ahmed Rashid as one of the key Islamist organisations threatening to destabilise the central Asian Islamic republics as well as Pakistan. It is a proscribed organisation in Egypt and three British members are currently detained in Cairo. It is currently active in Indonesia and is distributing leaflets and conducting poster campaigns here in the United Kingdom. Its website gives details of regular meetings in this country. I ask the noble Baroness: is that acceptable?
To conclude, this inevitably partial overview of aspects of Islamist terrorism reminds us that those of us who have the privilege of living in freedom have a responsibility to use our freedoms to help those who are denied them. We also have a duty to preserve for future generations the democratic freedoms and values that we have inherited at the cost of the lives of many people. We must therefore recognise the threats to our society and be prepared to respond robustly and in ways that are of course compatible with our democratic values if we are not going to allow those

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who would use the freedoms they enjoy here to destroy those freedoms and the democracy that enshrines them.
5.28 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, it was good that there were significant passages in the gracious Speech on poverty reduction, economic development and the current round of trade negotiations. It was particularly encouraging that the Minister laid such emphasis on this aspect of the Government's policy. We know that they treat these issues with great seriousness. I thank the Minister for her tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey of Clifton, for his role in the Alexandria process, which has been significant.
I want to comment briefly on debt. Despite the real achievements of the Jubilee campaign and the various HIPC initiatives, we must continue to keep that aspect of economic development in the foreground. A recent report, The Unbreakable Link: Debt Relief and the Millennium Development Goals, concluded:
"If poor country governments are to have sufficient resources to meet the MDGs"—
that is, the millennium development goals, which are mentioned in the gracious Speech—
"as well as to meet other essential expenditure needs such as law and order and the civil service, the 42 HIPC countries as a whole cannot afford to make any debt service payments. In fact … even if all the debts of these 42 countries are cancelled, the HIPCs will need an additional 16.5 billion US dollars in aid each year if there is to be any hope of meeting the goals".
Therefore, we must not cease to keep up the pressure for significant debt reduction.
Secondly, in his very powerful speech resulting from his recent visit to the Congo, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester drew attention to the scramble for resources in that country as a significant factor in the continuing fighting and the role of neighbouring countries in that scramble for resources. Does the Minister agree that G8 and African leaders should concur that all states should provide transparent means to track revenues from natural resource extraction and that they should develop mandatory regulatory requirements through national security regulators? Does she also agree that, as an immediate action, G8 must publicly encourage the voluntary disclosure by multinational resource companies of all payments to governments involved in conflict in Africa, specifically in relation to companies operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Sudan and Angola?
Thirdly, I want to concentrate on the question of trade, first, in relation to fair access of goods from developing countries to western markets. Northern governments should provide quota and tariff-free access to their markets for all imports from low-income countries in Africa, including agricultural products, textiles and garments. They should also tackle the problem of tariff escalation on processed goods.
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But perhaps even more serious and pressing than the question of access to our markets by goods from developing countries is the question of fair trade in those countries themselves. That does not occur at present because of the extraordinary level of subsidies paid for goods exported to those countries. Not long ago, a country such as Ghana—to take one example—had its own local tomato industry. Its tomato crops are now rotting away. Why? Because people buy canned Italian tomatoes, which are very heavily subsidised by the European Union.
Again, to take one specific example, in the 1960s Ghana had a flourishing rice crop. It is now half what it was then. Forty per cent of that country's rice is imported from the United States of America, which subsidises it at 5 dollars a hundredweight. The level of subsidy which developed countries pay to their farmers is running at extraordinary levels: £230 billion a year. More than the GDP of the whole African continent goes on those subsidies.
To bring the matter home—I believe that the Minister referred to this briefly in her opening statement—every cow in the European Union is subsidised at the rate of 2 dollars 20 cents a day. That is more than the income of half the population of the world. Those figures are extraordinary. Clearly, in the long run, the developing world must do something about eliminating the subsidies so that trade can be truly fair and so that markets in the developing world can be true markets where goods from developing countries compete on a level playing field with goods from the developed world.
I should be particularly interested to know what the Minister says might happen in the medium term and short term in relation to those problems. The aid agencies are concerned not only about the long term but about what might be done in the medium term to try to alleviate the plight of farmers in the developing world. With regard to the short term, they are asking that, when economic policies are drawn up in relation to agricultural policies, what is called a "development box" should be built into the policies specifically to protect small farmers in the developing world at this time of transition.
In addition, more widely in relation to exports and imports generally, the aid agencies are very concerned about what appears under the heading of "special and differential treatment". A great deal of frustration is felt by representatives from the developing world that the current round of trade negotiations does not take into account the needs of the developing world. I particularly want to ask the Minister, first, whether she is aware of the frustration of the developing countries at the current round of trade negotiations and, secondly, whether she can hold out any hope for them in the future.
Therefore, although we must not forget the issue of debt, I believe that we must always bear in mind the relationship between conflict and poverty and that we should try to tackle that. I know that the Government also have serious concerns about that issue. The question of fair trade, both in the long and medium

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terms, must be a pressing issue for anyone who is concerned about the economic development of the poorest countries in the world.
5.36 p.m.
Baroness Dunn: My Lords, your Lordships' preoccupation in this debate with the threat from war and terrorism is well justified. But this House may wish to be reminded that it is now just over five years since sovereignty over Hong Kong was transferred by Britain to China. It is, I suggest, both timely and appropriate to take stock of that historic decision, much debated in this House.
First, I declare my interest both as an executive director of John Swire & Sons and as the chairman of the Hong Kong Association.
Your Lordships will recall that the basis of Hong Kong's handover was the Sino-British joint declaration, which this House commended for its concept of "one country, two systems". Noble Lords will know that the political transfer has gone extraordinarily well. As the Foreign Secretary wrote in the last six-monthly report to Parliament, Hong Kong,
"has been free to exercise its autonomy in all matters envisaged under the Joint Declaration".
That does not mean that all has been smooth sailing. Far from it. Hong Kong has had more than its fair share of problems. Ironically, the challenge came not from any political interference from China but from external shocks to its open economy. Since the handover Hong Kong has had to cope with not one but two severe economic downturns. The Asian financial crisis hit Thailand the very day after the handover in Hong Kong. The timing could not have been worse. It gave Hong Kong's transition no chance of a smooth passage or a soft landing.
The dramatic fall in property prices and the resultant negative equity had a serious impact on public sentiment. So has the rise in unemployment to levels not seen before in modern Hong Kong. The pain and anxiety to a community accustomed to prosperity have been immense. It is not surprising, therefore, that the present mood of its people is subdued and anxious and that its government do not do well in public opinion polls.
I believe that not enough recognition has been given to the decisive and sympathetic way in which Hong Kong's Government since 1997 have faced and tackled a whole series of unprecedented problems. They have had to think laterally and to learn quickly on their feet. For example, the 1998 foray into a stock market threatened with meltdown took courage as well as nerve. It was much criticised at the time but has been subsequently vindicated with praise. Nor have the Government allowed pressing problems to detract them from longer-term strategy.
