Sitting of 22 January 2003

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

  Sub-Saharan Africa
  Mr. Win Griffiths: What plans she has to visit sub-Saharan countries in the next three months to discuss development criteria and objectives. [92204]
  The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): I visit Africa on a regular basis and I have returned overnight from a short visit to Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya. The objective of our development partnerships is the sustainable reduction of poverty. While in Ethiopia, I signed a 10-year partnership agreement to that end.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Everybody will be aware of her huge commitment to trying to ensure that sub-Saharan Africa is helped to the greatest possible extent. Given the continuing human rights problems in Zimbabwe and its involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, what more does she think can be done to try to get peace in the DRC, and to get a restoration of human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe?
  Clare Short: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Zimbabwe has withdrawn its troops from the Democratic Republic of Congo, as have Rwanda, Namibia and Angola, which is progress. Since South Africa became involved, considerable progress has been achieved on agreeing a transitional Government of all the different factions. That Government are not quite in place, and there is still a lot of destabilisation by forces that support genocide in Burundi and Rwanda. We are getting progress, however, and we are doing everything that we can to drive it forward.
  In Zimbabwe, everything that a British Government could have done to try to prevent the ever-growing crisis, abuse of human rights, the stolen election and, now, horrendous levels of hunger, has been done, through the Commonwealth and the European Community, without success. The present situation is catastrophic. We are doing all that we can and are a major player in keeping people fed and cared for. My
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  view is that this catastrophe will bring down the Mugabe regime, but at the cost of terrible suffering for the people of Zimbabwe.
  Mr. Andrew Mackay: The Secretary of State is absolutely right to describe the situation in Zimbabwe as catastrophic. Is there any possibility of airlifting food to opposition areas, as has been requested by some opposition leaders in Zimbabwe?
  Clare Short: No, that is not needed. Of course, the regime's delivery of food is deliberately biased and used politically: food is not brought to those villages and places that dared to vote as they wished. But the UN delivery is not politically biased: it is made according to need, but it is faced with all sorts of political problems, and even fuel shortages, which make it a very difficult operation. In addition, HIV levels are so high that people are very weak. For the UN, the key shortage is not enough money in the international system. We have put in a lot, and I have written to Development Ministers across the world about it. There has been some improvement, but we must keep the pipeline full. I am afraid that the recovery will take a long time.
  Mr. Peter Pike: My right hon. Friend will know that the news coming out from Zimbabwe indicates that the position continues to get more critical every day. Many of the people there are suffering from famine, and the regime's treatment of its people is increasingly appalling. What discussions is she having with South Africa and other countries in the region about what they can do to help the people of Zimbabwe get free of the current appalling regime?
  Clare Short: As my hon. Friend can imagine, I and other Ministers have had discussions with other Governments across the world and in Africa about what can be done. To date, however, our record is not successful. My energy is devoted to keeping people fed. Seven million people out of just over 11 million people in Zimbabwe are in need of food aid. As I have said, one third of the adults in Zimbabwe have HIV, which, when people are malnourished, quickly triggers into full-blown AIDS, making them sick and deepening their lack of ability to farm. The situation is terrible.
  Sir Peter Tapsell: President Mwai Kibaki is a man whom I have known and admired for more than 30 years. He is undoubtedly the personality best equipped to grapple with Kenya's very serious problems. I congratulate the Secretary of State on visiting him so soon after his triumphant election. Will she use all her influence to make sure that Britain and the international community give every possible help to Kenya, where we could change the situation, whereas we are not likely to have much influence on Zimbabwe?
  Clare Short: I agree absolutely with the hon. Gentleman that the recent elections in Kenya were a great opportunity for that country, which has been in continuing economic decline because of the fundamental corruption under the previous regime. The new President is a great hope for the country. Unfortunately, he is in hospital because of a deep vein

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  thrombosis, but I gather that the prognosis is good. However, I met his Government, who have inherited a massive hole in public finances, and they have a determination to reform. I have had meetings with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the EU and others, and we are going to try to mobilise an enormous international effort to help the country forward, deliver to its people and deliver the reform that Kenya needs.
  Mrs. Caroline Spelman: Several hon. Members have highlighted the plight of Zimbabwe and the fact that its suffering is among the worst of the sub-Saharan nations. The Secretary of State has said that the Government are doing all that they can, so I am sure that she will agree that, when innocent Zimbabweans face rape, murder, torture, starvation and ethnic cleansing at the hands of their Government, it would be an insult to their suffering if Robert Mugabe were allowed to visit Paris in February as a guest of the President of France. Can she reassure the House that reports that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is planning to waive a veto on the granting of a visa to Mugabe are untrue and that her Government will raise at the European Foreign Ministers meeting on Monday the strongest objections to this breach of the sanctions?
  Clare Short: I agree with the hon. Lady that it would be disgraceful if President Chirac invited Mugabe to Paris, but it is rumoured that he intends to do so. I do not know what view the Foreign Office will take on waiving the veto, but my view—it will not be my decision—is that it would not be right.
  Mr. Hilton Dawson: One of the most optimistic developments in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa and the whole of Africa last year was the ceasefire in the very long-running war in Angola. I know that my right hon. Friend has visited the country and taken her usual tremendous interest in its problems. Can she assure me that the Government are doing everything that they possibly can to assist that country in this crucial phase in which it is emerging out of war and in which a whole range of issues needs to be addressed for the development of civil society and the economy and to help those who have spent their whole lives as soldiers to build new hopes, jobs and opportunities?
  Clare Short: I agree with my hon. Friend that peace in Angola provides great hope for its people and will enable the country's rich resources to be better used. That will help that region of Africa. There has been fighting in Angola since the 1960s, when it began its fight for independence, and there has been civil war ever since. The war is over, but there is desperate hunger and need because of its effects. We support the international mobilisation that is having some success in getting fighters settled and in delivering food to the areas that could not be accessed before. Angola is a fertile country with masses of land and rich diamond and oil resources that have been very badly managed. There is desperate corruption, so there will have to be a big reform effort.
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  However, we are very engaged, as is the international community, and I hope that the Angolan people will be able to look forward to a much better future.
  Mrs. Spelman: Many sub-Saharan countries are classified as heavily indebted poor countries and qualify for debt relief. However, only six countries have completed the process of debt relief under the HIPC initiative. That means that 70 per cent. of those countries are failing to meet their targets for receiving debt relief. Of that 70 per cent., three quarters are sub-Saharan countries. Given that the HIPC initiative has missed the target by such a wide margin, will the Secretary of State now agree with Jubilee Research, Oxfam, Christian Aid and many other non-governmental organisations that it is about time that the HIPC initiative was radically overhauled?
  Clare Short: No, I am afraid that the hon. Lady does not understand the HIPC initiative. Twenty-six countries are in receipt of debt relief, but are not paying their debts. Countries reach the point at which they are allowed to stop paying when they put in place a poverty reduction strategy and start a process of reform. Only six have reached the completion rate when the debt is permanently written off, but a much bigger number are receiving debt relief than she suggested. Her 70 per cent. figure is simply wrong.
  The HIPC initiative has triggered a major effort for reform in some of the poorest countries, and we can all be proud of that. However, it now needs some adjustment. Partly because of the fall in commodity prices and the great rise in oil prices, there needs to be more generous debt relief to get countries to sustainability. There is another technical problem: the debt relief formula limits what countries can borrow, and Rwanda, Ethiopia and Niger are not being allowed to receive World Bank resources under the initiative. That needs correcting.

  St. Helena
  Bob Russell: When she expects to make an announcement on the provision of an airfield on the isle of St. Helena. [92205]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Ms Sally Keeble): In talks in St Helena with the island's Government last September, it was decided to seek proposals for private sector participation. A prospectus is currently being prepared as a basis for inviting bids from interested parties. The future timetable should become clearer once proposals have been received and assessed.
  Bob Russell: I am not sure whether that is good news and represents progress. We will have to wait and see what happens. May I remind the Minister that the island's expectations on this issue drag back for several years? Indeed, when a Commonwealth Parliament Association group of which I was a member visited the island in the summer of 1999, the airfield was top of the agenda then. I urge the Minister to get on and to make a

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  decision one way or another because the island has been waiting years. I detect from her answer that the decision on the matter will be prolonged even further.
  Ms Keeble: No, I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is wrong. I know from his repeated questions on the matter of his continued interest in it, but since he last asked about it, I think, two years ago, the island has decided in a referendum that it wants the airfield. The financing has been agreed and the prospectus, which we expect to be completed around about the end of next month, is being drawn up. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will keep asking questions about the airfield, but steady progress has been made and there is a firm route forward.
  Mr. John Smith: Given the long historical link between the island of St. Helena and the people of south Wales through the coal trade, in particular Barry dock, which was the biggest exporter of coal in the world, and given the lifeline that was provided by the SS St. Helena and the port of Cardiff, will my hon. Friend do all she can to ensure that the island gets the airfield it deserves?
  Ms Keeble: My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of the sea link. Even when the island gets the airfield, assuming that the financing fits together, it will still be important for it to remain involved in sea freight, which will probably be provided on a commercial basis. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has agreed that we will provide £26.3 million, so substantial progress has been made. We look forward to seeing the prospectus and to the project being carried forward.

  Palestine
  Helen Jackson: What steps she is taking to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Palestine. [92206]
  The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): We have increased our humanitarian aid to help meet the most urgent needs of the Palestinian people, but the cause of the crisis is political and no amount of humanitarian relief can solve the problem. We can only help to keep people going as the levels of poverty continue to grow. The crisis requires a political solution.
  Helen Jackson: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. She told the House last month that the levels of hunger in Gaza were worse than those in Congo. What discussions has she had with her Cabinet colleagues on how she will endeavour to keep those routes of humanitarian aid open in the event of a war breaking out in the region and on what impact such a war might have?
  Clare Short: My hon. Friend is sadly right. Some 22.5 per cent. of Palestinian children under five are malnourished and the acute rate in Gaza is 13.2 per cent. That puts Palestinian children in Gaza between Zimbabwe and Congo in terms of children suffering from acute malnutrition. It is a terrible situation. On the
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  middle east and the risks of military action, my Department is working on all the various humanitarian scenarios, the optimistic as well as the pessimistic. The pessimistic are pretty terrible.
  Dr. Jenny Tonge: Does the Secretary of State agree with those people who say that conditions in the occupied territories are like the aftermath of a terrible natural disaster, such is the destruction and suffering there? Apart from the immediate aid that she told us about, what discussions has she had with her European counterparts on the European Union-Israel agreement on human rights in Israel and the occupied territories? Are those rights being respected?
  Clare Short: I do not agree that the situation is like a natural disaster; it is worse because it is caused by human agency and is continuing. The destruction of infrastructure because of military action is not the only problem. The closures mean that the economy is being squeezed to death. People cannot get out of their homes to work and are getting ever poorer as the weeks go by. It is a distressing and troubling situation. I have not had discussions with my European counterparts—I do not know whether the hon. Lady knows that the European Development Council has been abolished—but discussions are taking place across Europe on whether Israel is complying with the terms of the agreement.
  Dr. Brian Iddon: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the deliberate grubbing up of olive orchards in the occupied territories is not only illegal but exacerbating the starvation in those regions?
  Clare Short: I agree that the situation is very worrying, and, of course, some of those olive trees, in a very ancient and holy land, are themselves ancient. The settlements in the occupied territories are illegal under international law, let alone the grubbing up of the olive orchards. I hope that we can get more energy into the international system to establish a Palestinian state; otherwise, I fear, things will deteriorate.
  Mr. Robert Key: Given those appalling circumstances, how would the Secretary of State like the Government of Israel to assist?
  Clare Short: Catherine Bertini has been on a humanitarian mission to the area and made recommendations for immediate help. The problems include even the blockage of humanitarian resources, and the action taken needs to be pulled back, just to enable people to get back to work. Money that belongs to the Palestinian Authority is not being handed over, although there has been a little progress on that. What we really need is a peace settlement and a commitment to the two-state solution, which is the way through. We need to move forward rapidly.
  Mr. Barry Gardiner: My right hon. Friend has always championed the cause of strengthening good governance in recipient countries. What assurance can she give those of us in the House who are keen to see that aid used for the poorest people

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  in Palestine that the money will not be salted away by the Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians claim is subject to corruption?
  Clare Short: There is no doubt that there have been problems of corruption and weak capacity in the Palestinian Authority. We have been involved in reforms in the Finance Ministry, which have been considerable, and in health, education, the economy, trade and the civil service. This claim of corruption is a red herring, which is used to try to damn the Palestinian Authority when what we need to do is get on with the development of the two states. We are doing a lot to reform the authority's structures so that an effective state can be built, and people need to get behind that effort.

  Malawi
  Mr. Alistair Carmichael: If she will make a statement on the situation in Malawi. [92207]
  The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): More than 2 million people in Malawi are currently in need of food aid, and that figure will rise to 3.25 million—a third of the population—between now and March, after which the 2003 harvest will begin. So far, the rains have been good, thank heavens. My Department's emergency assistance to help Malawi in its current crisis so far totals £34 million. I should say that the aid comes from my Department and British taxpayers, and I hope that they are proud of that.
  Mr. Carmichael: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Does she share my concern that President Muluzi's priority seems to be constitutional change to allow him to get a third term in office rather than to address the problem of HIV/AIDS and the food crisis? What can we do to ensure that Malawi does not see the same political interference in aid distribution that we have seen next door in Zimbabwe?
  Clare Short: I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about the campaign for the third term which took place as the crisis was developing. It is not for the UK Government to tell Malawi what to do, but we have said that if such a constitutional change is to be made, surely there should be a full and thorough discussion in which all the people of Malawi are allowed to express their view. Since then, work with the Government of Malawi, the UN institutions and ourselves has gone well, and the present organisation for keeping people fed is good. There is no prospect of behaviour like that witnessed in Zimbabwe, but Malawi is in very bad shape, and reconstruction to the point at which it does not have recurrent crises will take considerable time and requires much more reform.
  Mr. Iain Luke: I am sure that the Secretary of State will join me in welcoming the restoration of much of Malawi's grain reserves, which were sold off by the Government—the root cause of the famine conditions in the country. I am sure that she will join me also in congratulating the many charitable
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  organisations, such as TearFund, which are doing a power of work in Malawi to counter the worst effects of the famine.
  Clare Short: My hon. Friend is right that the grain reserve was sold off just before the crisis. It is untrue that that was done under pressure from the IMF—that is a false story. It appears that money was corruptly misplaced, and there are inquiries into that. I agree that charities are doing useful work, but so are the United Nations and the British taxpayer. I hope people understand that charities are at the end of the distribution mechanism. The biggest contribution is from taxpayers, and non-governmental organisations help to deliver at the end of the process. Without taxpayers, we would not get through crises like this. Charitable donations are welcome, but the people of Britain should be proud of what they do through their taxes as well.
  Tony Baldry: It is good news that the Government have been able to give so much money for food aid to Malawi. The other aspect of the situation there is the terrible scourge of HIV/AIDS, with 1 million orphans already. Does the Secretary of State agree that the international community must make a qualitative response to the huge number of AIDS orphans in Africa? Countries such as Malawi simply do not have the sustainable capacity to respond to the needs of their own orphans—[Interruption]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Before the Secretary of State replies, could the House come to order?
  Clare Short: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It was difficult to hear the question, even on the Front Bench. The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) was right—the problem concerns not just Malawi, but the whole southern African drought and is complicated by the position in Zimbabwe and Zambia on genetically modified crops. It is deepened by high levels of HIV infection, which has affected one third of the population. People become sick quickly, so they cannot get back to farming and there are more orphans. Recovering from this crisis will be extremely difficult—there has not been one like it before and, with HIV and all the other factors, it will take a long time to recover from it.

  Afghan Refugees
  Dr. Phyllis Starkey: What assessment she has made of assistance required by refugees returning to Afghanistan from Pakistan and Iran. [92208]
  The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): In 2002, 1.8 million refugees returned to Afghanistan, and more than 1 million are expected in 2003. They have come overwhelmingly from Pakistan and Iran. Each family receives help with transport costs and a little help to resettle from the United Nations High

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  Commissioner for Refugees. My Department is about to send a mission to review progress on the humanitarian situation.
  Dr. Starkey: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the concerns—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. It is unfair to the hon. Lady that there is so much noise in the Chamber.
  Dr. Starkey: Is the Secretary of State aware of concerns that have been expressed by Christian Aid among others that if the refugees do not receive continuing support they will be tempted to return to the camps in Iran and Pakistan? In that context, what action is she taking to persuade the international community to deal with the $43 million shortfall at the UNHCR and the underfunding of the World Food Programme?
  Clare Short: I do not fully agree with my hon. Friend or Christian Aid, if that is what it is saying. In Afghanistan, 5 million people are dependent on food aid, as there has been a fifth year of drought in the south. The refugees need continuing support, but so too does a large part of the Afghan population. The biggest problems are achieving stability outside Kabul so that the economy can start running again and dealing with the drought. The World Food Programme needs more money than has been needed for many years. The UNHCR also needs some more resources, but it is slightly overstating its claimed shortage.
  Ann Clwyd: As my right hon. Friend knows, the Select Committee on International Development is publishing its report on the reconstruction of Afghanistan on Thursday. Does she agree with us that one of the main causes of instability among refugees is the continuing lack of security in Afghanistan and that there can be no proper reconstruction unless we address that?
  Clare Short: I agree with my hon. Friend. When the Taliban were overthrown, they were providing arms and money to warlords, who are now strong, so getting stability throughout the country is difficult. There are plans for regional security teams in the big cities, but it would have been desirable if that step had been taken earlier. This is the crunch for Afghanistan—if we cannot get order and security, we will not get economic development and people who are still desperately poor will not have a better future.