In order to strengthen Hong Kong's position as an international financial centre they have merged the stock and futures markets; developed e-commerce; further strengthened its regulatory framework; reformed the public service; and privatised public
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undertakings, including its efficient underground railway. A Disneyland is under construction and a cyber port and science park have come on stream. There are initiatives in train to improve education, infrastructure and the environment. All of those measures are aimed at ensuring that Hong Kong is well placed to take advantage of the global economic recovery that will inevitably come.
Last July, as he commenced his second term in office, Hong Kong's Chief Executive introduced a "principal officials accountability system". That is a bit of a mouthful, but we might think of it as a kind of ministerial system. Criticism of that initiative has been both premature and ill-informed. Its purpose is threefold: to forge a real link between the executive and the legislature; to respond to the community's wish to see principal officials take public responsibility for their portfolios and, perhaps most important of all, to preserve the political neutrality of Hong Kong's highly motivated and competent civil service.
I shall not take up your Lordships' time by going back into history; suffice it to say that Hong Kong inherited a frankly unworkable political structure when it began life as a special administrative region of China. That undoubtedly led to tensions and frustrations between executive and legislature. Something had to be done to avoid constant deadlock. It will take time for the new system to bed down and bear fruit, but it would be unhelpful to condemn it at this very early stage. It is an important step along the path set by Hong Kong's constitution, the Basic Law.
The Basic Law provides for universal suffrage as the ultimate aim and for a review in 2007 when Hong Kong people should reach consensus on the next step forward in democratic evolution.
Hong Kong's problems have inevitably created doubts and raised questions about its future. Some even ask whether Hong Kong is in terminal decline.
Hong Kong's fundamental strengths have always been its geographic location, its people's enterprise and work ethic, its competent and non-corrupt administration, its trusted and deeply rooted legal system, its free press, its multicultural and tolerant society and the fact that it has one of the freest economies in the world. None—I repeat, none—of these key features has been eroded by the challenges of the past five years.
Furthermore, Hong Kong's status as a special administrative region in China, the world's fastest growing economy, gives it unique opportunities. China's spectacular development will be well known to your Lordships. And Hong Kong is on its doorstep.
Although the imminent changes among China's political leaders are important and significant, that is unlikely to have any effect on policy directions, other than perhaps in style and priorities. The reforms of the past two decades have seen the emergence in China of a vast and thriving private sector. There can be no turning back.
Some people question Hong Kong's continued value to China and its ability to compete with Shanghai. I firmly believe that Hong Kong's

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contributions to China are irreplaceable, at least in the foreseeable future. No other city on the mainland or indeed in Asia can match Hong Kong's rule of law, its pool of managers and its cultural commitment to free trade, low tax and a level playing field. These have taken generations to take root.
There is still a tendency for commentators to view Hong Kong, post-handover, through a prism of extremes: that it would either stay frozen in time or slide off the map. Neither scenario was ever realistic. Always more likely was what has actually happened. Hong Kong has continued to evolve socially, politically and economically. It will come through wiser, leaner and more competitive. The people of Hong Kong are known and admired for their energy, dynamism and sheer guts in making the best of life, even in the worst of times.
I am sure that Members of this House will share my hope that they will regain that confidence and fighting spirit. I am sure that we all wish them well.
5.47 p.m.
Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, I should like to focus my short intervention on certain issues of foreign policy of importance to the United Kingdom and their links with the European Union's common foreign and security policy. Despite my background I have often thought that blessed is the country which has no foreign policy. But that is not to be, and your Lordships have been allocated a whole day to talk about it, with numerous references in the gracious Speech. I am glad that we have come to Hong Kong at some point in the debate.
I start decisively from the position that whether we examine these questions on a bilateral basis or in the context of the common foreign and security policy, we need to look strictly to our national advantage and not to more theoretical arguments about greater European integration. I expect that the Convention on the Future of Europe will come forward with some important conclusions on other issues, such as the competencies and the role of national parliaments, but I do not expect any great change in the areas of foreign affairs and defence. We shall continue to have the fundamental distinction—not always fully comprehended in the United Kingdom—between, on the one hand, community affairs such as the single market where the role of the Community institutions is very important and, on the other hand, European Union affairs of an intergovernmental nature under pillar 2—common foreign and security policy—where the role of member states is dominant.
The United Kingdom, being sovereign in matters of foreign affairs and security, can develop its policy bilaterally, in particular with the United States or in other international fora, such as the United Nations, as is the case now with Iraq. Our attention is heavily concentrated, and rightly so, in this debate on the suppression of terrorism and on weapons of mass destruction. Those are the Government's priorities, and the nation supports them.
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But I want to consider also the medium-term and other geo-political developments—in particular those in which we should maximise the combined impact of our bilateral strength and the European Union's common foreign policy. In particular, while the world may be going backwards in the Middle East, it is clearly going forward in central and eastern European and in Russia. I want to look not only to the Middle East but also to the East.
The Government have done well continually to stress the United Kingdom's support for enlargement of the European Union by including the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe, Cyprus and Malta, which have now almost completed negotiation of their accession. But I still wonder whether among British people generally there is full understanding of the scale and nature of that change. There is perhaps too much of a tendency to stress difficulties, such as the consequences for our agricultural policy or the regional fund, rather than the opportunities opened up by the imminent arrival in the European Union market of a further 108 million people—I do not count the population of Turkey, which is not quite at that stage—with diverse skills and needs. Yes, they may be consumers of British services if we are ready to serve them, but they are also potential partners in investment for business and commerce.
First, in economic terms, will the new member states be the east European tigers? Perhaps not all full-grown tigers, but good growth in their economies, prosperity and purchasing power is highly likely as the effect of the European Union's single market works through—as we know from experience in Spain, Portugal and Greece. Secondly, there will be greater people-to-people contact through increased tourism and cultural and other contacts. Thirdly, there will be a new input into European Union policy from the new member states, which have much of benefit to offer us. I am confident that the general direction and good sense of their thinking on European affairs will have mach in common with what we believe about the future of a union of sovereign states. Fourthly, they will bring added knowledge and historical perspective to our relations with the states of the former Soviet Union.
So let us adjust—and not only in words—to a European Union of almost 500 million people, stronger but also closer to our ideas and objectives. European Union enlargement on that scale is a major geo-political change, but it is being accompanied by great change in our next big neighbour: Russia. I welcome President Putin's state visit next summer. His decision to work so actively with the United States and other friendly nations in the action against terrorism, including the provision of intelligence information, after the 11th September attacks is not only of groundbreaking importance for security but represents a much wider reorientation of Russian policy.
The changes in Russia itself and in its external policy are much underestimated. President Putin's recent speeches have been direct about what needs to be done for the economy and in Russia's openness towards the European Union. Much has been done. Last year, the Russian economy grew by more than 5 per cent; there

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was a 50 billion dollar trade surplus, a record budget surplus and debt repayments; capital flight declined; and Russia had the best-performing world stock market. Of course, the latter item was not difficult to achieve, but the others were. Legislation on the tax system, business environment and pensions reform was passed by the Duma last year.
In external affairs, Russia is now participating in the Russia/NATO Council, the quartet on the Israel/Palestinian conflict and, despite its first hesitations, it supported the US/UK resolution on Iraq. I have not heard this mentioned so far in the debate, but this week it agreed to a settlement of the difficult issue of the conditions of passage of people from the rest of Russia to the geographically separate Russian territory of Kaliningrad after the accession of neighbouring states to the European Union. That had to be settled before enlargement could go ahead. We all know that the history of enclaves in that part of the world is not a happy one. We should not underrate the difficulty for Russia and should be grateful for the settlement. It is a far cry from past attitudes.
The European Union has a so-called common strategy for relations with Russia. But is it really adapted to the changed situation? Does it not need more vision, a higher priority and a greater effort to identify common ground? The European Union is by far Russia's largest trading partner, but I am not sure whether the growing importance of Russia as a principal energy supplier has yet sunk in. Russia has the world's largest gas reserves, and it already supplies 25 per cent of Europe's gas. It is the second-biggest exporter of oil in the world, and it supplies 15 per cent of Europe's oil. If there are further serious disturbances in the Middle East, which may even be judged as probable, the importance of Russia as a major and dependable supplier of oil and gas to western Europe will be great. That element of stability in the energy market could prove important to our economies in Europe if there is talk of crises affecting supplies from the Middle East in the months ahead. I would not be surprised by that.
Britain is vulnerable in terms of both security and economic loss to the ripples from the Middle East. We need to maximise common ground with countries that have moved closer to our position in recent months. The Select Committee on the European Union is looking at relations between the European Union and Russia. I will not prejudge that report. Perhaps we might even debate it here at some time—and not on a Friday. But I stress my own view that greater attention to, updating and widening of our relations with the countries of central and eastern Europe, including Russia, is very much in our interest. It would increase our solidarity and protect our economy if, as I fear, the ripples from the Middle East continue to spread out for some years to come.
5.57 p.m.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to learn more than was disclosed in the gracious Speech about the Government's intention to
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develop a "constructive" foreign policy. We have moved on from an "ethical" foreign policy. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, who opened with a thorough coverage of many issues. I wish the noble Baroness, Lady Amos. the best of good luck in the formidable task of winding up such a wide-ranging debate.
I acknowledge the fact that the star issues of the debate are, probably, the United Nations-Iraq situation, the Middle East in general and the enlargement of the European Union. Much has been said on those topics. If I have time, I shall add some comments. Nevertheless, it will come as no surprise to your Lordships that I intend to focus my remarks on Latin America and the overseas territories.
I was delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, referred to the importance of trade with Latin America. I recognise that the Government are making efforts to ensure that, as a trading nation, we do not miss out on the opportunities. Those opportunities exist in spite of the current world recession, a fact that applies also to Hong Kong, as emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Dunn. This week, we saw the visit of President Fox of Mexico. Mexico is the world's ninth largest economy, and the United Kingdom is the second largest investor in Mexico, after the United States. The president addressed the City and investors on trade possibilities. In his Canning lecture, he addressed the political issues in Mexico, where there is a great strengthening of democracy, as emphasised by his accession to the presidency. The president also opened the splendid Aztec exhibition at the Royal Academy, which emphasises our cultural links not only with Mexico but with the whole of Latin America.
Since the European Union and Mexico entered into a bilateral trade agreement two years ago, there has been an increase of 20 per cent in trade between the European Community and Mexico. The advantage is on the side of the Europeans, however, and the increase in exports from Mexico amounts, I think, to only 4 per cent. Nevertheless, it is progress and movement in the right direction.
This week has also seen the visit of President Cardoso, the outgoing President of Brazil. Brazil has the largest economy of Latin America and is a major economy in world terms. It is a target country for the Foreign Office, the British Council and other government agencies and I trust that it will continue to be so. I believe that there is a possible visit from the President of Peru before the end of the year, but there are other areas where we have strong links, and needs for links, with Latin America. The gracious Speech refers to a Bill to be introduced in relation to the control of drug trafficking. Clearly, in countries such as Colombia and Bolivia, who are major producers, we need, as a consumer country, to work together in order to improve that horrible situation. Therefore, I believe that there is plenty of contact and that there are plenty of open doors. I hope and feel sure that the Government will continue to push them.

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In addition to improving our bilateral trade links and combating drug trafficking and such like, I urge the Government to take advantage of our special relationship with so many Latin American countries. They should take a leading role in working together in the various international fora to ensure that those special historical connections which bind us—in particular with Argentina, Venezuela and Chile—really count, whether in connection with peacekeeping activities within the United Nations or issues of world trade within the WTO process.
In that respect the references that have been made to reform of the common agricultural policy are both essential and relevant. In all the bilateral trade agreements between the European Union and Mexico, between the European Union and Chile which has just been concluded, and the ongoing negotiations between the European Union and the countries of Mercosur—Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay—the issue of the common agricultural policy and the subsidies which we give to agricultural produce is a major barrier in ensuring that those countries are able to increase their own opportunities for helping themselves.
I believe that all those issues are not just a government responsibility, there is an important parliamentary role. If we believe—as we do—that democracy is an essential element for future progress in the world, we should be encouraging and supporting the efforts that many of the countries of Latin America are making in that respect and acknowledging that in spite of the major economic problems that exist that democracy has survived everywhere. In that respect I would like to refer to the work of the Inter-Parliamentary Union—the IPU. I was fortunate to visit Venezuela earlier this year with a small group of British parliamentarians. As a continuation of the contacts that we made there the vice president of the Venezuelan parliamentary assembly will be visiting this Parliament next week.
I know that the international IPU meeting which will take place in Chile next year embraces the whole of the world. Nevertheless, there will be a strong focus on the countries and democracies of Latin America. I hope that anyone concerned in those activities will play a leading role. Therefore, I continue to believe that for us Latin America is an important target area. I am happy that I have had this opportunity to make reference to it again today.
I turn briefly to the overseas territories. After last year's Act, the most outstanding general issue is the need to look at and do something about tertiary education for the people from the small overseas territories who, if they do not come here for such education, may have to look to the United States or North America. There is a particular issue that has already been addressed by my noble friend Lord Howell and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe. It is the issue of Gibraltar.
They said much that needed to be said and the Minister in opening referred to the need for continuing dialogue. However, I was disappointed because there
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was no reference in the gracious Speech to a Bill to allow and enable the people of Gibraltar to vote in the next European elections. That had been promised and the United Kingdom must do so in order to comply with a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. I hope that in winding up the noble Baroness. Lady Amos, will be able to reassure me on that.
In conclusion, I want to comment briefly on the important and imminent issue of Iraq. If we as a country have been urging the United Nations to support a resolution requiring Iraq to disclose its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, I wonder whether there is any chance that that requirement could become a general rule. In these days openness, transparency and accountability, is there not an opportunity for the British Government to spearhead a move, perhaps as part of their constructive foreign policy, to require all countries manufacturing weapons of mass destruction to disclose the contents of their arsenals? I believe that we should be the first to give a good example.
6.7 p.m.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, I want t o talk about matters which, regrettably, were not in the Queen's Speech. It has become clear to me that President Bush is determined to invade Iraq with a view to effecting a regime change, come what may, and without going back to the United Nations for a fresh resolution. Even in the unlikely event that Saddam Hussein does not infringe in any way the conditions laid down regarding the freedom or the inspectors to do their job, I suspect that the United States will invade Iraq. Since the recent elections in the United States, neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate will be likely to restrain the President. He has a great deal of power and he is very conscious of the wish of many of his people for revenge for September 11th 2001.