  Sri Lanka
  Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: What recent discussions she has held with representatives of the Government of Sri Lanka on assistance to repair the infrastructure of the country; and if she will make a statement. [92210]
  The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): I have met the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and members of his Government on a number of occasions since the peace process began. At the Oslo conference in November, I pledged £8 million in
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  assistance from my Department in 2003 for quick-impact projects to support the peace process. In 2002, we provided £2.6 million.
  Mr. Llwyd: I thank the right hon. Lady for that reply. Recently, she told me that the Government were providing £2.6 million through the UN to help internally displaced people to be rehoused and resettled. Will she please impress on the Sri Lankan Government the need to remove the 40,000 soldiers who are currently occupying the Tamil homes and homelands in the north-east of the country? In the meantime, will she also have a word with the Home Secretary and ask him whether it is possible to impose a moratorium on deportations of Tamil asylum seekers until they can return home safely?
  Clare Short: I think that there is real hope for a successful peace process in Sri Lanka. The war has continued for a long time and has become increasingly brutal. It is good to have prospects of peace in one part of the world; the situation is not secure, but there is real progress. The two sides are talking, we are very supportive of the process and I am very hopeful. I take account of the hon. Gentleman's suggestion to the Home Secretary and I shall ensure that it is conveyed to him. The movement of soldiers needs to be discussed and agreed between the two sides, but we would obviously expect progress in that direction.

  The Prime Minister was asked—

  Engagements
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 22 January.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today.
  Mr. Hawkins: Reports this morning suggest that the Foreign Office has agreed to a French request to lift the veto on President Mugabe travelling to Europe. Will the Prime Minister instruct the Foreign Secretary to impose the British veto at a meeting next week, as my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary has demanded?
  The Prime Minister: We have made it clear that we support the sanctions that are in place against Zimbabwe. I understand that the meeting is to take place on Monday, and no agreement has been reached.
  Mr. Andrew Miller: May I tell my right hon. Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ask him."] May I tell my right hon. Friend about the hard work that is being done by schools and West Cheshire college in my constituency? Will he assure me that the announcement made yesterday under the heading "14 to 19: Next Steps" relates to a genuine partnership that will help to develop opportunities for

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  that age group? Will he also assure me and the House that it is not intended to be a step back towards segregation and grammar schools?
  The Prime Minister: It is certainly not a step back towards segregation in any sense. What it does is provide greater flexibility in the curriculum and allow children who want to make a choice to take a more vocational route in doing so. It ends the one-size-fits-all approach that we have had until now. The other important thing is that it goes alongside the largest investment in education that this country has seen. In constituencies up and down the country, people can see the benefits of an enormous amount of education funding going into primary and secondary schools—all of which is, of course, opposed by the Conservative party.
  Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: How does the Prime Minister expect anyone to support the Government's rag-bag of a higher education policy when everyone knows that it has been cobbled together after a major Cabinet row?
  The Prime Minister: Because it provides a huge boost to education funding and allows us to carry on expanding the numbers in higher education. Let us be clear: the right hon. Gentleman has set his face against the expansion of that investment and has said that he is against more students being able to go to university.
  Mr. Duncan Smith: It is a fine thing for the Prime Minister to say that he is for more people going to university, but how does he think he will achieve that when he is going to double student debt and put them off at the same time? Why does he not accept and admit that the Chancellor has held the Cabinet hostage on this issue? He may have read the conclusions of last week's meeting, but the minutes were splashed all over the papers. One of his Ministers said:
  "Gordon threw a hand grenade and … created havoc."
  Is not the access regulator an interfering, social engineering, politically correct waste of time and money? Was that not the price the right hon. Gentleman had to pay to get the Chancellor to accept his top-up fees?
  The Prime Minister: That is very interesting. So the right hon. Gentleman is against greater access to our universities, is he? Of course he is. That is why he opposes universities being given the extra money they need. We are putting in a 6 per cent. real-terms rise in education funding; let him say whether he supports that. We are allowing more students from poorer backgrounds to go to universities, because no fees will be paid up front, and maintenance grants are being reintroduced. I favour allowing more students to go to university; let the right hon. Gentleman explain why he favours capping student numbers at their present level.
  Mr. Duncan Smith: Access to higher education should be on merit; universities should be independent of Government; and students should not be forced to rack up huge debts, as the Prime Minister intends. Today's muddled university policy has simply failed on all three counts. It means higher student debt and it means more
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  and more regulation, so why—this is the important point for the Prime Minister—are those who will have to pay for this messy political compromise the universities and students themselves?
  The Prime Minister: I find that very strange. Let me read what the right hon. Gentleman's education spokesman, the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green), said two days ago:
  "If it's true that the Government is going to abolish up-front fees, and say that everything should be paid back by the individual student afterwards, that's fine by me".
  As part of the package, we are proposing a huge increase—6 per cent.—in public spending on universities. Let the right hon. Gentleman say now—he did not before—whether he supports that.
  Mr. Nigel Beard: The Thames gateway project is widely supported on both banks of the Thames in east London. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the private sector is to have the confidence to plan early investment, key public infrastructure projects such as Crossrail and the new bridge over the Thames must not be left as indefinite aspirations, but must have credible timetables for their completion backed by firm financial commitments?
  The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the Crossrail link is important. An east-west Crossrail link would play a big part in the development of the region. We have committed about £150 million to the development project work necessary to see whether there is a viable proposal—it must be affordable, too. We are investigating that now. I entirely understand what my hon. Friend says. If we can do it, we will do it, but it has to be a viable proposal.
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: Now that one quarter of the British Army is being deployed for possible action in Iraq, and given the obvious levels of anxiety among the British public about all these developments, may I put again to the Prime Minister the issue that I raised with him here a fortnight ago: are there now circumstances under which the British Government would not support United States-led unilateral action against Iraq?
  The Prime Minister: I am afraid that I shall have to repeat what I said to the right hon. Gentleman, just as he has repeated the question. It is better to state the circumstances in which we would support military action. We would support it in the circumstances of a second United Nations resolution and, as I have consistently outlined, when it was clear that there was a breach by Saddam and an unreasonable blocking of the Security Council resolution.
  Mr. Kennedy: People again will note that reply. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the comments made by President Bush yesterday will not help to reduce British public anxiety? If next Monday in New York the weapons inspectorate says that it requires

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  more time, will the Prime Minister guarantee that he will publicly support it being given the time it believes it needs to carry out the inspections?
  The Prime Minister: Again, I have always made it clear—I did so most recently yesterday—that it is important that the weapons inspectors can do their job and have the time to do it, but let us be clear about their job. It is not to play an elaborate game of hide and seek with Saddam, whereby they try to find the weapons and he tries to hide them. His duty comprises two parts: to allow the inspectors access to any part of Iraq and the sites and to co-operate by telling the truth about the weapons that he has and working with the inspectors to destroy them.
  On the remarks by President Bush, we all accept that the inspectors would not be back in Iraq doing their work unless the United States, the United Kingdom and others had taken a tough and insistent position.
  Ann Clwyd: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he supports bringing to justice those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide? Two and a half years after the Attorney-General received evidence that would enable the Government to indict leading members of the Iraqi regime, including Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz and Ali Hassan al-Majeed, why is Ali Hassan al-Majeed in Syria? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if we had issued an arrest warrant—we could have done that on the evidence that the Attorney-General was given—Ali Hassan al-Majeed, a man responsible for killing 100,000 Kurds, could now be arrested?
  The Prime Minister: I am not entirely sure of the answer to my hon. Friend's last point, but I shall ascertain the correct legal position. I am sympathetic to her point about the advantages of making it clear that a judicial process is taking place at the same time as the political, diplomatic and military processes. She knows that the issue is complicated because it has to go through the Attorney-General and the police. She also knows, because we have discussed the matter on many occasions, that they are considering it. I hope that I can come back to her with their conclusions shortly.
  Dr. Andrew Murrison: Given that Ministry of Defence anthrax vaccine was found this week on a beach in Dorset, what assessment has the Prime Minister made of the uptake of the Government's vaccination programme among our troops who are being deployed to the Gulf, especially, under the circumstances, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines?
  The Prime Minister: I am not sure of the exact uptake, but sufficient quantities have been made available. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman and inform him of the exact take-up.
  David Cairns: Despite strong progress in recent years, does my right hon. Friend agree that people with disabilities continue to face unacceptable discrimination, especially in the workplace? As the Government are committed to further legislation, will he assure us that we will close
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  existing loopholes to ensure that discrimination is eliminated once and for all for those who currently suffer it?
  The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, we are preparing a draft disability Bill. We intend to take forward measures in respect of, for example, work in the public sector and transport. My hon. Friend also knows that, as a result of the Chancellor's measures, disability tax credits will help disabled people get off benefit and into work. Those measures probably form the biggest package in favour of disabled rights and access to work that any Government have introduced.
  Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) said:
  "No one is running the immigration department … the Minister has not got a handle on it. It is out to lunch."
  Does the Prime Minister agree?
  The Prime Minister: Let me make it clear that there has been inadequate and wrong use of the consultation procedures. I entirely understand the concern of my hon. Friend and his constituents. That is why the Minister responsible has tackled the issue.
  Mr. Duncan Smith: So the Prime Minister agrees with his hon. Friend. On Sunday, the Home Office announced its new policy of taking over country house hotels. On Monday, it was reversed. On Tuesday, Ministers blamed officials. It seems like another week in which the lunatics took over the Government's asylum policy. In the midst of the shambles, the Home Secretary is incapable of deporting people who may pose a threat to the country. Since the Prime Minister says that an attack is inevitable, is it not essential that we are able to deport such people?
  The Prime Minister: As a result of the anti-terrorism legislation that we introduced post-11 September, we are able for the first time to remand in detention without trial people whom we suspect of being terrorists. That is the purpose of the raids and arrests that have taken place over the past few weeks. However, I make it clear to the right hon. Gentleman that, when we introduced those measures in Parliament, Conservative peers and Conservative Front Benchers told us that they were illiberal and contrary to civil liberties. We had to fight to get the measures through the House.
  Mr. Duncan Smith: The Prime Minister knows very well that we support the measures to do with detention. We also support asylum for genuine refugees, but every country should have the right to determine whether certain people can live within its borders. It is about defending our own human rights. It is about deportation. That is the key. How can the Prime Minister be so complacent when we discover that Taliban fighters who only a few months ago were trying to kill British soldiers are now living in Britain?

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  Countries around the world have the right to say no to those who want to destroy their freedoms and way of life. Why cannot Britain do so?
  The Prime Minister: Britain can and should. That is why we introduced the measures in the terrorism legislation post-11 September. It was also the reason for the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. However, I point out to the right hon. Gentleman again that, when we introduced measures providing that any asylum seeker convicted of a crime should be deported, they were weakened by Conservative amendments that said the penalty for such a crime should be at least 10 years.
  I shall set out exactly what the Government are doing about a problem that I entirely agree is serious and needs tackling. Under legislation that this Government introduced, we are withdrawing support from asylum seekers who do not claim early. We have put juxtaposed controls across all the ports. For the first time, we have British immigration officers on French soil making sure that unlawful asylum seekers cannot use that route. We have withdrawn the exceptional leave to remain on a routine basis. We are also trying to introduce accommodation centres in different parts of the country so that we can make sure that claims are processed quickly.
  It is wrong for the Conservative party to say that asylum is a big problem, and call on the Government to deal with it, and then to oppose the very measures that we introduce.
  Denzil Davies: On Iraq, is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us who do not regard the US as the great Satan remain concerned about some of the statements coming out of Washington that seem to seek justification for military intervention that is way outside the ambit of UN resolution 1441? Will he therefore assure the House that, if the inspectors report that Iraq has not failed to observe the obligations of that resolution, the Government will not go to war?
  The Prime Minister: The whole basis of our position is that resolution 1441 has to be upheld. That is precisely why I have said that the inspectors must have the ability to do their job. However, I return to a point that I have made before and to which President Bush alluded yesterday. We cannot go back to the situation that existed in the 1990s, when the inspectors were in Iraq for years and Saddam was effectively concealing what he was doing. Saddam's duty is to co-operate fully with the inspections regime, which is not a detective agency: it is supposed to be given the full details of what is in Iraq's programme and then be able to inspect and close the programme down. The duty to co-operate is not only about access to sites, but about being open and honest. Obviously, we will pay full attention to what the inspectors say when they report back.
  Norman Baker: I am sure that the Prime Minister will agree that everything possible must be done to ensure the safety and security of British people, especially at this difficult time. Why, therefore, do the Government allow passenger ferries to carry high-level and intermediate-level radioactive material, as his Transport Minister confirmed in a recent
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  parliamentary answer? Is not that a foolish risk to take with public health and the environment, especially at this time? Will he stop the practice now?
  The Prime Minister: I am sure that any material will be carried under the strictest British national rules and European and international rules. The premise of the hon. Gentleman's question is therefore almost certainly wrong.
  Mr. Andrew Dismore: My right hon. Friend will know that much of the focus in respect of drug crime has been on the inner cities, but drug crime is a big problem in the suburbs and the rest of the country too. What is being done to deal with drug crime in outer-London constituencies such as mine?
  The Prime Minister: We are doing two things: first, we are ensuring that people who need drug treatment are given it; and, secondly, we are making it clear that people who are on drugs and are committing criminal offences should not be granted bail. We must ensure that the courts know full well that persistent offenders in particular who are on drugs should be given treatment or should not be put back on the street.
  Mr. Alistair Carmichael: Yesterday, the Malakoff and Moore boatyard in Shetland announced that it would be going into receivership, threatening almost 200 jobs in my constituency—just the first casualties of last month's disgraceful Fisheries Council. When the Prime Minister meets fishing leaders next week, will he be able to offer fishing-dependent communities such as Shetland new money from the Treasury, or will it just be tea and sympathy?
  The Prime Minister: As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, we have already offered packages of assistance, and will carry on doing so, for anyone affected by the decision. I understand entirely why he and his constituents will be angry about a decision that affects their livelihood, but he will know two other things. First, the original European Union proposals were changed very significantly from an 80 per cent. reduction down to 45 per cent. Secondly, there is no way in which we can responsibly say that this is not a serious issue to do with the level of fishing stocks. Where jobs are lost, however—this is why I say to the hon. Gentleman that we will provide the necessary assistance for people—we must ensure that people are given the proper protection and ability to find new jobs.
  Clive Efford: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to concerns about the rising number of attacks on bus drivers in London? A bus service was withdrawn for 10 days from an estate in my constituency following the stabbing of a driver in the hand. Children are committing these crimes. I call on my right hon. Friend to join me in asking parents to exert more control over their children, particularly when they are out in the community. [Interruption.] Moreover, does my right hon. Friend accept that too many people who are involved in these crimes are getting away with them by intimidating and threatening witnesses? Does he accept that the police and local

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  authorities need more powers to deal with such individuals, particularly the minority of parents who will not take any action to protect the community from the activities of their children?
  The Prime Minister: Despite the reaction of Opposition Members, the point that my hon. Friend makes is serious and right, which is precisely why the Criminal Justice Bill, which will offer witnesses better protection, and the antisocial behaviour orders that we propose in the antisocial behaviour Bill will make a difference. As a result of the introduction of the measures that we discussed earlier, we have more police on the beat and we are looking to see how we get more police, particularly in relation to transport in London.
  Mr. Archie Norman: Will the Prime Minister undertake to look again at funding for the hospice movement in the United Kingdom? Although the Government have said that they are committed to providing greater palliative care for all who need it, the reality is that statutory funding for adult hospices in the UK has declined from 33 per cent. to 28 per cent. of their needs in the last five years, and in my local hospice in the Weald it is only 10 per cent., with the absurd result that, while the local hospital is absolutely full, there are empty beds in the hospice, where, arguably, better quality care can be provided, and definitely at a much lower cost to the taxpayer.
  The Prime Minister: On the latter point, it surely must be the case that local health trusts could purchase places in the private sector since they are able to do so, but I do not know enough about the facts of the hon. Gentleman's individual case. He makes a fair point about the hospice movement. Obviously, there is a limit on the amount of public resources and public investment that we can put in, but I am aware, from representations that I have received myself, not just of the good work that hospices do but of the role that they can play in giving palliative care, and it is something that we are looking at. I simply tell the hon. Gentleman that there will be a limit to the amount of money that we can put in.
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell: Will the Prime Minister tell the House and the country how much the build-up to the war in Iraq is costing the British taxpayer? Does he think that it is prudent that we are spending that kind of money when the Germans and French are spending billions of euros on the infrastructure of their countries?
  The Prime Minister: I think we will probably spend more billions on our health and education services over the next few years than either the French or the Germans, as a result of the strong economy and the investments that we are making.
  As for Iraq, we will spend what is necessary to ensure that the threat to the security of the world posed by weapons of mass destruction is dealt with. We have set out a process for doing that, but if we do not deal with the threat of Saddam Hussein, if we allow him to develop weapons of mass destruction and if, as he has done many times before, he threatens his own
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  neighbours, do we not think that we will also be sucked into a conflict, but a far worse and more expensive one this time?
  Mr. Robert Syms: Is the Prime Minister aware that 4,300 haemophiliacs have contracted hepatitis C as a result of NHS blood products? Many hundreds have died, yet each year the Government reject calls for help. Would the Prime Minister be willing to see a delegation from the all-party group to discuss whether we can give the victims and their families further help?
  The Prime Minister: I am always willing to see delegations of Members of Parliament, particularly cross-party delegations, who wish to raise specific issues; but I would have to see this delegation without making any commitment to additional resources. As I told the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman), we have to balance these things carefully.
  Roger Casale: My right hon. Friend knows of the case of my constituent Mary Powell, who, like many parents of children with special educational needs throughout the country, faces serious difficulties in arranging safe transport between home and school for her child. He will share my concern about evidence that has come to light in Merton and elsewhere that when minicabs are involved, neither the drivers nor the escorts who go with the children are being properly vetted by the police. Will he continue to do all he can to strengthen and enforce child protection regulations, so that we have mechanisms to root out poor practice wherever we find it?
  The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right to say that there are anxieties, but that is precisely why the Criminal Records Bureau has had to do the work it has done. The turnaround for checking has been speeded up dramatically, but it is important for those transporting children with special educational needs in particulr, to be subject to the right checks.
  I know that my hon. Friend is meeting people in the near future to discuss the problem. It is important for us to ensure that the checks are carried out, and carried out as quickly as possible, so that transport for those children can be provided.
  Mr. Peter Lilley: I welcome the Prime Minister's decision to reinstate the measures that I introduced to remove the right to benefits from those who enter this country as business men, tourists or students, but subsequently claim asylum. Does he acknowledge that his mistake in endorsing the removal of the changes I made and the reinstatement of those benefits five years ago contributed to a doubling of the number of asylum seekers? Will he tell us how many extra economic migrants the country has had to admit and pay for as a result of five mistaken years?
  The Prime Minister: I do not accept what the right hon. Gentleman says. I would also point out that it is not just the measures on benefit that are making a difference now; it is also the withdrawal of exceptional leave to remain, it is also the juxtaposed controls, and it