The situation has been compared by some people to the situation in 1939 with Nazi Germany. The new Archbishop of Canterbury refuted that argument in an article in the Telegraph about 10 days ago which some of your Lordships may have read. Our treaty obligations were triggered in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. That was why war was declared. And modern warfare is so terrible that we should be more wary than ever of starting one.
We, the NATO countries, sat opposite the Soviet Union for about 40 years, staring at them across the Iron Curtain. For most of that time, they had a nuclear capability and the means to deliver it. All right, they did not have chemical and biological capabilities as far as I know, but we sat there on our hands. And it paid off. We did not go to war and at the end of the day there was a regime change from inside and the Iron Curtain melted without a shot being fired. Apart from the fact that we know that Iraq has biological and chemical capabilities as well, is the situation really all that different? Of course, the Soviet Union was a world power of enormous strength, against which NATO would have been pushed to win a war, whereas Iraq is not in that league at all. Nevertheless, if Iraq has

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weapons of mass destruction—which we believe it has—we need to consider whether attacking Iraq is not one of the surest ways to make it use them.
Shakespeare said:
"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune".
That tide was at the flood in 1991 and was not taken. I shall not apportion blame, but I do not think that it was ours. I do not believe that that tide has flowed again. We would be wiser to pause and wait to see what fortune, in the shape of a possible change of regime in Iraq, might bring to pass.
I have grave doubts, too, about the logistic practicality of waging a war against Iraq without the assistance of most of its neighbours. I also have grave doubts, fuelled by the list read out in his speech by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, about the state of our military equipment. I cannot think it right that our troops should be committed to assisting the United States forces until that sorry state of affairs is remedied.
In short, I have grave misgivings about the wisdom of attacking Iraq and about our involvement in that attack. I believe that those misgivings are shared by many throughout the country.
I wish now to say something about the fishing industry. I know that this issue should probably be discussed in the trade and industry debate but, as I am not allowed to speak twice and what I have to say touches on foreign affairs, I shall speak to it now.
Last week, four Members of this House—the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and myself—had the opportunity to visit Billingsgate fish market. There we learnt much of interest. We saw samples of immature fish—nay, baby fish—landed by, mainly, Spanish fishing boats. They were tiny, the size of salmon parr; codfish the size of salmon parr. To ask our fishermen and our fish processing industry to face grave difficulties—and possibly ruin—in the name of conservation while permitting the Spanish and, to a lesser extent, the French to hoover up baby fish off the floor of the sea is not acceptable. I ask the Government to press Herr Fischler to put a stop to this wicked practice before any more restrictions are put on our fishermen.
Finally, I shall talk rubbish. Your Lordships may think that I have already been doing so, but I mean rubbish. We are threatened by our local authorities, which are running out of land-fill sites in which to dispose of our rubbish, with being fined for every extra bag of rubbish we put out to be collected, over and above a limit to be decided by them. We are being accused of wastefulness.
But we cannot help the amount of rubbish we have to dispose of. It comes into our houses whether we like it or not—and I, for one, do not, any more than I expect many of your Lordships do. Every newspaper or magazine we open shoots a cascade of unwanted junk mail onto the floor for us to pick up. Junk mail
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arrives with every post; junk faxes arrive daily, using our paper for which we have paid. Ringing the helpline which is supposed to stop them seldom works.
Everything that we buy is so packaged that it is often almost impossible to gain access to it. Much of this packaging is made of plastic and so is not biodegradable. Our goody-goody, patronising, local authority nannies tell us to re-use it or "compost" it. How are you to re-use, for example, a plastic pack which contained batteries? How are you to "compost" it when you live in a flat in a city? How are you to compost a very large part of our unwanted rubbish anyway?
Will the Government consider whether there is anything they can do about this nuisance? Legislation to ban junk mail would be more help to most people in this country than a great deal of what is proposed in the Queen's Speech and do far more for conservation.
6.14 p.m.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: My Lords, the subject of foreign affairs has, as always, been mentioned in the gracious Speech and always evokes a wide-ranging response in this House. I want to focus attention on an immediate and urgent matter—the Cyprus problem. The United Nations Secretary-General has just presented a new blueprint for its resolution to the two peoples of the island.
That may or may not herald progress, but it is unrealistic for the Secretary-General to expect a considered response to the complex 172-page document in the seven days he has stipulated. The Turkish Cypriot president is convalescing after heart surgery, the new Turkish Government has not yet been formed and the document contains many serious problems not necessarily acceptable to either side. None the less, they have agreed to consider it.
However, to resolve these issues before the European Union's Copenhagen summit on 12th December is impossible. Is it right that the Turkish Cypriots should be pressurised into the most important decision that they will ever make, merely to meet an artificial timetable set by others? They have not been involved in the unilateral EU membership application because they could not, and should not, be expected to accept the Greek Cypriot administration as the government of Cyprus.
It would be a grave injustice and a monstrous political misjudgment to admit Cyprus without the consent of both its peoples. A shotgun marriage in Cyprus would be a disaster. The EU must not be blackmailed, and Her Majesty's Government must realise that Greek threats to veto enlargement can provoke counter-threats. The Greeks claim to want a just and lasting settlement in Cyprus.
We cannot afford another Foreign Office triumph like the one that delivered the people of Zimbabwe into the hands of thugs and turned that food exporting country into one where the Matabele are being systematically starved to the point of extermination.

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Let us have no more diplomacy like that. Let us ensure that human rights do not take second place to bureaucratic timetables.
For 38 years, Turkish Cypriots have been excluded from the normal channels of international communication. They have been denied the right to trade freely, to access international capital markets and to have direct flights to and from their own airport. These embargoes have no authority under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter and the United Kingdom should have nothing further to do with them.
This is not a mere technical issue, as the Government sought to maintain in the debate in this House on 6th November. It all flows from the treatment by the United Kingdom of the Greek Cypriots as the government of Cyprus and its persuasion of others at the United Nations to do the same.
In 1964, the British Government accepted (but has since forgotten) that "Cyprus Government" could mean only a government who act with the concurrence of both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. The UN Secretary-General currently acknowledges that sovereignty,
"emanates equally from both peoples. One of them cannot claim sovereignty over the other".
There has been no concurrence since 1963 and there is no "doctrine of necessity" which could excuse Greek Cypriot behaviour.
If we have forgotten what happened in Cyprus between 1963 and 1974 we cannot appreciate the fears that the Turkish Cypriots have for their future or understand their attitude to any agreement with the Greek Cypriots without real, practical and effective safeguards.
Let me remind your Lordships of what the American Under-Secretary of State, George Ball, wrote in his memoirs—how, in the 1960s, the Greek Cypriot leader's
"central interest was to block off Turkish intervention so that he and his Greek Cypriots could go on massacring Turkish Cypriots''.
He went on to say:
"obviously we would never permit that".
But the fact is that neither the United States nor the United Kingdom or the United Nations took effective action to bring the slaughter of Turkish Cypriots to an end until Turkey intervened 11 years later. Even in 1974, Britain, the guarantor, did not change its position, and the German newspaper Die Zeit wrote on 30th August 1974:
"the massacre of Turkish Cypriots in Paphos and Famagusta is the proof of how justified Turkey was to intervene".
It must be remembered that all this happened despite solemn international guarantees and despite United Nations troops actually being in Cyprus.
The Turkish Cypriot state is not a breakaway state, because the Republic of Cyprus as legally constituted in 1960 had ceased to exist by 1964 and had been replaced by a Greek Cypriot state calling itself the
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Republic of Cyprus. Yet in 1983, when the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was declared, the United Nations Security Council, which is not a court, with the approval of the United Kingdom, labelled the declaration "legally invalid". It called upon states not to recognise the Turkish Cypriot state, even though Turkish Cypriots had done no wrong.
It is the view of the distinguished international jurist Eli Lauterpacht QC that:
"If the Security Council had assessed the situation as a whole, it could not possibly have concluded that the conduct of Turkish Cypriots violated the controlling legal instruments while the conduct of the Greek Cypriots did not. Nor could it have reached any other conclusion than that the action of the Greek Cypriots fully justified the conduct of the Turkish Cypriots".
I raise this contentious issue because I want my nation to act honourably in respect of Cyprus in the future. It shames me to have to acknowledge that it has failed to do so in the past. It is in all our interests that the two peoples of Cyprus settle their differences. We must understand why that has not yet happened if the present initiative is to have any hope of succeeding.
Debates on Cyprus in our Parliament, especially in another place, and in the United States Congress do injustice to the principle that both sides should be given a fair hearing. That imbalance is also particularly noticeable in the European Parliament. Without a fair hearing on both sides, it is unsurprising that the world has a one-sided perception of Cyprus, which results in unfair pressure on Turkish Cypriots.
Unilateral acceptance of Greek Cypriots into the European Union would be a disaster. It would wreck Europe's relations with Turkey. Her Majesty's Government must take urgent action to prevent that from happening as Britain is legally bound to do under Article 2 of the 1960 Cyprus Treaty of Guarantee. To continue to brush aside our solemn legal obligation under that treaty strikes at the very heart of international law. If it were so easily circumvented, what point would there be in Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots making a new agreement that could be similarly ignored?
6.22 p.m.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, this evening has seen a wide-ranging debate. It has also been a triumph for the changed timetable. Unbelievably, after 34 speakers and a Statement, it still seems that we will finish at the allotted 7.30 p.m. Many noble Lords have shown an enormous amount of self-discipline in speaking within the time limit.
I welcome my noble friend Lady Northover to the Front Bench to take over as international development spokesperson. I held the position for eight years, and I think that my noble friend will enjoy it a great deal. However, she will have a far harder time than I had. When I was international development spokesperson, I was fighting against the previous government, who were cutting the international development budget. As a Member of the Opposition, that is an easier position than that which my noble friend has taken on; that is

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to say, dealing with a budget that is growing to the extent that, by 2006, £1 billion a year will go to Africa. That must be a good thing.
I do not underestimate the vast problems faced by the developing world. Two of the most difficult to deal with are HIV/AIDS and poverty. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford pointed out, in an extremely well constructed speech, that a further difficulty is the difference between the priorities of the developing world and those of the developed world and the fact that we are spending vast figures on subsidies while vast numbers of people are living below the poverty line.
The debate has produced a veritable cornucopia of issues to speak to. I was not going to speak about Zimbabwe, but, because of the extremely good speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, I should like to say a few words about the issue. She pointed out the unease that many of us feel about the Government's asylum policy. I realise that the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, is to reply to the debate and this is not a matter for her department, but it must be an issue for joined-up government that people who are obviously going to face persecution and even the threat of death should not be returned to Zimbabwe at the moment.
The problems in Zimbabwe are growing. The vast number of farm workers who have lost their means of income after the white farmers were thrown off the land is particularly distressing considering the state of famine in the country. Mention was also made of ZANU-PF's particularly worrying view towards the Matabele people and the use of food as a weapon of starvation and as a political weapon.
It will come as no surprise that I also wish to speak about the Middle East and Iraq, as many noble Lords have done. The noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, made a particularly fine speech about the difficulties faced in Israel and Palestine. I have travelled as frequently as I can to the Middle East. The difficulties with Israel and Palestine are fuelling hatred among the populations of many Arab countries. That is often overlooked and underestimated in the West. The feeling that the Palestinians are suffering under the present regime is one of the reasons that Osama bin Laden has used again and again—if the recent tape is genuine, he has used it in the past few weeks—to fuel hatred of the West and of America.
We can look back at some of the proposals that could have solved the problems. I firmly believe that the Oslo peace accord could well have solved many of the problems. It is very unfortunate that the Saudi proposal was not carried forward. It could have guaranteed the sovereign status of Israel and allowed the Palestinian state to flourish. The settlements issue has to be resolved in the short term.
The other issue that I wish to speak about is Iraq. Many noble Lords have spoken about it this evening, so I shall confine my comments to one issue. I do not believe that the mission that Dr Blix is undertaking—I think he is going to Baghdad on Monday—is
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doomed to failure. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, I very much hope that he will be successful. Many noble Lords believe that there is little chance of that, but there should not be a correlation between weapons inspectors and the necessity of armed conflict and war. I very much hope Dr Blix is successful, because one of the issues is removing weapons of mass destruction. It will be extremely difficult and dangerous to try to control weapons of mass destruction in a war situation in which the only option is to bomb them from above rather than to dismantle carefully not only the weapons of mass destruction but the apparatus for their construction. For all the problems that the weapons inspectors later faced, they were very successful, especially in removing Saddam Hussein's nuclear ability.
Like many noble Lords, I am utterly opposed to armed conflict. I am particularly concerned about what could trigger armed conflict. In a particularly fine speech, the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, pointed out that without going back to the United Nations it will be difficult to work out from reading the resolution what constitutes a trigger. If weapons inspectors arriving at a distant outpost are refused access by an official individual, will that be a trigger for war? This is a matter of some concern.
I listened carefully to the speech made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, especially his reference to the Congo. Not many years ago, I remember taking part in a debate on the Great Lakes in which the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, talked about what was happening in the region and what the then government believed would happen in Zaire. None of us could believe the horrors that were subsequently to face people in the area, although we could imagine that the breakdown would be fairly terrible. We must bear in mind that the breakdown of the Congo could also be mirrored in a breakdown in Iraq, because of destabilisation in the surrounding region.
I turn to defence. I realise, and understand why, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, is not here this evening. It would, therefore, be unfair of me to echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, as regards the list that he prepared of disasters that seem to be afflicting procurement in the MoD at present. I had intended to ask questions about the wings of Nimrod, melting boots, and other similar issues. However, I have decided not to do so tonight.
I wish to concentrate on two issues of particular relevance. The first is a subject that has been discussed in many debates on defence—overstretch. I very much hope that some agreement can be reached on the firemen's strike. However, now that it has started and it looks like becoming a protracted affair going into the New Year, can the Minister say whether the necessary number of troops will be available for training should a war break out in the Middle East? The 19,000 or so service personnel taking part in the current crisis operation in this country must affect troop manning levels. I live just next door to Otterburn training centre. I know that a great deal of testing of equipment and training is called for before military

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action, as was the case before the Gulf War and the Kosovo conflict. Can the Minister say whether the use of service personnel to meet the crisis in the fire service will affect any troop training requirements?