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  is also the fact that 70 per cent. of asylum claims are now decided within two months. When we took office—particularly as the right hon. Gentleman's party was prepared to cut the number of immigration officers—claims were taking 12 months to decide. All those things are making a difference.
  Paddy Tipping: Is the Prime Minister aware of the financial difficulties currently faced by CISWO, the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation? Given his direct knowledge of the organisation's work in coalfield communities and with ex-miners and their families, will he use his influence to ensure that the meeting that trustees are seeking with Ministers takes place at an early date?
  The Prime Minister: I can certainly arrange for the meeting to take place at an early date, but I would not be able to do so with any conviction that funds in addition to the funds that are already there could be provided.
  Mr. Mark Hoban: Can the Prime Minister say why gun crime has increased by 90 per cent. since he took office?
  The Prime Minister: It has increased, for reasons that are clear, not just in this country but in other countries. In certain areas of the country, there is a culture of gun crime that must be suppressed. Let me point out two
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  things to the hon. Gentleman. First, overall, crime is down, not up, under this Government, whereas it doubled under the Conservatives. Secondly, I hope that when we introduce measures to impose a mandatory five-year sentence for the illegal possession of a firearm, Conservatives will accept and support them, contrary to the position that they have adopted so far; otherwise, there is no use the hon. Gentleman's saying that there is a problem, but refusing to accept the solution to deal with it.
  Mr. Peter Pike: If the weapons inspectors find no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and want more time to look, and if my right hon. Friend is agreeable to giving more time but President Bush is not, who will make the final decision? If they go to bomb, where will they bomb if they do not know where the weapons of mass destruction are?
  The Prime Minister: I have to say to my hon. Friend that it is not just a question of the inspectors finding the weapons; it is a question of the duty of co-operation: Saddam has to make sure that any weapons that he has are honestly exposed and shut down by the weapons inspectors. That is how the weapons inspection regime is supposed to work. If the inspectors find the facts in respect of a breach of resolution 1441, it goes back before the Security Council, which should then take the necessary measures. But it is not just about finding the weapons; it is also about making sure that there is full co-operation with the inspections regime.

Higher Education
12.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Charles Clarke): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House this afternoon the Government's proposals for the future of higher education in England. I want to begin by thanking my colleague the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Higher Education and my officials at the Department for the excellent work they have done in preparing the White Paper.
I start by stating that our universities are a great success story. Their record on research, on provision of higher education opportunities for hundreds of thousands of young people and on linking university research to economic achievement is outstanding. That record of achievement is acknowledged in a financial settlement for the next three years, which is better than any in recent decades and which I announce today in my letter to the Higher Education Funding Council for England, a copy of which I am placing in the Library.
I want to express my appreciation to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for an excellent settlement that provides an average 6 per cent. a year increase in real-terms funding over the period of the settlement. I know that the settlement represents his personal commitment to this vital sector of the economy. Under the settlement, every part of the university world will be able to plan for the next three years in confidence, on the basis of a secure future funding stream that is substantial and generous.
However, as we would all acknowledge, our universities need to be able to generate still more resources, irrespective of whether they come from the state, individual students, alumni or employers. I shall address those points later on, but it is a central point of the White Paper to acknowledge that students' share of the overall costs of university education will increase. That said, however, the House needs to understand, as our universities do, that they exist in an increasingly dynamic and an increasingly competitive world.
In our White Paper, we set out the nature of that dynamism and the nature of the competitive challenges that we face. First, our universities have to make better progress in harnessing our knowledge to the process of creating wealth. Secondly, they have to extend the opportunities of higher education to all our population, irrespective of personal and economic background. The White Paper attempts to fulfil both ambitions.
Despite the attractions of inaction, which have perhaps too often led past Governments to avoid facing up to important challenges, the House needs to acknowledge that coasting along, basking in previous successes and shirking the need for reform offers no robust future for our universities. We need to acknowledge that a university system that caters for 43 per cent. of the age group now will be intrinsically different from one that provided for 20 per cent. of the age group as recently as 1990—only 13 years ago.
We need to face up to the fact that international competition from world-class universities in the United States and the growing competition from institutions in China and India changes the terms of trade for the
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United Kingdom's great, historic universities and that the world of single employment from 16 or 18 to 60 or 65 is gone for ever. Our universities have the principal responsibility for helping our working population adjust to the future.
In this increasingly competitive economic world, knowledge is all-powerful, and so effective working relationships between universities and both public and private sectors are increasingly significant.
In short, in a world of accelerating change, we all need to understand that our society's principal weapon in ensuring that we master change, rather than surrendering to it, is our education system, and principally our universities.
Mr. Desmond Swayne: Get on with it!
Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Swayne, this is the second time this week that I have had to call you to order. I really think you need a dark room to sit in and wait until the feeling has gone away. You must behave yourself. I called on the Minister to give this statement. He is giving a statement to the House, and you will not shout in this Chamber.
Mr. Clarke: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As a result of this process of change, our universities have to identify more clearly than they do now the way in which they address the great missions on the basis of which they were created: the missions of research, knowledge transfer and, perhaps most important of all, teaching.
Those are the central themes of the White Paper. We start from the basis that over the years the emphasis on research has, for understandable reasons, been at the expense of teaching and knowledge transfer.
On research, we argue that we need still more focus on world-class research. We state that the funding regime should encourage research collaboration, should promote research concentration and should strengthen the highest world-class research in the country. The White Paper sets out how our research funding regime will meet those aspirations.
It means giving extra resources to our very best research departments and world-class universities as well as ensuring that new research will emerge and flourish. Although I have decided not to seek to remove research-degree awarding status from some universities, it does mean that research evaluations will be increasingly rigorous. And we will create a UK-wide Arts and Humanities Research Council to ensure that funding for arts and humanities is given the status that it deserves.
For knowledge transfer this approach means an increasingly close relationship between my Department and the Department of Trade and Industry. Both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and I know that we cannot address innovation without addressing skills, and that we cannot address enterprise without improving the relationship between universities and business. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer established Richard Lambert's review of the university-business

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relationship, and that is why the White Paper commits the Government to setting up a network of knowledge exchanges, primarily focused in universities which are not research-intensive, to develop this relationship.
We have to crack the real British disease—which is that our world-class intellectual research is exploited by competitors from other countries but not ourselves—and we have to make sure that we lead the process of knowledge transfer from research to business both nationally and regionally. A far closer relationship between universities, the regional development agencies and the new sector skills councils is necessary, and the White Paper sets out ways in which this can be achieved.
But the main function of universities must be what it always should have been—high-quality teaching. Today I am pleased to announce that the Government are giving a far stronger focus to teaching, a focus that is reflected in a significant stream of resources within the funding settlement.
We will publish an annual comprehensive student survey of university teaching standards, overseen by HEFCE and the National Union of Students. We will establish new national professional teaching standards, establish new centres of teaching excellence and target pay resources to those universities which reward high-quality teaching. And in addition we will recognise excellent teaching as a university mission in its own right by making the award of university title dependent on undergraduate teaching and degree awarding powers only.
Let there be no mistake: all universities will in future be judged by their teaching achievement as much as by their research attainment. The days of great research accompanied by shoddy teaching are gone.
So it is research, knowledge transfer and teaching which are our universities' historic missions.
Every single university has to make a frank assessment—and publicise it—of its own strengths in addressing each of these missions. Drift will not be acceptable.
The real truth is—and let us acknowledge it—that some universities are strong in research, others in teaching and still others in knowledge transfer, and some in two or all three. Let us not pretend that all universities are somehow the same. Let us tell the truth to the people of this country who pay for universities and want their children to benefit from them. We already have a multi-tiered university system.
On the basis of that assessment, we need to decide what proportion of the age group we wish to encourage into university education. I want to confirm today that the Government's target remains, as we set out in the Department's public service agreement published in 2000 and reaffirmed in last summer's spending review settlement, to increase participation in higher education towards 50 per cent. of those aged 18 to 30 by the end of the decade.
That target is essential because the country's economic future depends on that level of education and training. We live in an increasingly competitive world, within the European Union and outside. I do not understand those who claim to speak in the national interest but do not acknowledge the importance of this target.
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However, such a level of participation requires us to re-examine the nature and range of degree courses that we offer. We believe that the bulk of the increase in degree student numbers, from its current proportion of 43 per cent. of the cohort, should come from two-year vocational foundation degree courses—a major contribution to the skills and productivity agenda of this country. The further education colleges, which now provide 11 per cent. of this country's higher education, have a major contribution to make here.
I am pleased to tell the House that a range of employers including, in the public sector, my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Health and for the Home Department, as well as myself, are ready to make such a commitment in principle as employers. I also believe that major private sector employers will welcome and participate in this initiative.
The guts of my proposals today come in the field of access, however. The social class gap among those entering higher education is a national disgrace. Thirty years ago students received full grants and there were no tuition fees. Despite that, students from middle-class backgrounds were three times more likely to go to university than those from poorer backgrounds. During the past 30 years the numbers going to university have more than trebled, but the gulf in access has remained the same.
That vicious statistic has to be reversed. We should in truth acknowledge that that is a long and difficult process, but the elements are clear. We have to improve dramatically the quality of school and college level education in our most disadvantaged areas. That is the centre of the strategy for 14-to-19 education announced by my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards yesterday. We have to transform university access and admissions criteria so that universities make a genuine and balanced assessment of the potential of every candidate.
We have to ensure that all universities address the access issue. I therefore propose to establish an access regulator, working with HEFCE, who will ensure that any university that wants to increase its tuition fee has rigorous admissions procedures, provides bursaries and other financial support and works directly with schools in every part of the country to promote the aspiration of a university education. The regulation will be tough and I believe that most universities will welcome this initiative.
We have to create a diverse university sector that welcomes applicants from all parts of the community, by a range of different routes. That is one of the arguments for a sensitive fees regime, and that is why we are raising the "postcode premium", which gives extra money to universities that teach and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Finally, we have to create a financial regime that encourages access, and that brings me to the final chapter of my White Paper, which deals with student finance. First, we should face up to the truth that genuine university freedom comes through building endowment, rather than any other device. Universities in this country need to build up endowments. There are already substantial incentives for both individuals and corporate bodies to donate to universities, but they are

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not sufficiently understood and used. The White Paper sets out how, as a matter of priority, we will promote this for graduates, institutions and Government.
Promoting endowments is the right long-term strategy, but it will inevitably take many years to build up substantial funds. The spending settlement addresses the short-term needs but universities must have funding streams that are sustained. The Government will remain the major funder of higher education, but the history of the past 50 years or more, under Governments of all colours, shows the problems when universities have to compete with other priorities, from nursery schools to health. If they have to rely solely or mainly on public sector resources, the result is pressure on staff-student ratios, capital investment and innovation. We cannot risk slipping into that sort of decline.
As countries throughout the world have discovered, requiring students to contribute to the cost of their education is the only realistic alternative. I believe, in addition, that that has the merit of justice. On average, graduates earn 50 per cent. more than non-graduates during their lifetime. It is only fair for students to make some contribution to the costs of the education that gives them significant economic benefits. The alternative funder, the general taxpayer, is entitled to ask in comparison what financial support they have received from the Government to assist their personal educational ambitions. That is why the White Paper that I am presenting follows this approach.
First, my student finance proposals allow universities to vary their fees between £0 and £3,000 a year from September 2006 onwards. I remind colleagues that the figures I propose are significantly lower than some of the early suggestions. The £3,000 cap will be in place for the whole of the next Parliament, rising only in line with inflation. Only those universities that have satisfied the access regulator will be allowed to increase their fee.
Secondly, we will restore a grant for students from the poorest backgrounds. From September 2004, students whose families earn under £10,000 will receive a £1,000 grant, with a proportion of that paid up to family income of £20,000. Altogether, 30 per cent. of students will get the full £1,000 grant.
Thirdly, we will abolish from 2006 the requirement for any student or their family to pay a fee before or while they are studying. Deferred fees will be paid after students graduate, through the tax system, linked to a student's earnings and ability to pay. As with the existing student maintenance loan, no interest will be charged on deferred fees. Any sums outstanding will only be adjusted for inflation so students only pay back the real value of their fee and maintenance loan.
Fourthly, we will continue to exempt around 60 per cent. of students from some or all of the first £1,100 of fees, in the same way as we do now.
Fifthly, we will raise from April 2005 the threshold at which graduates start to repay their fees and loans from £10,000 to £15,000. That change delivers a saving of £450 per year of the minimum payment, which will particularly help graduates when their earnings are lower in the early part of their lives. Finally, we will review the level of the maintenance loan and operation of the parental means test for loans as part of the next spending review.
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Those student finance proposals will affect different students, potential students and their families in different ways. It remains the case that the British system of student support will be among the most generous in the world. The fact that we are asking individual students to contribute, albeit after they have graduated, does mean that their potential debt is increased, which, without the wider package of reforms that I have introduced, could act as a disincentive. Taken as a whole, however, my student finance package is positive for access to universities and will reinforce the other measures on access to which I referred earlier.
As I said at the outset, the White Paper that I published today represents a massive step forward in equipping our universities to meet the challenges of the future. They will take their rightful place as the dynamo of both economic progress and social justice. We need now to take the necessary action to put these proposals into effect. I commend them to the House.
Mr. Damian Green: I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement—not that it was as necessary as usual, as many of us have followed with fascination the leaks and counter-leaks of the rows within the Cabinet that have led to today's half-baked compromise.
It was a privilege and a pleasure to be quoted by the Prime Minister at Prime Minister's Question Time. It is only fair that I return the favour by pointing out what members of the Cabinet have said about the policy that the Secretary of State has just announced. The Chancellor described top-up fees as a "ridiculous idea". The Secretary of State for International Development said:
"it's a really bad idea; I'm against it".
Members may regard those as the usual suspects. Most surprising is the Education Secretary, who said:
"on top-up fees, I am generally anti".
So the right hon. Gentleman is opposed to his own policy as announced today. In addition, of course, 135 Labour Members have signed the early-day motion opposing top-up fees, and I dare say that we will hear from some of them in a few moments.
It is important to put the statement in context. In 1997, Labour promised that there would be no tuition fees. Subsequently, they introduced tuition fees. In 2001, they promised that there would be no top-up fees. Today, they are introducing top-up fees. One fact is clear from today's statement: no parent and no student will ever again trust any Labour promise on education.
The statement must be measured against three criteria. First, is it fair to all students? Secondly, does it help universities remain strong independent institutions? Thirdly, will it spread opportunity? On all three counts, it is sadly lacking.
Let us take fairness first. The Secretary of State has brought back grants, as the Dearing committee recommended back in 1997 shortly before the Government abolished them, and as we have been calling on Ministers to do ever since. May I clear up one of the Secretary of State's seemingly extraordinary factual claims? He says that grants will be available at the full £1,000 for those whose family income is below £10,000 and that 30 per cent. of students will receive