My second question relates to the Royal Army Medical Corps. There has been talk of a call-up of reserves. I declare an interest here because I have had my ear bent by my brother-in-law, who served in the Gulf War. Even though he is retired, he is still on the reserve list and might well be called up at some point. This situation is particularly problematical for the medical corps because it is 60 per cent undermanned at present. Indeed, in some specialties it is 90 per cent undermanned. Such undermanning will have a knock-on effect for those reservists of the medical corps who also work for the NHS. If they are taken away from the NHS for quite a long period of time, that will have a considerable effect on the health service.
A Question on Gulf War syndrome was recently tabled in this House. I am advised by my brother-in-law that this is an issue of concern to some members of the Army Medical Corps, who may be asked to serve again in the Gulf. They feel somewhat undermined by the MoD's position on Gulf War syndrome; for example, the denial of its very existence. We could be sending people who do believe that it exists back into the same situation.
I shall, if I may, end on a slightly petulant note. I was slightly disappointed that the Queen's Speech made no mention of paving legislation for a referendum on the euro. We on these Benches look forward to the introduction of the euro, and some of us will be campaigning hard on that issue. Noble Lords from other parties may campaign against its introduction, but we hope that the referendum will be held as soon as possible. We must start campaigning if we are to win the referendum.
6.35 p.m.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, that we all suffer from the threat of terrorism. Following the bombing in Bali, we live in a much more dangerous world. A1'Qaeda will certainly strike again. Its franchise groups operate around the world. I pay tribute to our intelligence services whose role is critical in locating and evaluating terrorist threats. They are often our unsung heroes.
We give a guarded welcome to Saddam Hussein meeting his first deadline. However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, that, in the light of Saddam Hussein's record, we must prepare for a possible war. At this time, we think of our brave servicemen and women and of their families. On these Benches, we also recognise the dedication and professionalism of our Armed Forces. They are respected and admired around the world. I congratulate those members of the Special Forces on their awards for outstanding bravery in Afghanistan.
The primary duty of any government is defence of the realm both at home and abroad. The threat of force is vital—diplomacy backed by defence. As long
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as the Prime Minister continues to strive for peace and to support our allies in the United States and elsewhere, we have a duty to support the Government.
This support, however, is not unconditional. We shall be pressing Ministers on how they plan to meet their commitments and counter increasing threats with fewer aircraft, fewer ships and a smaller Army. This issue has rightly concerned my noble friends Lord Burnham and Lord Selsdon. We shall continue to question Ministers about the welfare of our Armed Forces; about training, retention and overstretch; and particularly—as my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford asked—about whether we might be sending men and women into battle with inadequate and unreliable equipment after the failures of the Saif Sareea exercise.
I hope that lessons have been learnt. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, mentioned new communications systems. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, could be a bit more specific about this in her reply. Some 32 communications systems were used during the exercise, with only a few of them able to interface with the high-level Coalition Joint Operational Command System. Much of the equipment, which was off the shelf, was unfit for desert conditions. As my noble friend Lord Marlesford said, the Clansman radio is unreliable and vulnerable to electronic warfare.
Will the Minister confirm that the Challenger 2 tanks will be properly "desertised"? Will the MoD achieve its target of 80 per cent availability of the fleet?
My noble friend Lord Howell asked how many reservists are needed. Will the Minister also confirm that the procedures for the call up of reservists have been updated and should work efficiently in the event of mobilisation? Further to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, will the Minister confirm that there is sufficient vaccine to immunise against the effects of NBC all service personnel and reservists who may have to be deployed to Iraq?
It is essential that any deployment is fully funded. My noble friend Lord Howell reminded the House that the Treasury said that we cannot afford it. Are force numbers to be squeezed into a Treasury imposed straitjacket?
The US President and Congress have voted an extra 40 billion dollars for defence. What are we telling the Americans who have relied in their military plans on us sending our troops?
We are fully committed to the new chapter of the Strategic Defence Review which reiterates the Government's commitment to the expeditionary concept for our Armed Forces. We welcome the Joint Strike Fighter, the Type 45 destroyers and the new carriers although we remain concerned at the possibility of slippage in these programmes. It is absolutely vital that they are delivered on time and that the upgrade of anti-submarine Nimrods is carried out successfully.

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Can the Minister confirm that the four C17s are exceeding all expectations? Can she also say something on the progress of the A400 project and whether a suitable engine has been identified?
There is an abundance of problems facing the Government and the MoD because of the firemen's strike. Will the Minister assure the House that those regiments likely to go to the Gulf have been released from possible fire fighting duties? On 1st July the Army was 5,500 below its establishment. Added to this are some 10,000 medically unfit personnel who are unlikely to be deployed on operations. This amounts to an overall shortfall of some 15,000 personnel. Territorial Army numbers have dropped by a third.
While lack of manpower is one thing, lack of training is another. In a 24-month period, 84 exercises were cancelled, often because those involved were committed to other operations. However, recruitment has shown some improvement. The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are to be congratulated on forming an extra squadron after two years of determined recruiting. However, can the Minister explain why there was no military accommodation for them, and will she assure the House that this appalling situation has been overcome and will never happen again? Turning to Iraq, tens of thousands of people have been killed—
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene. The noble Lord has made all sorts of important points which, if I may say so, are matters of detail, as regards the position of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and so on. I am sure that my noble friend will do her best to respond to those points but would it not be better if they were put down in some kind of Written Question and we got the answer that way?
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I do not accept the noble Lord's point. These are important matters on which we have received much correspondence. I believe that it is fair to ask the Minister about them. If she cannot respond to them all at the Dispatch Box, I am happy for her to write to me.
Turning to Iraq, tens of thousands of people have been killed under this regime. Can the Minister confirm that the Government and the US Administration are assembling dossiers of evidence against Saddam Hussein, his sons and senior henchmen so they can eventually be charged with war crimes? Our response must not be a military one alone. What discussions are the Government having with the EU, the UN and the US on the humanitarian impact of a possible war, and plans for a post-conflict Iraq? We must be prepared to help the innocent people of Iraq.
We very much welcome the EU accession treaty Bill. Having recently visited Estonia, I know how much it relishes the challenge of EU membership and how much it will bring to the Union. We do not want Europe to fail. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of
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Saltaire, described my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford as being anti-European. Nothing could be further from the truth. My noble friend has made it very clear in this House that he respects Europe's vast diversity but believes that its power should be dispersed and held democratically to account. We should not confuse centralisation with being a good European.
The noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, reassuringly discussed Hong Kong. I look forward to returning there in February. My noble friend Lady Hooper pointed out the importance of Latin America. My noble friends Lord Howe, Lady Hooper and Lord Blaker were rightly disappointed at the lack of progress with the Gibraltar talks.