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those full grants. That seems to be a very large claim. If it is true, it suggests that all his worries about access are irrelevant. He cannot face both ways on that one.
Will the Secretary of State also tell the House what estimate he has made of the effect of the higher fees that he is announcing today on families whose income comes in just above the threshold for grant? He will be aware that a large overhang of debt on families not used to dealing with it may well act as a deterrent to people applying for university. We heard nothing in his statement that would comfort that type of relatively poor family, so will he enlighten us further?
Can the Secretary of State also confirm that the introduction of a regulator to tell universities who they can admit as students is a uniquely interfering and centralising measure that will be condemned by everyone who cares about academic freedom and independence? Will he admit that whether a student gains a particular place will no longer depend just on exam results and academic potential, but on whether the student fits the Government's prejudices on social engineering? Unlike, I suspect, other Members in the House, I have had the advantage of advance sight of the White Paper, which says that the measures that the Government will consider when deciding whether students are fit to qualify under the access regulator will include
"their parents' level of education".
We now know that 18-year-olds will in future be condemned for the sins of their fathers and mothers in going to university. What an absurd and perverse message to send to young people. The way to improve access to university for young people from poor families is to improve the schools that they go to, not to rig the admission system.
So the Secretary of State's proposals are unfair. However, they also damage the independence of universities. If they are not able to choose students on purely academic grounds, their integrity is compromised. Does the right honourable Gentleman realise how serious that is for the future reputation around the world of British universities? I am sure that they will welcome the extra research money but, if the effect of his announcement is to drive talented students away from the British system altogether to other countries that consider only academic ability and potential, that will handicap those universities that want to compete at a world-class level. Does he recognise what a disaster he may be provoking in our world-class universities? If he does not, why has he taken to insulting them? The most arresting phrase in his rather long statement was:
"The days of great research accompanied by shoddy teaching are gone."
Would he like to name the great institutions that have gone in for great research and shoddy teaching or, as is the habit of members of the Cabinet, is he just throwing insults around willy-nilly to disguise the inadequacies of the Government's policy?
Elsewhere in the university sector, the Secretary of State will be aware of the concerns of vice-chancellors. One vice-chancellor from Derby said on Radio 4 this morning that today's announcement might help the rich
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universities get a bit richer, but would leave the rest to get poorer. What does the Secretary of State say to vice-chancellors of those universities which often do an excellent job for their locality and which will not be able to take advantage of the higher fees now on offer, but which will still have to bear the extra costs of the Government's new regulatory burdens with which the White Paper is filled?
Can the Secretary of State further enlighten us about the endowments? I was fascinated to hear him agree that endowments are the best way forward, and it is only fair that he is ditching his policy of the last election. He is betraying that promise, but he is trying surreptitiously to adopt our policy from the last election. I have no problems with that. However, I have read the White Paper and, underneath all these fine words, as far as I can see, all he will do to promote endowments is set up a taskforce. I do not think that that will be up to the job.
On the third key issue of whether this statement promotes opportunity for all, the Government fall into their usual failing. They think that the way to help people is to set a target, regulate everyone to death in pursuit of that target, fiddle the figures until the target is in sight and then declare success before scuttling away. In this case, the key target is the 50 per cent. access target that no Minister has tried to justify on objective grounds. It was fascinating to hear the Secretary of State today trying quietly to wriggle away from it by talking about "moving towards" the target. Given the Prime Minister's expostulations of just half an hour ago, it is a bit rich for the Secretary of State to make it clear that this is no longer quite the target that it might have been.
Why does the Secretary of State not take the chance to drop an arbitrary target that downgrades most vocational qualifications, wastes huge sums of money that could be better spent filling the funding gap that the statement is meant to address and entices students on to unnecessary courses that even the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Higher Education has now taken to describing as mickey-mouse courses. Why has the statement made no attempt to address this most fundamental error of university policy under the right honourable Gentleman's predecessors?
The Secretary of State had the chance today to reassure students and parents, to help universities become stronger and more independent and to make a genuine attempt to spread opportunity. The Cabinet splits on this issue have resulted in a messy, botched compromise that will satisfy no one. The right hon. Gentleman has missed his chance, and the real victims will be students, parents and the universities, all of whom have been misled and sadly let down by the Government.
Mr. Clarke: I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman's attack did not refer to his own policies. As far as we can establish, he has only two. He has made it clear that he wants to stop expansion of university education and abandon the 50 per cent. target, and he has made it clear again today that he opposes our proposals to boost access for poorer students and for those from less-advantaged homes. His approach and

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that of his party is a throwback to his party's policies of more than 50 years ago. It will be rejected both by the whole university—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I want the Secretary of State to reply to the questions.
Mr. Clarke: I start with the hon. Gentleman's third point on the spreading of opportunities. His policies make it clear that he is against that, but let me respond—I will answer directly from the White Paper—to his question about the target.
The hon. Gentleman asked why we are committed to 50 per cent. of the population going into higher education. We are committed to that, because every study of any successful economy tells us that that is the way to go. Page 60 of the White Paper sets out the countries that have committed to that target. The figure for Finland is 71 per cent. now; for New Zealand, it is 70 per cent. now; for Sweden, 67 per cent. now; for Poland, 62 per cent. now; for Australia, it is 59 per cent.; for Norway, it is 59 per cent; and so on. If we want our country to compete in the world economic market, we will compete on the basis of the skills and talents of our people. That is why the 50 per cent. target is vitally important.
The hon. Gentleman asked what we were doing for people just above the £20,000 level of family income. The major thing that we are doing is remitting fees up to a family income of £30,000 so that the fees will not have to be paid. Secondly, we are putting off the payment from upfront to deferred. That is significant, because families who live on an income of £40,000 to £50,000, which is a lot in some parts of the country but not so much in some parts of London and the south-east, now have to find £2,000 a year to put each child through university—£1,000 for the maintenance loan and £1,000 for the fee. They will now have to find only £1,000 a year for that; we are halving the amount that we asking parents to pay to ensure that their child can go to university. That is a significant move, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not taken the trouble to welcome it.
On the access regulator, the point that I want to emphasise above all is that quality and merit are the central aspect of everything that we do. The only people who will be admitted to university are those who have the merit and the ability to benefit. However, the serious flaw in the hon. Gentleman's argument is that he refuses to acknowledge that literally hundreds of thousands of young people on estates up and down the country and from poor backgrounds have that quality and merit. They need to be able to get places in university. That is why we have established a tough access regime. The hon. Gentleman and his party do not care about those people.
I think that I have dealt with the points raised, but I will be happy to deal with any further points in writing.
Mr. Phil Willis: I thank the Secretary of State for providing an advance copy of the statement and the White Paper. We recognise the difficulty of reconciling competing priorities. We also recognise that the problem was caused by gross underfunding under the previous Government. However, this Government have not solved the problem. Indeed, they have added to it.
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The Secretary of State did not mention Wales. What plans does he have to transfer the proposals on student funding to the Welsh Assembly so that it can take responsibility for them, as is the case with the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly?
We recognise that there are some positive aspects to the White Paper. There is a need to re-engineer higher education. Those who say that we can carry on delivering a 1960s model in the 21st century are fundamentally wrong. We accept that there needs to be a greater focus and mission within universities. We also accept the need to concentrate quality research in fewer university departments and to increase the commitment to teaching. We are especially pleased that the Secretary of State recognises the work in further education colleges and their vital role in expanding the foundation degree base, in particular for work-based degrees. So those are the positives. But Labour has been in government for six years. It recognised the problems in higher education following the Dearing report and has had 15 months to plan this announcement. Despite that, the funding announcement is a shambles and a betrayal.
The Secretary of State mentioned the socio-economic gap between poorer and wealthier students. Although that has widened in the past 30 years, the most significant increase has taken place in the past four years, since the introduction of tuition fees. His Department's research says that the fear of debt is turning non-traditional students away from university. In light of that, can he explain why increasing that debt threefold will improve things? Why will the prospect of repaying a student debt at the rate of £60 a month for the rest of a student's life be such a potent lure? Why will poor students get £32 to stay on in a sixth form but only £20 a week when they go to university? That is inconsistent.
Has the Secretary of State recalculated the so-called graduate premium on the basis of 50 per cent. of young people going to university rather than the traditional figure? Has he assessed the impact of his policy on women? There is a 58 per cent. differential between male and female graduate earnings. How can the right honourable Gentleman reconcile his policy when he knows that the debt burden will fall most heavily on women, who will be unable to repay the major debts that they incur during their time at university?
We welcome some students getting golden handcuffs when they leave to go into the public sector, but who will pick up the bill? Will schools have to pay the fee remission for teachers? Will hospitals have to pay it for nurses? Will police authorities have to pay it for police officers? Given that one in four workers work for the Government, will they also be entitled to golden handcuffs?
The most damaging impact of the funding proposals will be felt by our universities. The creation of the new university tsar—"Oftoff"—may be a sop to the Chancellor because he threw his toys out of the pram, but it will do nothing to help students. All it will do is create a massive bureaucracy for our universities. Why cannot the Higher Education Funding Council do the job? It gives the money to the universities. Surely it is possible for it to be responsible for that function. Is there not a strange irony in the fact that the imposition of the tsar is a classic lever of social engineering, yet the

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Secretary of State is proposing to create a two-tier university system that is the antithesis of what he is trying to achieve?
Does the Secretary of State accept that only by charging maximum top-up fees will many universities be able to claim their world-class status? Does he also accept that those universities that do not charge the top-up fees will fall into the category of second-class universities in a two-tier system? Does he not recognise, too, that students will choose their university course not on the basis of what is best for them according to their ability, but on the basis of what they can afford?
Someone said that the White Paper is a defining moment for higher education. It is also a defining moment for the Labour Government. If they push through the proposals, they will never be able to look students in the face again because they will be the first Government to say to the poorest students in the land, "You can only go to university if you run up a debt."
Mr. Clarke: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman referring to the fact that we are trying to reconcile competing priorities. I also appreciate his support for the need to re-engineer higher education and to focus quality research, and I am grateful for what he said about other aspects of further education. I appreciate his considered response.
I have discussed with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and the First Minister and Education Minister in Wales the possibility of devolving student finance to Wales. It is a complex and difficult matter. No reference is made to it in the White Paper because we want those discussions to continue. There are serious pros and cons to that approach and we need to work those through.
On the general issues, it is important to acknowledge that fear of debt is a significant factor. I also hope, however, that the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to acknowledge that the removal of the upfront fee, the donations and the passage of resources in the form of grant, fee remission and so on are serious considerations on the other side of the fear of debt. Any debt that a student might incur will be offset by remission of fees, which will apply to 40 per cent. of the population; by grant, which applies to 30 per cent. of the population; by parental contribution; by working while at college; and by university bursaries. In addition, many universities will charge less. The honourable Gentleman should take that significant consideration into account when he examines the range of policies.
I also hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that a zero rate of real interest payment will make a significant difference both to the overall burden and to the important issue of access of women to university. I appreciate his point on that and there are serious concerns, but those would be worse if a real interest rate were applied.
Fear of debt is an issue, but if we are to provide greater independence at the age of 18, it means that the parent will no longer pay the £1,000 fee upfront. Instead, the student will pay it on a deferred basis later in life. That is fairer. It is true, however, that it also has the direct effect of increasing debt. We estimate the
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average debt to be in the order of £10,000. A survey yesterday suggested £9,000. We expect that to increase on average to £12,000 or £13,000 as a result of deferring the fee and then to £14,000 or £15,000 depending on what assumptions are made about how many students pay top-up fees and so on. It is an increase, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that we have to set it alongside the other measures, although I accept that it is a consideration.
We suggest that the access regulator is located in HEFCE. Deciding, as the hon. Gentleman appears to have done, that forcing students to live at home is the right way forward is the wrong policy for the Liberal Democrats to propose.
Mr. Barry Sheerman: Does my right hon. Friend accept that this is an exceedingly difficult policy area in which to please everyone? Does he agree that there are two priorities? The first is to give universities a deal so that over the next 10 to 20 years they are assured of an income and of their independence. The second is to tackle the national scandal of the lack of opportunities for children from working-class backgrounds to stay on at school and enter higher education. I hope that the Secretary of State agrees that the White Paper will be judged on those two criteria.
The White Paper is complex; the Education and Skills Committee has considered these matters in three separate reports. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Committee will be given time to consider the White Paper in detail, to comment on it and to give the Government the benefit of the experience that we acquired in preparing those reports, and that notice will be taken of those opinions before a final policy is determined?
Mr. Clarke: First, I can say that I have found this policy area difficult. I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that he seeks: there will be time for the Select Committee to consider these questions. I go further and encourage the Committee to consider them, because its reports, to which he referred, have advanced the discussion of these matters, and it deserves to be commended for that.
It is important to reaffirm that the 6 per cent. real-terms annual increase in university budgets is a major commitment to increased resources. As I said in my statement, I thank my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. Now we must use those resources to achieve the second priority that my hon. Friend mentioned, which is ensuring that we change the life chances of our poorest people.
Our polices on education from age 14 to 19 are critical, but universities cannot ignore their responsibilities. To be fair, most do not want to do so, but we need an access regulator based in HEFCE to ensure that none can do so. There will be a sanction: if a university does not sort out its access and admissions policy, it will not be allowed to charge a higher fee. That will be an incentive, and it is a potential benefit of the top-up fee regime.
Mr. Robert Jackson: I congratulate the Secretary of State on a brave and bold policy. Higher education has reached a crossroads, and the

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Government are taking the right turning. They are creating a mixed economy in higher education, and that is very welcome. In the last century, one Cambridge college, Trinity, won more Nobel prizes than did the whole of France. Does the right hon. Gentleman share my hope that the new arrangements will make it possible for that college and others to match that record in this century?
Mr. Clarke: I appreciate the support from the hon. Gentleman, whose experience as a Minister with responsibility for higher education informs what he says. I hope that, in this increasingly competitive world, we will be able to achieve that aim. What characterises the hon. Gentleman's contribution to the debate, both publicly in this place and privately, is a desire to discuss the serious issues about the future of our universities. I say to Conservative Front Benchers and to the Liberal Democrats, who are also trying to have a serious debate, that this is a national issue that has to be resolved, and hard decisions must be made. I believe that our proposals are right, but we must discuss the issues properly on their merits—I am encouraged by the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman)—and that is how I want to proceed.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The House will know that I am obliged to take notice of the Modernisation Committee's recommendation that there be an hour for statements. I therefore need the co-operation of the House, and questions must be brief.
Angela Eagle: I welcome the increase in resources and the fact that my right hon. Friend is wrestling with these difficult issues. Does he recognise, however, that many of us on the Labour Benches are very worried about the concept of variable top-up fees and their possible effects on the practical chances of people from poorer backgrounds aspiring to some of the elite universities?
Mr. Clarke: I entirely accept what my hon. Friend says. I know that she speaks for a number of my colleagues, who have expressed precisely the same concern, and that the motive for their concern is the question of access to the elite universities. My hon. Friend will have in her constituency, as I have in mine, estates and areas where the hope of university education is a long way off. The proposals on financial issues and, even more importantly, on getting universities to interrelate with schools in those areas take us a significant way down the path that we need to take.
I cannot hide from the House my acceptance of the fact that the fear of debt, which my hon. Friend mentioned, is a real issue, as I said in response to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). The question for me is how, and in what context, we deal with that. I am happy to discuss with my honourable Friend and other colleagues the best way of doing that. However, I repeat that finance is not the only issue of access, and we have to consider the matter in the round.
Mr. Michael Fallon: Will the access regulator have the power to enforce on universities an
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admissions procedure that compels them to admit students who they do not consider will benefit from higher education—yes or no?
Mr. Clarke: No.
Mr. David Chaytor: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the defence of the status quo simply serves to reproduce the existing inequalities in our education system, and that is why we have to transform the balance of public investment from higher education to primary, secondary and further education? I congratulate him on his courage in tackling this issue. This is the first Government seriously to propose radical changes to widen access to higher education.
Will the access regulator permit top-up fees only when the university concerned has a proven track record of widening access, rather than on the basis of a statement of intent to do so?
Mr. Clarke: I appreciate my hon. Friend's support, and I pay tribute to his work, on the Select Committee and elsewhere, in the debate on these questions. The role of the access regulator will be to establish that any university that wants to consider raising fees has to have in place a process to widen access. The regulator will also have responsibility for monitoring that process against targets set by the university itself, and it will have the right to state that the university is not doing what it said it would do. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating; there will not be a process of clever bidding, but a real test.
Mr. Laurence Robertson: It has to be right that as many young people as possible are given access to education, but they must also have access to training. Given that a sizeable number of graduates are unemployed or doing jobs that do not require degrees while a number of organisations and public services have a desperate skills shortage, is not the 50 per cent. target for universities wrong? Should we not take a more balanced approach to education and training? In other words, is not training more appropriate for some young people than a university education?
Mr. Clarke: All I can say is that I agree. We proposed two-year vocational degrees precisely to meet those concerns. I know from initial conversations that private business will want to pursue that route, and as I said, my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Health and the Home Secretary also support that policy. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman puts his cogently argued case to his Front-Bench colleagues.
Dr. Ian Gibson: I guarantee my right hon. Friend a warm welcome at Carrow Road on Saturday afternoon. He talks about rigorous research assessment. Will he get rid of the much-maligned research assessment exercise used in universities? When he talks about public and private sector influence on funding, does he mean that both sectors will write off student debt? Many of us would welcome that as a major step forward, especially if it included the private employers who take on our bright young people but do not put much into their initial training.
Mr. Clarke: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's question. I am sure that, at Carrow Road on Saturday,

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we will cheer the team on together and see them defeat the team of the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Higher Education in the FA cup.
We are talking not about getting rid of the research assessment exercise but about changing it. Professor Gareth Roberts has been leading the approach to that. There are problems in the system, which is why changes are proposed, and we intend to implement Professor Roberts's recommendations.
On public and private, there are a number of public and private employers who wish to give money and pay fees for people when they take them on. We do that ourselves for teachers of certain specialist disciplines, and the Department of Health does it for certain medical and other disciplines. I hope and believe that that will be extended, as it has a major positive benefit for public sector management and helps with the renewal of operations. I cannot give a firm assurance, but we intend to go down that route, which will mean that employers will contribute more substantially.
Adam Price: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for an advance copy of the statement. I am a little slow—I did not have the benefit of an elitist university education—so perhaps he could explain in simple terms why, if it is right for the Government to pay tuition fees in full for students from the lowest income background, even with the reintroduction of the maintenance grant, they are not prepared to do so with deferred top-up fees? Is it not the case that the equality of opportunity that the Secretary of State espouses will not be achieved by deepening the fact and perception of postgraduate debt, which is presumably why his Labour colleagues in Wales disagree with him?
Mr. Clarke: I think that I can help the hon. Gentleman, much as it pains me to do so. We will introduce £1,000 maintenance grants in 2004 and they will run through the whole period. The money will still be there for whatever system we use, but we are ready to consider for 2006 onwards, when the top-up fees come in, the possibility of using that money to pay for the top-up fee component. There is a real debate about the best way of using that resource to target students from the poorest backgrounds, but we cannot make a decision until we have a better idea of how many universities will increase their fees.
Mrs. Betty Williams: I heard my right hon. Friend's answer to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr Willis) about the situation in Wales and his explanation for why he made no reference to it in his statement. Is he aware of news which appeared on the Wales section of the BBC website yesterday at 11.15 am, which said:
"The Assembly will be handed complete responsibility for student finance in Wales".
Can my right hon. Friend provide an explanation, and is he prepared to investigate how that appeared on the BBC website?
Mr. Clarke: I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that I have studied every detail on that website, and can give
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her some assurances. None of our Ministers and no member of our Department talked to BBC Wales, nor did the Secretary of State for Wales or his Department, nor did the Welsh Executive or its Ministers. After the usual whizzing round for the leak, which is always extremely entertaining, I am now assured that the three bodies that I talked to—the Welsh Executive, the Wales Office and ourselves—are not the source of the leak. The factual situation is not what has been reported on the BBC Wales website, but what I told the House in response to the question asked by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis).
Alistair Burt: Does the Secretary of State not accept that there is a significant difference between providing incentives to universities to widen access, which is the present situation, and threatening them if they do not? Does he not fear that the lack of trust in universities that the appointment of the regulator implies will fundamentally affect his relationship with universities, particularly when discussing academic freedom in future?
Mr. Clarke: The concerns raised by the hon. Gentleman are important, and I have discussed the issue with many vice-chancellors. Most vice-chancellors accept and understand the situation, and realise that they have to sort out the massive flaw or damage besmirching the university expansion that has taken place since 1990, and want us to help them to do so. I predict that universities will approach the change positively and constructively, but we are determined that those that decide not to do so will be subject to a full range of sanctions prohibiting them from increasing fees.
Mr. Gordon Marsden: My right hon. Friend is to be commended on seeing off the wilder ambitions of some of the Russell group universities to inflate top-up fees and restrict research study and awards. He emphasised that the core of his argument is about access for first-generation students, so does he accept that many will regard £1,000 as a barely adequate starter grant? Will he give an undertaking to the House that that figure is not fixed in stone? Will he review it regularly and lobby his right hon. Friend the Chancellor for extra funding to increase it to a significant premium?
Mr. Clarke: I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. We are conducting an assessment of student maintenance costs to get a true picture of the costs involved. As I said in the White Paper, we will go into the next comprehensive spending review ready to discuss the questions that my hon. Friend has raised.
Dr. Evan Harris: The Prime Minister's old university in my constituency needs two things—better funding to compete in a global market and more applications from people from poorer backgrounds. Although the Secretary of State is doing a lot about that, does he not accept that he has created an impossible dilemma? If universities use the top-up debt mechanism to try to get funding, they will lose applications, but if they do so, the regulator will not

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allow them to use the top-up debt mechanism to raise funding. Has the Secretary of State not created a lose-lose situation?
Mr. Clarke: No, if the hon. Gentleman talks to his vice-chancellor, he will find that his view is closer to mine than his.
Mrs. Anne Campbell: I welcome much of what my right hon. Friend has said. What inducements can a world-class university offer a student from a low-income background to accept a place at that university rather than one where their debt may be £9,000 less at the end of the course?
Mr. Clarke: First, I appreciate my hon. Friend's particular constituency interest—she has argued consistently on these points. Good-quality education and good job prospects at the end of a course must remain the key issues that drive our policy, but I anticipate that universities, including the one that she represents, will develop bursary schemes and so on or provide additional assistance. Our aim in establishing an access regulator and providing money for access for people from disadvantaged backgrounds is to increase university resources in that area, both in the current system and any changed system that may be introduced.
Mr. Michael Jack: It is a sad day when a former president of the National Union of Students, to obtain the Chancellor's 30 pieces of silver for his policy, has to make life more difficult for poorer students. The Department for Education and Skills suggests that the nation's rate of return from investment in higher education is roughly double the discount rate used by the Treasury. If the rate of return is so great, why was it not possible to deploy more public funds to deal with top-up fees?
Mr. Clarke: Figure 3 on page 18 of the White Paper shows that there were slashing cuts in spending per head on universities under the previous Administration, including during the period when the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister at the Treasury. The Chancellor's commitment, which I announced today, to a 6 per cent. year-on-year real increase in university funding is not only better by a long way than anything achieved by the universities during the period when the right hon. Gentleman was in office, but is a sound basis on which universities can plan for the future and deal with the issue. The right hon. Gentleman is foolish if he wishes to demean that. He should ask the question that Labour Members and I are asking—if universities are to get that cash, how can they use it to achieve the ambitions that we have set out?
Paul Farrelly: Access is a problem, so I shall ask my right hon. Friend a simple question—why cannot we have incentives to improve access without divisive and differential top-up fees and different prices for different universities?
Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend may disagree, but the core issue, as I have told him before in the House, is that we have to acknowledge that it is necessary, even on the basis of the generous settlement that I have announced,
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to put still more money into universities for teaching undergraduates as well as continued professional development and research. We have to look at who should provide that money. It is fair to ask whether people who get no benefits from the state after 16 because they have left the education system and are taxpayers for the rest of their lives should continue to be the sole source of funding for students. I think that students should make a contribution, but there is a legitimate discussion to be had about how much they should pay. To suggest that they should not contribute at all, however, is mistaken.
Mr. Roy Beggs: The Secretary of State will be aware that a large proportion of Northern Ireland students enrol in English universities either through choice or because they have not achieved the entry grades for Queen's university or the University of Ulster. Household incomes are much lower in Northern Ireland than in Great Britain and many students will fear the threat of incurring large debts. Will he seek to persuade the Government to increase the number of university places in Northern Ireland and to provide proper research funding to our Northern Ireland universities? Will he monitor closely the impact of his proposals today on the future enrolment in English universities of Northern Ireland students?
Mr. Clarke: The financial and educational relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK is complicated, as the hon. Gentleman knows better than I do. I am discussing with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how we might work in these areas. Whether the Stormont Assembly returns or the Secretary of State remains with his current responsibilities, it is important for the Administration in Northern Ireland to make a commitment in the ways that I have been describing. I can see that some colleagues share that view. I commit myself, in case it is of any help, to discussing with the honourable Gentleman's party, and colleagues in Northern Ireland above and beyond the Secretary of State, how we might work together in these areas.
Mr. Kevin McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that my parents were on national assistance, and that with my three brothers, we had full maintenance and full university fees? Had my parents or I been faced with the prospect of having a very large sum to repay almost immediately after leaving university and its effects on having a family or mortgage, we would have regarded his proposals as an increased detriment to access by the poorest people. Is not the answer something that has been mooted but barely debated today: if people who graduate make the most money, they should pay the most tax in a graduate tax over their lifetime in employment? It is the fairest way.
Mr. Clarke: I want to make two points. I acknowledge the debt issues, as I have done in responding to a number of hon. Members. It is important also to acknowledge—I hope that my hon. Friend will do so—that as the proportion of the population going to university expands, significantly different issues arise. The issues in respect of 6, 7, 8 or 9 per cent. of people going to university are different

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from those in respect of an intake of 43, 45 or 50 per cent. On those issues, my honourable Friend should acknowledge that there is a need to look again at that system.
On the overall issues that my hon. Friend raises about the question of the extent to which funding can be provided through general taxation, whether through a graduate tax, income tax or whatever else, that is a matter for the Government as a whole. The issue that is distinct about the fee approach is that the money goes directly to the university rather than being translated through the Exchequer.

Points of Order
1.32 pm
Glenda Jackson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is the second time when a debate that Ministers have urged Back-Bench Members to utilise to raise their constituents' concerns about a possible war in Iraq has been eroded by ministerial statements. Important though they may be and inevitable though the policies may be, they are by no means imminent. If the Government keep their promise to the House that there will be a debate on a possible war in Iraq on a substantive motion, is there anything that you can do to ensure that the time of that debate will not be limited?
Mr. Speaker: Those are matters for Ministers. On statements to the House, I am on record as saying that I want Ministers to come here and explain what is happening with regard to their Departments and policies. I therefore have no complaint about any Minister coming to the House to make a statement.
Mr. Michael Jack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. From the middle of last week, the contents of the statement that we have just been discussing were extensively trailed and discussed in the media. This morning, on the BBC News website, there was a headline saying "University Funding Shake-up Unveiled". May I once again appeal to you to use your good offices to try to ensure that it is this House that hears first about such important matters and that we do not see the continual trailing and leaking of this vital information before the House hears it at first hand?
Mr. Speaker: I share the right hon. Gentleman's concern about this matter. He has written to me; I shall investigate and report back to the House.
Mr. Tony Lloyd: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have made it clear that you want to maintain an hour-long framework in which statements should be made. Obviously, that is reasonable to the House. However, may I draw your attention to a tendency in the years during which you and I have been in Parliament—the growing length of statements and the replies, rather than questions, of the two Opposition parties? Could there be some control of these over-lengthy statements?
Mr. Speaker: The statement lasted 17 minutes, which is far too long. I am looking for a maximum of about 10 minutes. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] That puts a responsibility on the Opposition Front Bench, as well as the Liberal Front Bench. It is unfair that only about 20 minutes have been available for Back Benchers to question the Secretary of State. I want more Back Benchers to get in and I am grateful for the point of order.
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hate to see the Speaker of this House put under duress by something as imperfect as the Modernisation Committee. I would be grateful if you could advise me how much longer you will have to sit in sway to the Committee and allow only an hour

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for statements. Hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber needed to question the Secretary of State closely on the matters that he brought before the House today, not least because they had been trailed in the papers so far in advance. Is there any reason why we cannot suspend the 7 o'clock rule tonight and allow the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) to have her way?
Mr. Speaker: The fact is that the House accepted the report of the Modernisation Committee and I must pay due regard to its wishes.
Mr. Martin O'Neill: Further to the point of order made by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), Mr. Speaker, I accept your ruling, because you are bound by the decisions of the House. Surely, however, there are occasions when the ministerial statement has to be of considerable length given the nature and complexity of the issue at hand. When a White Paper of the character of that which was introduced today is being presented to the House, regardless of how much of it was trailed in the press, it is only fair that the Minister is given time and that we as a House are given the chance to deal with it, so in matters of that nature, the 60-minute rule is, frankly, unreasonably inflexible.
Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members can read the White Paper, and Ministers have got to aim for 10 minutes. We do not have stopwatches—I am not in engineering any more—but there is a big difference between 10 minutes and 17 minutes.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We are about to have a debate in which there will be a time limit on Back Benchers' speeches. The points of order are eating into their time.
Mr. Eric Pickles: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for that. You rightly said that it is important for Ministers to come to the House when they have important announcements to make. Have you had any indication from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister that he intends to come to the House later today to speak about the right-to-buy changes, which will penalise the many because of the abuses of the few?
Hon. Members have referred to the modernisation rules, and my understanding was that written statements dealt with administrative matters, but a major policy announcement has been made. If the Government are going to kick away the property ladder for the poor, this House should have a right to examine the matter.
Mr. Speaker: The important thing is that the Minister has told the House. In this case, he has done that in the form of a written statement. I have no complaints about that.
Mr. Andrew Turner: Further to the points of order made by the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), Mr. Speaker, could you help us on the Back Benches by advising us whether it is possible—and if so, how—to move that the 7 o'clock rule be suspended in cases such as this?
Mr. Speaker: Only a Minister can do that and only with notice, so the usual channels have more powers in these matters than me. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should make a representation to his Chief Whip.

Housing (Overcrowding)
1.39 pm
Mr. Andrew Love: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision relating to the definition of household overcrowding standards and the housing needs of those living in overcrowded accommodation.
Put at its simplest, the Bill is intended to modernise confusing and outdated legislation, and to strengthen the protection available to people living in severely overcrowded conditions. Additionally, it will place a duty on local authorities and central Government to tackle overcrowding by providing homes that such families so desperately need.
Although the current definition of overcrowding is set out in the Housing Act 1985, it was carried forward from the Housing Act 1957, which itself consolidated a standard that originated in the Housing Act 1935. Overcrowding standards have therefore remained unchanged since that time—despite assurances from the then Minister that the standard laid down need not be regarded as the ultimate ideal to which we should work.
Since that time, and until the late 1980s, the number of overcrowded households fell steadily year on year. In the past decade, the acute shortage of affordable accommodation has meant that many families have found themselves severely overcrowded but with little possibility of a move to larger, better-quality, family-sized accommodation.
Official statistics on statutory overcrowding are not collected, but the survey of English housing provides an estimate of overcrowding based on the number of households living in conditions that are one or more bedrooms below the defined bedroom standard. The survey estimates that around 500,000 households are overcrowded, of which about a third are in the capital.
Overcrowding therefore features heavily in my constituency case load. Just last week I had a case of a family of six living in a two-bedroom housing trust property that is in a very poor state of repair. The family consists of a young woman who has three children. There are two daughters aged five and three and a son aged nine. There are also two other family members—a brother of 17 and a sister of 15. They are not deemed statutorily overcrowded; indeed, they do not even come close. It is not unusual for three, four or five children to have to bed down on mattresses and blankets on the living room floor. Surely it must be unacceptable that families are forced to live in conditions that most of us would consider Dickensian.
Just how low the standards are set can be judged by the minimum size for a habitable room—50 sq ft, which is regularly described on property details as a child's bedroom, although frankly, one could not swing a cat in it. None the less, according to the current standard, such a room can sleep two adults and a child under one year old.
As with homelessness, the problems of severe overcrowding are most intense in central London. Let us take the case of Mr. and Mrs. A, who are clients of a local housing aid centre and have three daughters and two sons aged between 15 and 21. On becoming homeless, they were offered temporary accommodation in the private sector, which was described as a four-
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bedroom property. However, the bedrooms measured 2 m by 1.5 m, and the living room, which was meant to accommodate the whole family, was approximately 3 m by 3 m. As a result, the total floor space of their accommodation was around 160 sq ft, which falls far short of the 400 sq ft that should be allocated even under the very low standards of existing legislation.
Many families experience severe effects on their health, welfare and well-being as a result of overcrowding. According to recent research, there is a high prevalence of skin disorders and infectious diseases. Owing to a lack of space, children are at much greater risk of having accidents, and the stress of living in such cramped conditions can place a severe strain on family relationships. Children's education is being seriously undermined by lack of space: sharing bedrooms makes it hard to read or do homework, and disrupted sleep patterns mean that they do not get the rest that they need. All of that results in their falling behind at school.
The profile of severe overcrowding shows that black and minority ethnic households are far more likely to be affected. Although only one in 50 white households live in overcrowded conditions, the figure increases to one in seven among minority ethnic households. Alarmingly, it can be as high as one in four for families from parts of the Indian subcontinent. According to the recent Cantle report, severe overcrowding was a contributory factor to the housing stress and social exclusion experienced by ethnic minority communities in all the major cities in the north of England that were hit by civil disturbances in the summer of 2001.
The problems of overcrowding standards have been recognised by the Government, who have said that they are reviewing the options for updating them. That is to be welcomed and exactly what my Bill would achieve. While I am at it, I also welcome the progress that the Government have made in tackling homelessness and improving the quality of social housing. However, delivering a decent home for all cannot be achieved without addressing the stress experienced by families living in overcrowded accommodation. Otherwise, it will prove difficult, if not impossible, to deliver on the Government's commitments on child poverty, social exclusion and family welfare.
The Housing Act 1985 lays down two legal definitions of overcrowding: the room standard and the space standard. If either or both are breached, the dwelling is statutorily overcrowded. That occurs under the room standard when two people of opposite sex who are not married or a cohabiting couple must sleep in the same room. However, all living rooms, including the kitchen, are included as bedrooms. There is no limit on the number of people of the same sex who can share the same room, and young children are excluded.
That standard would be replaced under my Bill by a new bedroom standard modelled on that used in the survey of English housing, and is based on a very simple formula. Rooms available as living rooms or kitchens would not count. Any single person aged 21 years or more would be allocated a bedroom, and young people aged between 10 and 20 would be allocated a bedroom together only if they are of the same sex. Two young people under the age of 10 of different sexes could be paired in the same room. The new bedroom standard would take account of the changing nature of family life,

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recognising the needs of adults, children and infants alike by identifying a suitable number of bedrooms for their use.
The current space standard is based on the number of people who may sleep in a dwelling of a particular size. Children are partially or totally excluded from the count. As a result, four children under the age of 10 could share a room without statutory overcrowding occurring. Under my Bill, all children would be counted in deciding whether overcrowding occurred. That would ensure proper recognition of the impact that they have, in the same way as adults, on overcrowding.
Under the 1985 Act, local authorities are allowed to undertake surveys of overcrowding in their areas. A report on the nature and extent of the problem can then be drawn up, from which proposals could he made to the Secretary of State on providing the required number of dwellings. Sadly, no such report appears to have been drawn up and no specific action has been taken. Clause 4 of my Bill would require local authorities to undertake a periodic survey of overcrowding in their areas and to estimate the number of dwellings necessary to abate that overcrowding. The clause would also require the Secretary of State to take such reports into account in determining the overall allocation of funding for new, affordable accommodation.
Finally, I reiterate that the Bill would bring overcrowding standards into the 21st century and place a duty on local authorities and the Government to tackle overcrowding through the funding of investment in the homes that these families so desperately need. I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Andrew Love, Ms Oona King, Ms Karen Buck, Joan Ruddock, Mr. David Kidney, Mr. David Curry, Peter Bottomley and Mr. Adrian Sanders.

HOUSING (OVERCROWDING)
Mr. Andrew Love accordingly presented a Bill to make provision relating to the definition of household overcrowding standards and the housing needs of those living in overcrowded accommodation: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 28 February, and to be printed [Bill 46].