I turn to international development. My noble friend Lady Flather was concerned about how much of taxpayers' money reaches those who most need it. By March next year, 14 million will be suffering from famine in southern Africa. If the figures are to be believed, even more will face starvation in Ethiopia. Will the Government now make interim food available to Ethiopia as a matter of urgency, in spite of Clare Short's comments to the contrary?
The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, was concerned about the situation in Afghanistan. The United Kingdom pledged to cut heroin production from Afghanistan, but there has been an 18-fold increase in opium production since the removal of the Taliban. It is vital that producers—often poor farmers—are given a sustainable alternative to poppy production. Bearing in mind that 90 per cent of the heroin that comes to Britain originates in Afghanistan, what plans do the Government have to try to stop that supply at source?
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, was critical of our stance on Zimbabwe. Like my noble friends Lady Park and Lord Blaker, I make no apology for our concern for the dispossessed and starving of that tragic country. Following the shameful lifting of the recent EU-SADC meeting—which the noble Baroness attended—from Copenhagen to Maputo, are the Government prepared to resist the pressure that the Portuguese are now applying to suspend visa restrictions for the EU summit in Lisbon next spring to enable the Zimbabweans to attend?
My noble friend Lady Cox mentioned Indonesia. As she said, the vast majority of Indonesians are moderate, law-abiding Muslims who do not appreciate Islam being hijacked by radicals. Britain and the international community need to provide assistance to stabilise its economy, especially because tourism comprises up to one-third of its GDP. Will the Government also offer assistance for social welfare and educational programmes, which are currently being hijacked by extremists? We need to re-engage the armed forces. What help are the Government offering to increase their efficiency?
At the moment there is a battle being waged for the hearts and minds of the people in Indonesia, as well as in other Muslim states. We failed to read the warning signs, with tragic results in Bali. We must now ensure that we give Indonesia and other similar countries as much constructive assistance as possible.
6.48 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Amos): My Lords, this has been an informed debate, drawing on the considerable experience and expertise in this House. It is always difficult when summing up to do justice to a debate of such high quality. In the time available, it will not be possible to answer all of the specific questions that have been raised, but I shall write to noble Lords if necessary.
I believe that we all agree that we are living through a period of profound change. The world is more interconnected than ever before, yet we are living at a time when some of the differences between us also seem to be more stark than ever before. However, the universal principles of the UN Charter, respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, have spread around the world. There are exceptions, but the values that underpin our democracy are being adopted more and more.
My noble friend Lady Symons set out the Government's foreign policy, defence and international development priorities in her comprehensive opening speech. I want to concentrate on the key themes which emerged during the debate and which will dominate the international agenda for the foreseeable future. I shall group my remarks into three themes: the threat to our collective security from terrorism, state failure and weapons of mass destruction; the balance of global prosperity, the impact of mass migration and movement of people across the world and, in particular, the relationship between the developed and developing world; and the importance of maintaining an effective international rules-based system to regulate the conduct of relations between states.
First, I turn to the issue of security, Iraq and the situation in the Middle East. Many noble Lords touched on that point, including the noble Lords, Lord Howell, Lord Wallace, Lord Owen, Lord Biffen, Lord Wright, Lord Hannay, Lord Redesdale and Lord Parekh, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich. Securing Iraq's disarmament is one of the great security challenges for the world. UN Security Council Resolution 1441 sets out the pathway for peace. As my noble friend Lady Ramsay made clear in her extremely informative speech, the history of UN weapons inspections in Iraq is littered with examples of deceit, evasion, intimidation and harassment. I thank noble Lords who have recognised the significant work and achievements of my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary and, indeed, of our officials in securing a unanimous resolution of the UN. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, a credible threat of force was key to obtaining a resolution.
We must work to reduce the underlying tensions which drive the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and create the risk of them being used. That means continued efforts to build confidence between India and Pakistan, on the Korean peninsula and in the Middle East. Our goal in the Middle East is
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to achieve an Israeli state free from terror, a viable Palestinian state based on 1967 boundaries, and a comprehensive regional settlement.
With regard to the issue of settlement building, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wright, the Government's policy is clear. Settlements are illegal under international law and are an obstacle to peace. Israel should freeze all settlement activity, and we have made our views on that clear to the Israeli Government. It will be difficult and there will be setbacks, but these are challenges that we cannot afford to duck.
The same is true of the campaign against terrorism. We have made real progress in Afghanistan—an issue raised by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich. But the terrorist threat remains and is likely to be with us for a long time to come. We need a patient, long-term strategy for dealing with it, combining the full range of instruments, intelligence gathering and law enforcement to disrupt terrorist groups and prevent them acquiring weapons of mass destruction. We also need action to address the root causes of terrorism. We must work hard to tackle the problems of political and religious extremism, particularly in the Middle East. Like my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel, I commend the work being undertaken through the Alexandria Process. We must also take action to prevent situations of state failure of the kind that allowed the Taliban to seize power in Afghanistan.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, raised the issue of terrorism in the UK. The Government are determined that this country should not be used in any way as a base for supporting terrorism overseas. The Terrorism Act 2000, which entered into force in February 2001, sent a powerful signal of our rejection of the claim to legitimacy of international terrorist organisations. We recently added four international terrorist organisations to the list of proscribed organisations, which now stands at 25.
But the global threat should not blind us to the security challenges that still confront us closer to home. The creation of a secure neighbourhood for Europe remains a priority for this Government. The imminent expansion of NATO and the European Union means that the task is already halfway complete. We must work to ensure that the reunification of the continent does not create new dividing lines, alienating countries which stand at the new Europe's borders.
Britain has led the way in adapting its defence structures to the new international security environment. The Strategic Defence Review and the subsequent new chapter provided the basis for a major programme of modernisation based on the need for more flexible forces and adoption of cutting-edge technology. That will require additional resources but the Government will not take any chances when it comes to protecting Britain's security. We are committed to significant real increases in defence spending to ensure we make a success of the modernisation programme.

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We are also committed to adapting our security alliances to the new security environment. NATO remains the cornerstone. It has been so successful that observers sometimes underestimate its continuing relevance. Without it, for example, we would not have achieved the kind of progress we have seen recently in the Balkans. It is vital that we continue to maintain and expand the zone of peace in Europe by bringing new members into NATO, by strengthening NATO's relations with Russia and other key partners and by adapting NATO's internal structures. That includes reinforcing Europe's contribution to NATO to further development of the European security and defence policy and higher defence spending. There is no question of the undermining of the transatlantic alliance. On the contrary, President Bush and others have made clear that a stronger European defence identity would help to strengthen NATO.
The noble Lords, Lord Burnham, Lord Howell, Lord Selsdon and Lord Marlesford, all raised questions about defence equipment. The Government have long recognised that delivering equipment needed by our Armed Forces in time and to cost is challenging and needs reform. Indeed, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, would agree that delivery on time and to cost is difficult, given that the procurement project that he listed was started before 1997. That was the reason behind the move to Smart acquisitions, which was introduced as a key element of the Strategic Defence Review. Our recently-published defence industrial policy re-affirms the principles of Smart acquisition, which are beginning to deliver real results.