Defence in the World
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Dan Norris.]
1.50 pm
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): This is the first opportunity of the Session for the House to debate defence in the broadest context of our interests and commitments throughout the world. The last of these regular debates took place on 17 October 2002. Many themes and concerns remain unchanged, and the two major issues on which I made recent statements to the House reflect that.
Last week, I set out the Government's thinking on the request from the United States to update RAF Fylingdales for missile defence purposes. On Monday, I made a statement on contingency preparations for possible operations in Iraq. It is therefore highly appropriate that, today, the House should debate defence in the world.
It is worth setting out the United Kingdom's singular place in world affairs. The UK is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a member of NATO, which is the world's most powerful military alliance. We stand at the heart of the European Union and we have interests far beyond its bounds. We have the fourth largest economy in the world and we are a great trading nation with global commercial interests. We belong to the Commonwealth. Just as important, family ties link us to almost every nation in the world.
The Government are well aware of our responsibilities in the world. With our allies and the wider international community, we want to make a positive contribution. We operate in several different ways: diplomatic, economic, legal, social and humanitarian mechanisms are at our disposal. They are used separately and in combination. The role of our armed forces as a force for good is essential to that.
The role of our armed forces is essential because we must be prepared to play our part in confronting threats to global peace and stability. Above all, that threat is threefold—from rogue states, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. However, those challenges are not separate. Some rogue states support terrorism; terrorists benefit from support; both seek weapons of mass destruction. The risks of allowing the proliferation of weapons to dictators and terrorists are simply too great to ignore.
Llew Smith: The Secretary of State said that weapons of mass destruction posed one of the threats. What about Israel, which has the ultimate weapons of mass destruction—nuclear weapons? Has my right hon. Friend held discussions with anyone in the Israeli Government about Mordechai Vanunu, who has been in jail for 16 years for telling the truth about Israel's nuclear capacity when all those around him were lying?
Mr. Hoon: We address our worries about proliferation to friends and allies such as Israel as well as other countries around the world. In the past, representations have been made about Mr. Vanunu on behalf of British Ministers. I am sure that those matters will be raised again with Israel.

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As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear last week, if we do not deal with the sort of threats that I outlined, the consequences will haunt future generations. We are therefore determined to counter such risks through a wide range of diplomatic and political means and ensure as far as possible that the developing threats are not realised.
We must guard against the possibility that political and diplomatic efforts will not succeed. Deterrence has been a central feature of our approach, founded largely but not exclusively on our possession of nuclear weapons. As the new chapter of the strategic defence review confirmed last year, the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons continue to play a role in deterring major strategic military threats and ultimately guaranteeing our security.
We acknowledge that we need to use all the mechanisms at our disposal. As I said to hon. Members recently, I do not rule out the possibility that in future those mechanisms will include active missile defences. If we decide to help others, we must also ensure that the United Kingdom is as secure as we can make it.
Jeremy Corbyn: Doubtless the Secretary of State has had time to reflect on the announcement that he made last week on national missile defence. Does he believe that we are embarking on the dangerous road of extending the process, which will encourage an opposite reaction from China and other countries that are not included in it? We will thus be in a new ballistic missiles race.
Mr. Hoon: As I shall explain in due course, the point of missile defence and its potential benefit is to protect this country and its allies against a threat from rogue states—that means a state that has a limited number of ballistic missiles. The category does not include, for example, China. I shall deal with my hon. Friend's arguments in my remarks on missile defence, and allow him to intervene if he remains unsatisfied.
Mr. Jon Owen Jones: Does my right hon. Friend recognise the inherent contradiction between his explanation of the central role of nuclear weapons in securing our defence and his wish to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries? Those countries might take the same view as us and believe that nuclear weapons secure their defence.
Mr. Hoon: I do not accept that there is a contradiction, not least because we are trying to protect ourselves and other friends and allies from threats from countries that might not, for example, be deterred by our possessing nuclear weapons and reserving the right to use them in specific circumstances. It is important to consider missile defence in the context of emerging threats from states that might pay no regard to the safety and welfare of their own people.
Kevin Brennan: On protecting our armed forces, does my right hon. Friend know about the revelations in the hearing in America on the friendly fire killing of four Canadians in an infantry unit in
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Afghanistan? The United States air force revealed that it had issued amphetamines to its pilots. Has the Secretary of State had an opportunity to consult the US air force about whether the practice will continue in any future military action in which our troops may be at risk? Is it our armed forces policy to issue speed to any of our personnel?
Mr. Hoon: I am aware of the allegations, which have been made during disciplinary proceedings. It is best to allow the proceedings to conclude before making specific comments. To answer my hon. Friend's second question, the Royal Air Force does not adopt such a practice.
Last October, I set out the principles that we needed to consider in order to determine our approach to missile defence. Three months of vigorous debate ensued and, on 17 December, we received a request from the United States to upgrade RAF Fylingdales for missile defence purposes. I came to the House last week to explain our preliminary view that we should accept the request.
I previously emphasised the nature of the threat that confronts us. No responsible Government would fail to give themselves and their successors at least the opportunity to defend themselves and their people against a potentially devastating attack. Nevertheless, hon. Members asked several questions last week and I shall now try to deal with them in more detail.
I do not doubt the sincerity of those who link missile defence with proliferation. However, let us consider the facts. Ballistic missiles and technology have proliferated in North Korea for many years. Iraq used weapons of mass destruction 15 years ago. No one could claim that United States efforts to develop a limited missile defence system caused those events. Surely we cannot ignore the threat to our interests that proliferation in states of concern poses. We have a comprehensive strategy to tackle the threat and we must consider the role that missile defence can play in it.
Missile defence is a defensive system that threatens no one. Indeed, it could work against proliferation. There is little point in a country spending huge amounts of money on acquiring ballistic missiles when it is faced with the probability that any missile attack would fail because of missile defence.
Some hon. Members asked about the possibility of an increased threat to RAF Fylingdales. As I said previously, states of concern that develop a few crude ballistic missiles are unlikely to want to use one of their limited number against the base.
Mr. Malcolm Savidge: As I understand it, the argument was that developing missile defence would deter states such as North Korea from trying to develop missiles. Under Clinton, the US concentrated on diplomacy, and North Korea seemed to be slowing down what it was doing. Under Bush, diplomacy has made way for a concentration on missile defence. Does North Korea seem to be responding to that in a positive way?
Mr. Hoon: I do not think that my hon. Friend has grasped my argument. I suggested that, in pure deterrence terms, a country could be deterred from

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spending a significant proportion of national income on developing threatening ballistic missiles—as North Korea undoubtedly does—if it were to recognise that there was little or no chance of those missiles getting through.
Glenda Jackson: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I hope that he will put me right if I have failed to grasp the argument. He has said that an anti-ballistic missile system would act as a deterrent to rogue states, as they would not put money into developing their own weapons. How does that chime with mutually assured destruction, the policy adopted by the west and the Soviet Union in the cold war? Has not the defeat of the Soviet Union meant that there is a massive atomic arsenal that cannot be decommissioned with any safety? Is not that where rogue states will obtain weapons of mass destruction?
Mr. Hoon: My hon. Friend at least recognises that the debate has moved on from MAD. In the past, many colleagues—at least on the Labour Benches—consistently criticised that policy. The potential availability of missile defence to the US has encouraged that country to reduce significantly its offensive missile systems, and that reduction is something for which many Labour Members, including my hon. Friend, have worked consistently. That seems to me to be an enormous success, arising out of the efforts of the US. I am slightly surprised that my hon. Friend has not congratulated the US.
Mike Gapes rose—
Richard Burden rose—
Mr. David Chaytor rose—
Mr. Hoon: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden).
Richard Burden: If missile defence is about increasing security, should not that protection be available to all countries? If so, should it not be under international control—in other words, the UN? What on earth is the justification for its being under the control of just two states, the US and possibly Great Britain?
Mr. Hoon: The US President's statement last year indicated his willingness to extend missile defence to allies in NATO. That is certainly an extension from the original proposals, which were described as "national missile defence". The only other factual point that I would make is that a ballistic missile defence system already exists. It is located in and around the city of Moscow, and has been part of the defensive mechanisms of the former Soviet Union and Russia for many years.
Mr. Chaytor: Will my right hon. Friend clarify the argument in relation to deterrence? He has said that the debate has moved on from MAD, but also that our nuclear weapons provide an effective deterrent. However, he has also said that there are some states against which our nuclear weapons do not provide an effective deterrence. Does nuclear deterrence work, or not?
Mr. Hoon: I do not think that there is any inconsistency in the arguments that I have set out.
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I recognise that the UK's possession of nuclear weapons is a powerful deterrent to any country foolish enough to challenge us. On the other hand, it is equally true that there are a few states—I make no apologies for mentioning North Korea and Iraq in this connection—that have no particular regard for their own people. Such states might risk the threat of nuclear or other retaliation, regardless of the interests of their own people. It is logical to say that MAD might deter those states rational enough to recognise the risk of significant retaliation. Equally, however, there are regimes—and I have mentioned two of them—that are capable of ignoring that risk because they have no regard whatsoever for the safety and security of their people.
Mike Gapes rose—
Jeremy Corbyn rose—
Mr. Jim Cunningham rose—
Mr. Hoon: I shall give way once more at this stage, to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham). I shall come back to other hon. Friends later.
Mr. Cunningham: My right hon. Friend mentioned by name two states that pose a threat. What other states pose a threat?
Mr. Hoon: There are others, but the states that I named best demonstrate my point.
I was dealing with the terrorist threat to our military installations, and I emphasise that they are well guarded against such a threat. I want to dismiss the rather far-fetched idea that state-sponsored terrorists could blind the missile defence system a few minutes before a ballistic missile attack. The Fylingdales radar was designed during the cold war, when we faced the threat of military assault from the Soviet Union. It is well within the capabilities of the system to withstand a lesser threat. If we were only a few minutes away from a ballistic missile attack, I find it impossible to believe that anyone would prefer that we had done nothing to help protect us, our people or our allies.
Hon. Members have also raised the technological challenges. No one doubts that they are considerable. That is why the US has invested considerable sums in its wide-ranging research and development programme. We have worked closely with the US in that area for many years. A new technical memorandum of understanding will give us full insight into the developing missile defence programme, and allow the close involvement of British industry.
The UK benefits greatly from the role that RAF Fylingdales has played, and will continue to play, in the ballistic missile early warning system.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: What the Secretary of State has just said recognises that there are two components to missile defence—upgraded radar, and the interceptor that would bring down any attacking missile. The right hon. Gentleman has been somewhat opaque about Britain's participation in the interceptor programme. Will he confirm that he has not ruled out

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the possibility that interceptors could be based on British soil? Will he say a little more about the opportunities for British industry arising from participation in this very important US programme?
Mr. Hoon: I indicated the possibilities for British industry once the new memorandum of understanding is resolved. I shall come to the other matters raised by the hon. Gentleman in due course.
Jeremy Corbyn: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way to me a second time. He has not convinced me of the arguments in favour of national missile defence. When he reads his speech on another day, will he reflect that many of those who wanted a Labour Government in 1997 and 2001 wanted a Government who were committed to global disarmament of nuclear weapons? My right hon. Friend has said nothing about global disarmament, but a great deal about accelerating and exacerbating a very dangerous arms race around the world.
Mr. Hoon: I am sorry that my hon. Friend feels like that. I regret that I have been unable to persuade him, although I live in hope. However, I have mentioned global disarmament. I answered an earlier question, from my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson), by setting out the importance that I attach to the Moscow treaty and the significant reduction in offensive systems agreed by the US and Russia. That seems to me to be something that should be applauded. Given my hon. Friend's record of campaigning on these matters over many years, I am slightly surprised that he has not mentioned that treaty, and congratulated the US on it.
Mr. Harold Best: I have been listening to my right hon. Friend, and am reminded of the film "Dr. Strangelove", which dealt with the insanity of the MAD approach. I regret that, in arguing for missile defence, my right hon. Friend seems to adopt that approach. Does he agree that the logical consequence of his argument is that more weapons systems will be evolved to overcome missile defences? Indeed, would not that be a cheaper way to develop those weapons systems?
Mr. Hoon: I rather thought that I was arguing precisely the opposite. The availability of missile defence might avoid the nightmare scenario in the Stanley Kubrick film to which my hon. Friend refers. However, it may be that we require more opportunities to debate the issue at greater length than today affords.
Mike Gapes: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Savidge: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Hoon: I have given way once to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Savidge), but I have not given way to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes).
Mike Gapes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the debate about these issues has moved on from the 1980s?
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The Reagan Administration's star wars was superseded by Clinton's talk of national missile defence; now the debate is about some form—as yet undefined—of co-operative missile defence system. In those circumstances, would it not be helpful for my right honourable Friend's Department to produce a briefing dealing with these theoretical and theological aspects of the debate because, unfortunately, a lot of the language and terminology, whether it is Dr. Strangelove or Dr. Kissinger—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. The hon. Gentleman must bring his question to a close.
Mr. Hoon: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend; the debate has moved on significantly. Unfortunately, sometimes the arguments have not, so it is important that the work that he describes is undertaken. Whether he is better placed to do it than the Ministry of Defence is a matter for him to decide.
Mr. Savidge: My right hon. Friend has been very generous. When he boasts of the wonders of the treaty of Moscow, is he really suggesting that a four-page document, with a mass of let-out clauses in it, that does not ask for the destruction of a single missile and simply asks for them to be dismantled and put into storage, and asks that its target figures be achieved only by 31 December 2112—the date on which the treaty expires—is really that much better than the START negotiations, which were rather more positive?
Mr. Hoon: Again, I am sorry that my hon. Friend is determined to see the worst side of those agreements. It seems to me to be enormous progress that the United States and Russia have reached those agreements, and although all of us would like to see more such agreements going further than this one, this is a significant start, and one we should applaud.
I was referring to the fact that Fylingdales is controlled and staffed by the RAF, save for a single American military liaison officer. We have access to all the data relating to early warning and missile attack and for the tracking of space objects; not just that provided by Fylingdales, but from the whole system of radars and satellites. Essentially, the same arrangements would continue after the upgrade. These arrangements would include the data generated during the brief periods when Fylingdales was engaged in the more accurate missile-tracking mode required for its new mission.
Mr. Mike Hancock: In his very interesting evidence session with the Defence Committee last week, the Secretary of State said that he could find no reasonable reason for not agreeing to the request. What will be the timing for the request to be properly consulted on and then for a decision to be made? When does he expect the upgrade to take place, and when would it be in use?
Mr. Hoon: Clearly, it is necessary for us to notify the United States formally. I said to the Committee that I anticipated that the decision would not be long delayed thereafter. As I said to the Committee, there will be a significant period of preparation and the work will be taken forward in time to meet the US deadline so that a basic system is in place for 2004–05.

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Some concerns have been expressed about possible future developments and, specifically, about what is known as X-band radar. I want to make it clear that the United States has not asked us to site an X-band radar in the United Kingdom, nor are we aware of any plans to do so. Nor has the United States requested the use of interceptor sites in the United Kingdom. Interceptors would be required for missile defence coverage of Europe, although there is no need necessarily to co-locate them with the radars. The United Kingdom could, indeed, be protected by interceptors placed elsewhere in Europe, but whether the United Kingdom should acquire missile defence is a quite separate decision for the future. The immediate question is whether we should preserve the possibility of such defences ever protecting the people of the United Kingdom.
Jim Knight: What is my right hon. Friend's view on theatre missile defence, an aspect of the debate that has not really surfaced? There is concern about the protection of our forces in theatre. Other countries, including some of our European partners, seem to be doing more on this subject. Are we to follow suit?
Mr. Hoon: It is certainly something about which we are concerned and it is something on which we have various co-operative development programmes with a number of allies. However, it is increasingly recognised that there is no clear distinction between what is known as theatre missile defence and the more strategic defences that I am describing. Therefore, the technological challenges are very similar as regards both. I anticipate that the United States work that is under way will inform and assist work on developing a purely theatre missile defence system.
I assured the House that the Government would agree to the request to upgrade RAF Fylingdales only if we were satisfied that ultimately it would enhance the security of the United Kingdom and the NATO alliance. An upgraded radar at RAF Fylingdales would provide us, at no cost to the United Kingdom, with a vital building block on which missile defence for this country and for our European neighbours could be developed if the need arose, and if that is what we decide.
Hugh Bayley: What conversations has my right hon. Friend had with his opposite number in Denmark about the United States application to use the Thule base in the same way as Fylingdales? Will he be seeking to co-ordinate the response that he makes with that made by the Danish Government?
Mr. Hoon: There have been discussions; the request was issued in parallel and we continue to be in close contact with Denmark about the issues.
Ballistic missile defence is one significant response to the threat posed by rogue states, but it cannot be our only reaction. We must look also to control the proliferation of the technologies that might arm such missiles or, for that matter, other delivery systems. We are aware of several countries with an interest in acquiring a nuclear capability. Their weapons programmes are all at differing stages of development. Rather more countries already possess chemical and
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biological weapons and are now seeking to improve their capabilities, and a number of countries that do not yet have chemical or biological weapons harbour aspirations to acquire them.
While the nature of the real danger posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction may vary over time, when it presents an immediate and real threat to world security, then we must act, and act decisively.
Paul Flynn: My right hon. Friend refers to the threat of proliferation and the danger changing over time. It is acknowledged that Iraq was a danger in the 1980s and early 1990s, but is now in an impoverished state. Will he describe to us how Saddam Hussein might use his weapons of mass destruction now against the United Kingdom? The Falklands hero Simon Weston raised this matter this morning; he said that he, like many others, could see no positive threat to the United Kingdom from Iraq.
Mr. Hoon: Last year, the Government published a detailed dossier, drawing on a number of sources, about the threat that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq poses. The dossier contained some detailed supporting evidence, showing that—notwithstanding the undertaking that Saddam Hussein gave at the end of the Gulf war—he has continued with programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction, including determined efforts to develop a nuclear weapon and the means of delivering one. That is a complete answer to my hon. Friend; clearly the risk is a matter of grave concern and one that we cannot ignore at this stage.
Mr. Michael Jack: The Secretary of State referred a second ago to success in the Gulf war, part of which was down to equipment built by BAE Systems. Recent press reports indicate a strained relationship between his Department and the company. Questions have been asked about orders and about the company's future and balance sheet. At a time when we are putting considerable dependence on companies such as BAE Systems, will the right honourable Gentleman say a word or two about the current situation in order to put the facts on record, as opposed to speculation?
Mr. Hoon: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Ministry of Defence has an excellent relationship with BAE Systems, a very successful British and international company, and one that we rely on for a great deal of our defence equipment and I anticipate will continue to rely on for many years to come. It does an excellent job on behalf of the armed forces of the United Kingdom, and we want to ensure that it continues to do so. Indeed, as soon as I am released from my responsibilities here, I have a meeting with the chief executive of BAE Systems. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that relations between the Ministry of Defence and BAE Systems are excellent.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Hoon: I give way to the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis).
Dr. Julian Lewis: In response to the question that the hon. Member for Newport, West