I turn to global prosperity and in particular our development agenda. I begin by welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, to her new role. I look forward to working with her on those issues. The noble Baroness set out clearly the challenges facing many countries in the developing world, including Africa. The Government's over-arching priority is to work for the elimination of world poverty and the achievement of sustainable development. That will not be easy. One of the achievements of this Government, and in particular of my right honourable friend Clare Short, is the recognition internationally that we cannot deal with development issues without tackling wider issues relating to trade, market access, governance, environmental sustainability and aid effectiveness.
The international conferences in the past year, starting at Doha with the new trade round, Monterrey on financing for development, the G8 meeting at Kananaskis where the Africa Action Plan was agreed and most recently the World Summit on Sustainable Development have all contributed to that global development agenda.
I thank noble Lords for the positive comments they made about my own role as Minister with responsibility for Africa. On the African continent, development indicators are going backwards. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made clear his personal commitment. The New Partnership for Africa's Development is Africa's own blueprint for
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its future development and prosperity. At its core is a commitment to good economic and political governance and to a system of peer review.
My noble friend Lord Desai made comparisons between developments in Africa and in Asia. To his list of differences between Africa and Asia—he spoke of leadership and agricultural revolution—I add the importance of trade, a point to which I shall return. There is no doubt that the situation in Zimbabwe has cast a shadow over NePAD. That is an issue I have discussed many times with the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, in this House. I think that the noble Lord is aware that I do not agree with his assessment of our policy.
I have said many times in this House that we cannot allow mismanagement in one country to derail the whole process. Yes, the situation in Zimbabwe is critical: rampant inflation, high levels of unemployment; use of violence to achieve political ends; a humanitarian crisis brought on by economic mismanagement and now the politicisation of food aid.
Conservative Front Bench spokespersons, including the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, have pressed me many times on our policies. We cannot see what the Official Opposition would have achieved in following its policy priorities, except endorsement of Mugabe's fast-track policies in terms of land reform, which has left thousands of farm workers homeless and jobless by paying compensation to farmers forced off the land. We have secured what the Official Opposition could not—an international consensus with the Commonwealth, with EU support and support from the United States and other countries.
The noble Baroness, Lady Park, raised the question of visas in Zimbabwe. The new visa regime will help to ensure effective UK immigration control and make it easier for Zimbabwean visitors to travel to the United States. Large numbers are currently refused entry to the UK and returned; large numbers abscond after being granted temporary admission; and increasingly large numbers have unfounded asylum claims. Only 64 per cent of asylum seekers are refused entry.
With respect to the fees, we are under standing parliamentary instructions to recover the full costs of our consular and visa operations worldwide. We were running our operation in Harare at a loss to the British taxpayer of £400,000 in the last financial year. That is why we have had to move to using the parallel rate. The method of applying for visas is one that we use in a number of British missions throughout the world.
The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, spoke about the important role of women in international development. I agree with the noble Baroness. But I think that she has misunderstood our approach. The millennium development goals are goals which the whole international community has signed up to and they are a cornerstone of our development agenda. One of the means that we use to achieve that goal is direct budgetary support with partner governments that are committed to reform. We do that through a memorandum of understanding where responsibilities

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and obligations on both sides are set out clearly. There is regular monitoring of that. We shall continue to support NGOs in the United Kingdom and in developing countries. I can assure the noble Baroness that women's equality remains a key part of our strategy. I shall write to the noble Baroness with more details on that.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester raised the situation of the Democratic Republic of Congo. We welcome the UN panel report on the exploitation of mineral resources. We are consulting widely on our response to the report's recommendations. The right reverend Prelate is quite right; bringing peace to the DRC would bring substantial benefits, not only to the country but also to the region and to the continent.
We have had a number of breakthroughs, including the Pretoria agreement and the ongoing work on the inter-Congolese dialogue. However, we remain concerned about the humanitarian and security situation in north-eastern DRC and we have reminded the Government of Uganda of its obligations to the local population.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford talked about debt relief. HIPC has been an important success. Twenty-six countries will get over 60 billion dollars in debt relief. But we are aware of the continuing problems facing some HIPC countries and we remain concerned about the long-term sustainability of HIPC countries. No amount of debt relief can guarantee future sustainability. That requires prudent new borrowing, access to adequate concessional financing and strong growth strategy.
On trade I agree with much of what the right reverend Prelate said. My noble friend Lady Symons is holding regular meetings with Commonwealth high commissioners to discuss developing country concerns about trade.
We are deeply concerned about the growing food crisis in southern Africa and in the Horn of Africa. I remind noble Lords that we are the second largest humanitarian donors to Zimbabwe. We have increased the percentage of the budget that goes on aid. It was 0.26 per cent in 1997. It now stands at 0.32 per cent and will be 0.4 per cent of GDP by 2006.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for letting me intervene. Are the Government as worried as the US Government seem to be about the political manipulation of food aid going to Zimbabwe? I heard a suggestion from Washington that the US Government would send in their own teams to try to get food aid out of the hands of ZAN U-PF. Does she share that worry?
Baroness Amos: Yes, my Lords, we are concerned about the politicisation of food aid; that is one issue that the EU discussed with SADC. However, that does not affect food aid from the United Kingdom because
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that goes through the World Food Programme and non-governmental organisations; politicisation happens to the grain bought by the Zimbabwe Government's grain marketing board; but we are concerned.
Long-term challenges face us that can be tackled only through international co-operation through the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the European Union and a whole range of other regional and multilateral organisations. The strength of the multilateral system is vital to British interests. My noble friend mentioned the importance of international law and the UN. We need an effective international rules-based system to regulate the conduct of relations between states. The European Union merits particular mention here. On a growing range of issues, from migration to economic reform and energy security, Britain can achieve its objective only through co-operation with our European partners. The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, talked in detail about Europe.
A number of specific issues were raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, spoke about Hong Kong. We admire the resilience of the people of Hong Kong and agree that none of its essential features has been undermined by its constitutional change.
The noble Lords, Lord Blaker and Lord Astor of Hever, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, all raised the issue of Gibraltar. We shall stick by our 1969 pledge that there will be no change in sovereignty without the consent of the people of Gibraltar.
The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, raised the question of Cyprus. We hope that a reunited Cyprus will join the European Union, and fully support the efforts of the UN Secretary-General in that respect. The noble Lord, Lord Williamson, talked about Russia and Kaliningrad. The UK is not a Schengen state and our role in the issue of Kaliningrad is therefore limited.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, mentioned Latin America. Those relationships are of increasing importance, as evidenced by the Prime Minister's visit last year to Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. As the noble Baroness mentioned, there have been several return visits.
In conclusion, let me say something about Britain's role. I agreed with my noble friend Lord Parekh when he talked about our European, Atlantic and global reach. We are a leading member of the European Union and the Commonwealth. We enjoy a cultural influence wholly disproportionate to our size, thanks to the English language and the influence of the BBC World Service. We are a permanent member of the world's supreme decision-making body, the United Nations Security Council. We have the world's fourth largest economy, an active development aid programme, highly effective Armed Forces and more overseas investment than any country other than the United States. As my noble friend Lady Symons said

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in her opening remarks, we will use that influence and that independence to ensure that Britain is a force for good in the world.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Ashton of Upholland, I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned until Monday next.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned until Monday next.—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly until Monday next.
House adjourned at ten minutes past seven o'clock.

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