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(Paul Flynn) posed about Iraq using weapons of mass destruction, surely there is the point made by the Prime Minister quite forcefully last week, which is that Saddam Hussein could indeed supply terrorist organisations with, for example, biological weapons that he has previously manufactured and then deny all responsibility for them when they were used.
Mr. Hoon: That is indeed a point made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, but I anticipate that hon. Members are now beginning to deliver the speech that I would like to give, if only I were given the opportunity to do so. I want to make progress.
Mr. Doug Henderson: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Hoon: I will give way in due course.
Saddam Hussein's regime poses a clear threat. There can be no question of the potential for Iraq to use its weapons of mass destruction. That has already been tangibly demonstrated—it has used them on its neighbours and on its own people. The international community has for many years demonstrated its concern about the very real threat posed by Iraq's illegal weapon holdings through a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions, and most recently when the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1441. That resolution gives Saddam Hussein one last chance to respect the will of the international community. Experience has shown, however, that he is not a man who will do that readily. It is for that reason that the contingency planning that has been carried out by the Ministry of Defence over recent months has in the past days and weeks necessarily moved up a gear.
Mr. Doug Henderson: I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, especially as he has taken so many interventions. May I raise again the point that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West(Paul Flynn)—the Simon Weston point? Is not my right hon. Friend concerned that there is considerable anxiety among the chiefs in the forces and among the rank and file that the Government might be asking them to do something that lacks the support of the public in this country? Is not that extremely dangerous for the relationship between our political institutions and our military institutions? Would it not be better for the Government to listen to the public, listen to a lot of the advice that they are getting from the senior staffs, and get back into a containment strategy which the public understand—and if not, to go through the United Nations?
Mr. Hoon: I think that we have to treat the snapshot polls as we do such polls on other issues. However, as I understand the latest polling, it showed that when asked a question about the Government's policy and pursuit of the policy through the United Nations, the overwhelming majority of the people in this country do support what the Government are doing, and I have no
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doubt that that is the case. It is certainly my experience from my constituency and that seems to be the position recorded in at least the most recent poll that I have seen.
Bob Spink rose—
Mr. Chaytor rose—
Mr. Hoon: I wish to make progress, if the House will forgive me.
On Monday I announced to the House the composition and deployment of a land force of about 26,000 servicemen and women to provide military capabilities for potential operations in Iraq. That force package will supplement the recent deployment of the amphibious task group, which itself comprises in total about 8,000 personnel. As I explained on Monday, we are also actively considering the composition of a balanced contribution from the Royal Air Force. I will update the House once decisions have been taken.
I want to deal now with the stories that hon. Members will have seen in the press, alleging that our troops are poorly equipped.
Mr. Tony Banks: I am sorry to add to the friendly fire falling upon my right hon. Friend and I am certainly not on speed. but may I just ask him a question? We have dispatched a quarter of our forces—26,000, he just said—as a contingency force for possible action in Iraq. Will he explain to us, because we need to understand, why it is that our European partners do not appear to share that concern? They do not appear to have deployed any of their troops. Could my right honourable Friend suggest why their perspective on the matter seems radically to differ from that of the British Government?
Mr. Hoon: I do not accept that it does radically differ. The only European nation that has specifically ruled out the use of force is Germany. Before they have seen the evidence from the weapons inspectors, all other countries, undoubtedly reflecting their different constitutional arrangements, are at various stages in the political process to decide whether or not they would participate, so I do not accept my hon. Friend's assertion that there is any lack of support for the position that the United Kingdom Government has set out.
Bob Russell: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hoon: No; I need to make progress, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
I want to reassure the House and the country that British personnel deployed on operations will be properly equipped by the Ministry of Defence, and fully capable of fulfilling the tasks that may be required of them. They will be properly equipped to deal with the environmental conditions that they face. The Ministry of Defence has long had contracts in place to ensure that sufficient stocks of desert clothing and boots are available very quickly. It is simply not practical or sensible to hold, on a permanent basis, vast stocks of clothing for every conceivable operational environment.

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If we did, we would be rightly accused of wasteful spending. For example, we already hold substantial stocks of desert boots, and are taking delivery of thousands more. The same is true of desert trousers and jackets; we expect an early delivery of 90,000 more of each.
The operational modification programme for the Challenger 2 tank and the AS90 self-propelled guns, improving efficiency in desert conditions by adding side skirts and improving air filtration systems, is now in progress. It will continue while the equipment is in transit, and on arrival in theatre if required. All combat and close support troops will be equipped with the modified and highly reliable SA80 A2 rifle.
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk): I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, and this is a helpful intervention. Can he assure the House that all British armed forces have been equipped with the latest A2 version of the SA80?
Mr. Hoon: If the hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would have heard me say that all combat and close support troops would be equipped with the modified rifle, and that is the position.
The protection of our troops is an absolute priority. Contrary to press speculation, our ability to protect and operate in a nuclear, biological or chemical environment is second to none. Our training and equipment mean that we are prepared to meet this threat if necessary, and make a proportionately serious response should anyone use such weapons against us.
Our combat identification procedures are effective. This is about new technology, situational awareness, target identification, tactics, techniques and procedures. Specific provision has been and is being made to minimise the risks of friendly fire, but the House will understand why I should not go into the specific detail.
New potential operations and new security challenges inevitably result in new requirements, such as those identified through Exercise Saif Sareea. Work to address those has taken place over the last few months, and is now nearing completion.
I hope that hon. Members will not allow misleading and tendentious press reports to divert attention from the fact that our armed forces will be prepared, in all respects, for what we may ask of them.
This significant deployment of credible military capability underlines the United Kingdom's determination to work with our allies to disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. We do not take these decisions to deploy lightly or easily, but with caution and circumspection.
Joan Ruddock: On that point, is pre-emption now officially part of the defence policy of this country?
Mr. Hoon: I have always emphasised, as has every other Minister addressing these questions, that whatever action we take must be within international law, and it has always seemed to me—straying into my former occupation for a while—that pre-emption is
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simply a form of self-defence, and that is the basis on which it could be and would be justifiable in international law.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Hoon: Indeed, for those who doubt this proposition there are a number of examples of pre-emption as long ago as the 19th century, when these principles of international law were developing.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: The Government are a member of the United Nations, and the United Nations specifically prohibits pre-emptive and defensive strikes against countries that are not threatening us. What is the threat from Iraq?
Mr. Hoon: I refer my hon. Friend to what I said a few moments ago. The United Nations charter specifically allows for self-defence in article 51, and that is the basis on which I would rest our case.
We are dealing with a regime that has defied a series of United Nations obligations for more than a decade. We are dealing with a regime that has authorised the use, with lethal effect, of appalling weapons both within and beyond its borders. We are dealing with the very real danger that its illegal weapons could find their way into the hands of international terrorists.
As a responsible member of the international community and of the UN Security Council, we must deal with the threat of weapons of mass destruction. In the case of Iraq, we are pursuing that policy through the deployment of a significant force to the Gulf region. We are doing this as part of a process of long and careful deliberation about how best to coerce Saddam Hussein into disarming. We believe that that is the right action to take—that it is the most effective means of achieving our aims, which are in the interests of the Iraqi people and, more widely, of the Gulf region as a whole.
Not just the security of the middle east is at stake, however. If Iraq is allowed to develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes it will send a signal to other nations, encouraging them to defy non-proliferation standards. Our policy on Iraq must be seen as part of a global non-proliferation effort.
Mr. Chaytor: May I return to the question of self-defence? Does my right hon. Friend think that the first use of British nuclear weapons in Iraq could be defended under international law on the grounds that it was a form of self-defence?
Mr. Hoon: I do not consider that helpful, and I will not become involved in a debate about it at this stage. The Prime Minister made it clear yesterday that there were limited circumstances in which he might contemplate the use of such weapons, but that they would be extreme circumstances involving self-defence. That has always been, and remains, the policy of the British Government.
I emphasise that we have not yet made any decision to commit our forces to conflict. All our actions have been motivated by the strongest desire to avoid war; no steps under way cannot be stopped should a peaceful solution prevail. We are confident, however, that those who

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deploy to the region will, in their actions, enhance the outstanding reputation of the United Kingdom's armed forces as a force for good in what is an increasingly uncertain world. They will leave with our strong support, and our best wishes for a safe and speedy return.
Iraq is not the only issue that we and the international community must confront. We should be in no doubt that international terrorism remains a real and potent danger to both the wider world and the people of the United Kingdom. The determination of groups such as al-Qaeda to obtain chemical and other weapons of mass destruction is well known. We know that terrorists will use such weapons. The House will recall that AUM Shinriko attacked the Tokyo subway with sarin nerve gas in March 1995. Given the opportunity, terrorists will use these weapons again. The recent arrests and discovery of attempts to produce ricin here in the United Kingdom have shown that we cannot afford to be complacent.
That is not the only reason why we remain committed to the campaign against international terrorism, however. There can be no illusions about terrorists: they will try to damage us in any way they can. Al-Qaeda's attacks in New York, Bali and Mombasa did not rely on weapons of mass destruction, but the House knows the devastation and loss of innocent lives they caused.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence will say more about our contribution to the global coalition's campaign against international terrorism, but I remind the House that on 16 October 2001 the Government defined their objectives for that campaign. I want to mention two of them specifically. First, the United Kingdom will do everything possible to eliminate the threat posed by international terrorism. Secondly, it will renew efforts to bear down on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. I assure the House that our armed forces will play their full part in achieving both those aims, seeking to eliminate terrorism as a force in international affairs.
Llew Smith: If the Government decide to nuke Iraq, will that reduce the possibility of establishing a more democratic regime?
Mr. Hoon: I am rather sorry that I gave way to my hon. Friend. I have already dealt with the first part of his question, and he can deal with the second part himself by consulting the objectives of our policy on Iraq as set out recently by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. My right hon. Friend said specifically that one of those objectives was to restore a representative Government in Iraq, which I consider a proper policy objective.
I do not intend to overlook the military contributions that we are making elsewhere. We remain committed to safeguarding peace and stability in the Balkans. We have more than 1,500 troops serving in Kosovo and another 1,400 in Bosnia, representing a significant commitment to aiding the people of the region. The agreement of Berlin Plus at the Copenhagen European Council opened the way for the European Union to have access to NATO's planning facilities, assets and
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capabilities, and it will allow the European Union to take on NATO's operational tasks in Macedonia and Bosnia. The strategic relationship between the EU and the NATO alliance with regard to crisis management is now a reality.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Now that the Secretary of State says that the strategic alliance between the European Union and NATO is a reality, can he tell us which operations will be carried out by NATO and which will be carried out by means of the European security and defence policy?
Mr. Hoon: Those are clearly matters for discussion and negotiation among members of the international community, many of which—like the United Kingdom—are part of both arrangements and will therefore have an influential voice. What interests me more—the hon. Gentleman may be able to tell us about it in a few moments—is whether his party now supports those arrangements. As he has opposed them consistently so far, I assume that in the interests of consistency he will continue to do so.
Military operations are significant, but if our armed forces are to be a force for good we must also support and maintain the right security structures and systems. That is why we welcome the recent developments in the North Atlantic Alliance. The Prague summit in November gave renewed impetus with regard to capabilities, command and force structures, modernisation of the NATO bureaucracy and partnership. It also invited seven nations to begin accession negotiations. That is evidence—if evidence were needed—of the continuing relevance, health and vitality of the alliance, for the invited countries know that the alliance is both resilient and flexible in responding to the demands of a fast-changing strategic setting. They want to be part of that alliance.
Member states are also committed to dealing with military capability gaps. The new NATO response force promises to sharpen the cutting edge of the extremely successful high readiness force structure, and the command structure is undergoing fundamental review, making it leaner, more effective and more focused on what really matters in a post-cold war world confronted by proliferation, rogue states and terrorism.
The House may know of NATO's announcement this morning that Lord Robertson will step down as Secretary-General at the end of the year. Let me take this opportunity to express our gratitude for his huge contribution to NATO, and particularly to its modernisation and adaptation, during his time in office.
It is rightly not unusual in defence debates to praise the men and women of the armed forces. The praise is deserved, because they are essential if the United Kingdom is to carry out the responsibilities that our position in the world demands. Without them we could not act to help maintain international peace and security in the face of the dangers, including those presented by weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. We do not take our armed forces lightly or for granted, because theirs is not an easy job. What we recognise is that they excel in whatever tasks they undertake. That excellence will continue as they prepare to face the risks and dangers of an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world.
2.38 pm
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: The Secretary of State has made an important speech. It is a shame, perhaps, that it has been overshadowed by other Government announcements today. I hope it receives the publicity that it deserves. We believe the endorsement of missile defence upgrading at Fylingdales is an important decision. I have little to add to what the Secretary of State has said about missile defence, except our welcome for that decision.
The Secretary of State has some explaining to do to his own party—not, I hasten to add, from his own point of view. To his credit, I do not think he is on record as ever having opposed missile defence, but his party was clearly opposed to it in principle, and a champion of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. It will take time for some of his colleagues to become used to the new Government position.
I understand why the right hon. Gentleman wants to go on avoiding the question of whether Britain will participate in the United States global missile defence programme. I do not think that it benefits the United Kingdom to go on avoiding that decision as the right hon. Gentleman attempted to avoid the previous one. I think that he is about as likely to turn down the American request for Fylingdales as to turn down the opportunity to participate in missile defence. The only sad thing is that British—industry the British defence industry—will lose out as a result of the Government's failure to participate enthusiastically in the missile defence programme as it develops. There is also the possibility that we will lose the opportunity to influence the architecture of the system, which we might yet influence to our advantage and that of Europe.
This debate, entitled "Defence in the World", will inevitably be largely preoccupied with the deployments of British forces now under way, and it is very clear that a large number of right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak. As a courtesy to them, I shall try to keep my comments as brief as possible.
The Opposition have consistently supported the broad thrust of the Government's policy of diplomacy, backed by force, against Iraq ever since the Prime Minister first made his position known in the summer, and we continue to do so.
Bob Russell: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way as twice the Secretary of State would not do so. I shall ask him the question that I would have asked the Secretary of State. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the popular support in the country for our armed forces should not be read as popular support for the Government's adventure in Iraq?
Mr. Jenkin: I shall come later in my comments to the question of popular support for the Government's policy on Iraq because it is extremely important, and I am sure that it exercises the Government as much as anyone else.
The Prime Minister is right to maintain, however, that action must be taken to deal with the growing threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In particular, questions remain about the
"accurate, full, and complete declaration of"
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weapons capabilities provided by Iraq to the UN on 7 December, as required in paragraph 3 of resolution 1441, from which I quote. The head of the UN inspectors, Hans Blix, has already stated that the documentation contains gaps. Paragraph 4 of the resolution makes it clear how that omission can lead to a material breach. We are still waiting to find out whether the Government believe that there is, or will be, a material breach of resolution 1441.
Our support for the Government, however, is not unconditional. No Prime Minister should—we do not believe that this one will—ever commit Britain to military action on the say-so of another country, even the United States. The Government need to make the case for military action on its own merits if it becomes necessary and make the case that disarming Iraq is in the interests of the British people. We believe that to be so.
Furthermore, if military action becomes necessary, it is certainly preferable that the Government make an effort to achieve the clearest UN endorsement and that will have our fullest support, but a second resolution is not a prerequisite. The danger is that in such circumstances Britain could find its hands tied. The interests of one nation on the Security Council may lead to the interests of the British people being vetoed. There is a precedent: when Britain acted to free the people of Kosovo, Russia would never have agreed to support a UN resolution on that matter. In that case, Britain joined a coalition to free that nation's people from terror. It would be worrying if Britain could not take such principled action again.
Joan Ruddock: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there was a very clear moral imperative in the case that he cites? Present and immediate genocide was under way. That is not the case at present in Iraq, as far as I am aware.
Mr. Jenkin: It is interesting to discuss what motivates military intervention. I submit that there was not only genocide, but a direct threat to the stability of our continent. We are in very dangerous territory. Why not, for example, immediately authorise a military intervention in Zimbabwe, where a massive humanitarian crisis is being inflicted on its people by a vicious tyrant? Why does the hon. Lady believe that a country such as Iraq obtaining weapons of mass destruction and having relationships with terrorist organisations is something from which we can simply walk away? We cannot.
It would be worrying if Britain could not take such principled action again. Military action would still depend on a broad international consensus, particularly among those nations that border Iraq, and provided that any military action remains within international law, we must be prepared to take such action. Now that the Government have committed themselves to a very major deployment, there are many questions that we could ask, including many that I do not expect them to answer, but it would surely help the House if they could clarify some issues.
The Secretary of State did not answer my questions about the command arrangements for British forces in the Gulf. We have read a certain amount about that in the press, and I should be grateful to him if he could

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inform the House at some stage. Similarly, the Government did not say where the main element of United Kingdom forces would be deployed. Again, at some stage, I am sure that the Secretary of State will wish to ensure that the House is informed. It is important that the public should understand that, although UK forces will operate under overall US command, the UK command can nevertheless retain the discretion to act as a partner rather than a servant of US military commanders.
The force is clearly configured to sustain itself for a considerable period. There should be no doubt about the magnitude of the commitment that the United Kingdom is taking on. If war is avoided—we still hope that it will be—how long might the presence of substantial UK land forces be required? If there is military action, how long will UK forces be committed, and on what scale, to deal with the aftermath of war? After Afghanistan, the Prime Minister assured the people there that we would not just walk away. Does the deployment for a much bigger operation indicate a similar long-term commitment on behalf of western nations?
Bob Spink: My hon. Friend is right to take that line. Does he agree that we should be preparing for political solutions post-Saddam in Iraq, as well as for the possibility of military action there? Does he welcome the fact that the Kurdistan National Assembly reconvened in October? Does he think that we should give more support, recognition and encouragement to such bodies, so that they come forward in Iraq?
Mr. Jenkin: I am anxious not to place prescriptions on the Government, but we have pressed them to be clearer about what they envisage might happen if the Saddam regime collapses, or if Saddam Hussein flees the country or is defeated militarily. In particular, we are anxious to know what role British aid policy will play in the event of such circumstances, and the Secretary of State for International Development has been pretty silent so far on those eventualities.
Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary said in concluding his statement on global terrorism and Iraq:
"Our country can never become an island of security in the face of the global dangers of terrorism and rogue states, so just as we should redouble our efforts to enforce the law at home, our interests demand that we be at the forefront of enforcing the law overseas."—[Official Report, 21 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 168.]
That statement suggests that Britain is preparing seriously to increase our role as an international policeman. I ask the Minister to tell us in his winding-up speech whether that is the intention. Even if it is not, the deployment raises very serious questions about the sustainability and overstretch of the British armed forces.
Half the Army and a very substantial part of the other two services are now deployed on operations. The Army in particular will take some years to recover the stability of its training and readiness cycle. Is it not now clear that the Army is too small to meet the sustained challenges we now face? It is a sad comment on the Government's
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commitment to the armed forces that the Army recruiting group should have run out of money at such a time.
Mr. Harry Barnes: What is the Opposition's position on the role of being an international policeman? How do they tie that in with military action being legitimate only in defence of national interests, as was argued earlier? International policing could go well beyond anything that was a matter of national interest.
Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman raises a very pertinent question. It really is about adjusting to the new strategic climate in which we now have to operate. The question whether we should play a greater role in international affairs, particularly with our armed forces, must be very much regulated by what we are prepared to spend on defence. The Government must be prepared to match the military commitments they take on with the resources necessary to fulfil those commitments. I question whether that is the case on a sustainable basis at present.
On the other question of the whole climate and how we respond to the new strategic environment in which we now live, I will make some comments later that will address the hon. Gentleman's point.
Hugh Bayley: The hon. Gentleman complains that the armed forces are too small to deal with the tasks they face. Does he not recall that in the last 10 years that his party was in power defence spending was cut by a third, but under our party it has increased each year? Will the hon. Gentleman give a commitment that his party will match pound for pound our party's spending on defence?
Mr. Jenkin: It is unfortunate that on an occasion such as this, when such serious issues are under discussion, the hon. Gentleman should start scoring political points. However, if he wants to trade party political points. I could say that the size of the armed forces has continued to shrink under the present Government, despite the radically changed strategic climate that we are now in. I do not recall his party objecting to any of the reductions in the armed forces that took place under "Options for Change" during the 1990s. On the contrary, I remember his party constantly urging the Government to cut more than we did.
The question that we now need to face is whether we are spending enough to enable our armed forces to meet the commitments that the Government place upon them. There is no doubt that the strategic defence review was premised on an increase in expenditure that was not delivered, and that we are now fulfilling many more military commitments around the world than was originally envisaged.
Mr. John Bercow: Is not the most significant point about the attitude of scores of Labour Members that they are in favour of expenditure on defence forces only as long as those forces are never used? Given that Saddam is both a pathological killer and a proven liar, is it not regrettable that substantial numbers of Labour and Liberal Democrat. Members can offer us only an exercise in sustained hand-wringing?
Mr. Jenkin: My hon. Friend's point makes itself.

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With such a large overseas deployment, what is the position of the armed forces left at home, and what sort of circumstances do they face?
For example, the Government have deployed the First Battalion of the Royal Tank Regiment, a nuclear, biological and chemical warfare regiment. That is obviously an appropriate element to deploy to this operation. But what NBC cover is left at home to deal with a potential terrorist attack? Do the Government begin to detect something of a morale problem in line regiments and other frontline forces, which find themselves confined to firefighting and possibly another tour in Northern Ireland for as far as the eye can see?
We are constantly told that the opinion polls show a majority of the British public to be opposed to war. Such polls inevitably depend upon the nature of the question and the timing. No civilised human being wants a war. At this time President Bush and the Prime Minister are seeking to avoid a war. It nevertheless remains one of the biggest challenges the Government face to ensure that the nation will be in true support of our armed forces if the time comes for military action.
The Prime Minister has been passionate in the advocacy of his policy, but, periodically, he has been drawing on different arguments. The need to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction begs the question: why Iraq and not North Korea? There is no doubt about North Korea's nuclear weapons and long-range missiles programmes—it boasts about them. Moreover, last week the Secretary of State said that North Korea might be able to strike directly at the United Kingdom within weeks.
The Government have also published a dossier on Saddam Hussein's human rights record. That certainly strengthens the moral case, against Saddam Hussein. The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) might reflect on that. For some, it is certainly a pretext for intervention. If so, why not publish, as I asked earlier, an equivalent dossier on human rights in Zimbabwe? Only recently have the Government started to set out the arguments about links between Saddam Hussein's Iraq, weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism.
Glenda Jackson rose—
Paul Flynn rose—
Mr. Jenkin: What a choice! I give way to the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson).
Glenda Jackson: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has made the best choice.
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and indeed my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in his most recent statement, have been at some pains to point out that there is no evidence linking Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, where does the hon. Gentleman obtain his evidence for making a direct link between Iraq and international terror as we have experienced it?
Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Lady must have kept herself rather immune from much of the speculation in the
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press, which is probably based upon sound judgment that there are substantial links between Saddam Hussein and terrorist networks. Saddam Hussein has worked with al-Qaeda in the past and he has sheltered known terrorists. He is today assisting certain terrorist movements. The hon. Lady would have to be blind to have missed that fact. The Government need to make that fact clearer.
Glenda Jackson: As I heard one of my hon. Friends say from a sedentary position. there must be a lot of very blind people here.
The hon. Gentleman referred to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden working together. I should point out to him that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have both worked with, and been funded and supported by, the United States of America.
Mr. Jenkin: I certainly think that the latter was a mistake, and that the Government would admit that it was a mistake. I have heard representatives of the United States Government admit that it was a mistake. The important fact is that, for example, the 1993 al-Qaeda attack on the twin towers was known to have been supported by Saddam Hussein. Most particularly—
Paul Flynn rose—
Mr. Jenkin: I should like to finish the point.
Saddam Hussein was the only world leader at the time to welcome the destruction of the twin towers in New York and the attacks on the Pentagon.
Paul Flynn: I think that the hon. Gentleman was in the House when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence was asked precisely whether there was any proof of collaboration between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda. My right hon. Friend said quite specifically that there was absolutely no evidence of any link between Saddam Hussein and what happened on 11 September.
Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to put these questions to his own Government. After all, it is the recent arrests of suspected terrorists in this country, along with the discovery of materials contaminated with the lethal poison ricin, that seem to have galvanised the Prime Minister and his Government to make the link between terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and rogue states.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Jenkin: I wish to make progress. I do not want to detain the House unnecessarily.
During the cold war the west successfully developed a clear doctrine of nuclear deterrence to contain the Soviet threat. It helped to explain to people throughout Europe and the free world the basis for deploying weapons such as Trident. Cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles. Similarly, British counter-terrorist doctrine served this country well after 1945 in such campaigns as Borneo, Malaya and Oman, and, most significantly, against terrorism in Northern Ireland.

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Winning the argument is as much a part of modern warfare as winning the war itself. Now we are fighting a war against terrorism, but the Government have not yet succeeded in articulating a comprehensive doctrine for it. There is clearly need for new strategic thinking to meet new strategic twin threats—international terrorist networks linked to rogue states developing weapons of mass destruction.
On 17 October, I set out to the House what the basis of such a strategy might be. The Foreign Secretary's statement yesterday and the new UN resolution on terrorism would appear to be the first steps towards a more comprehensive approach to international terrorism and rogue states. It needs to be fleshed out, but the argument for threatening and, if necessary, using military force against Saddam Hussein can be won with the broad majority of the British people. It is asking far more of our troops than is reasonable to face military action if there is doubt that the nation is behind them. But the job of explaining would be much easier if people could see that the actions that the Government are taking are in a clear, coherent context of policy and doctrine that shows how the leading democracies of the world are acting rationally and in the wider interests of world peace and stability.
Llew Smith: Putting aside the obvious links between the United States and Iraq, does the hon. Gentleman think that it was somewhat of a mistake for the previous Tory Administration, in particular the Department of Trade and Industry, to encourage the export of military equipment to Iraq, as was highlighted and concluded in the Scott inquiry?
Mr. Jenkin: That point is entirely irrelevant to the debate.
The Secretary of State also addressed the question of the NATO summit, and this is the first opportunity that we have had to address the outcome of the Prague summit. I certainly join him in congratulating the noble Lord Robertson on his term of office as Secretary-General of NATO. He has been seeing NATO through an extremely challenging period and has maintained, so far, its relevance, supremacy and centrality to the security of our nation and our continent.
We remain sceptical about some aspects of the outcome of the Prague summit, particularly about the effectiveness of the commitments to increase military capabilities without targeted increases in defence expenditure. We welcome the creation of the NATO rapid response force, although the composition of that force remains unclear. But have the Government truly resolved the institutional relationship between NATO and the EU? I point out to the Secretary of State that the so called Berlin plus agreement is said to be the basis of the new settlement, but Berlin plus was coined at the 1996 Berlin summit when that referred to the European security and defence identity, long before the ESDP had been conceived and long before the ESDP included non-NATO EU members in the arrangements.
The question that I put to the Secretary of State and to which he could not give a clear answer remains. Who decides whether an operation falls to NATO or the
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ESDP? Every time a crisis arises, there will be a complex and lengthy political question to resolve—whether that crisis requires European military intervention. I raise that now briefly only because future events are bound to expose the problems.
This is an anxious time for many servicemen and women and their families. The time is approaching when we may need to resolve our differences in the House with a debate, a specific resolution and a vote. If that time comes and we resolve to support military action, that will be the time when we must all give our armed forces our fullest support. They are a beacon of excellence to other nations. They believe in our country. Once a decision has been made we must back them with faith in our own judgment.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind all hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 10-minute limit on all Back-Bench speeches.
3.4 pm
Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews: The Secretary of State in his opening address to the House set out a list of the dangers that face the world. It was a succinct and clear list and one with which many of us would agree. It contained one glaring omission, which is this: the existence of a single, uncontested, uncontrolled superpower, and the nature of the illegal regime that is presently in control of that country.
There are many in the House and outside it who realise that within America lies the solution, but also within America lies the principal problem. There are many in the House and outside it who understand that within America lies the principal cause for hope, and within America lies the principal cause for apprehension. That American paradox is something that I have lived with all my life.
There is no country on the globe that has a greater breadth of internal freedoms, and there is no country on the globe that is more reviled for the perception—very often the accurate perception—that it actively denies those freedoms to others, and the present example of that, transparently, is the Palestinian Arabs. No country in the world in my lifetime has done more for the cause of peace—and I have in mind the Marshall plan which has underpinned economically the peace that we have enjoyed in Europe—and no country in my lifetime has been a greater cause for war.
There is no country at the moment more committed to the war on the abstract noun "terrorism", and yet there is no country in the world in my lifetime that has given aid, succour and encouragement to more terrorist groups, more military dictatorships and more rogue states.
To simply take a list in no particular order, one recollects the corrupt Diem regime in Vietnam; the military overthrow of the democratically elected Government of Salvador Allende; and the support of the Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. One recollects now, as we speak, the support for the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, one of the vilest terrorist organisations that are operating in Africa. One recollects the unalloyed support of Saddam Hussein in

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his war against Iran. In those days, the United Nations weapons inspectors need have gone no further than the Customs of the United States, or even, possibly, the Customs at Dover. One now sees the unalloyed support of the war criminal Ariel Sharon. As was memorably said in the last debate by an Opposition Member, every single Israeli bullet that kills a Palestinian is paid for in the United States.
We would therefore urge the Secretary of State to understand the depth of feeling that there is on this side of the debate and the argument about the nature of the regime that is leading us to war in Iraq. The opposition to the war is not based upon an approbation of Saddam Hussein. On the contrary: it is based on a total aversion to Saddam Hussein. I myself have a total loathing, more than anything else, for authoritarian Governments, which is one of the reasons why I occasionally have so much trouble with our own. Nor is our opposition based—I really ask the Secretary of State and the Government to cease this accusation in public against those who oppose the present war in Iraq—on some form of anti-Americanism in itself.
My family, I am proud to say, fulfilled a number of roles in their generation in the second world war. They never let me forget as a child the debt that we owed to American men and women and to America. Subsequently, when I had the great privilege to debate in many universities in that country during the course of the Vietnam war, I came away not with an aversion to America because of that war, which I loathed, but with an enormous respect and love for American institutions, American vitality and American freedoms.
Those on this side of the House and on this side of the argument—who knows whether the two may yet be synonymous—do not harbour within us festering anti-American feelings. Our opposition is to the nature of the American regime, which is as bad as any that I can remember within that paradox. It is ruled, governed and motivated by a ghastly mixture of fundamental Christian evangelism, ruthless Zionism and the oil economy. That mix, if it is allowed to rule us in our international affairs, will bring us nothing but disaster.
Those of us who oppose this war do so because we believe that it is ill-proven and unnecessary—I am neither by nature nor by inclination a pacifist. If I may respond to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who accused me by implication of "hand wringing", I have never done such a thing. If I had coherent evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction trained on my constituents in Medway my opposition to the war would not be based on any form of clammy, wet liberalism. There is no such evidence, however; on the contrary, the evidence points directly against us. The motivation for this war is suspect in the extreme, and those outside the House know that it is so.
Will the Government exercise the considerable influence that they rightly have in Washington to ensure that the progress of the middle east is immensely enhanced by the withdrawal of support for Israel and its present repression of the Palestinian people? At a stroke, that will remove the principal causus belli and the underpinning of terrorism in the world that threatens both them and us. Will the Government also exercise their considerable influence and use the massive sum of £5 billion, which they threaten to expend on this war, in the middle east and particularly in Iraq to give health
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and succour—and political succour to those who oppose the Iraqi regime? That is not impossible. It was done in Kosovo, as we were reminded only recently. To starve and force Saddam Hussein into submission, although possible, would be done at a terrible price for world peace and for world security. To feed that country back into democracy should be the aim of all of us. I hope that the Secretary of State and Her Majesty's Government understand that those feelings and those sentiments are the basis for much of the opposition here and in the country.
3.13 pm
Mr. Colin Breed: First, I apologise for the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch), who is at the moment returning from a visit to Kuwait.
There have been very few times in recent years when there has been such worldwide uncertainty and unease owing to a range of perceptible international threats. Central to this collective sentiment is the prospect of an imminent conflict with Iraq, coupled with the shadow of international terrorism that has already spread over a large number of different countries, and the long-standing problems in the middle east. I associate myself with many of the comments of the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) about Israel and Palestine, which I have visited recently. I have considerable sympathy with his views.
The debate could focus on many different aspects of defence in the world, but the Secretary of State implied in his statement last week that this would be the occasion for the House to debate his proposals in dealing with the request from the US to upgrade the early warning radar at Fylingdales for missile defence. The country and the House also rightly expect to have an opportunity to debate in depth current Government policy in respect of Iraq. The point must be made that if the Government believe that missile defence merits the attention of the House, time should also be set aside for a debate on Iraq. Likewise, the time afforded in today's debate is in no way sufficient to address all the strategic and political questions inherent in many of the significant decisions that will have to be taken in the next few weeks and months. How we are to deal with Iraq, and whether or not to participate in the US missile defence programme may both be subjects covered by "defence in the world", but both need separate consideration, and my party has considerable concerns about Government policy on each.
As announced this week, the deployment of more than 30,000 troops to the Gulf is unique in size and has proceeded without any debate or vote in this House. The Secretary of State will be only too well aware that many consider this to be yet another example of proceeding down a predetermined route in conjunction with the United States. Although he has properly emphasised on many occasions that war is not inevitable, realistically, such actions reduce options and increase pressure to use those forces.
The Prime Minister has emphasised that time must be given for the weapons inspectors to undertake their tasks. We entirely agree with that. It therefore seems at the very least somewhat premature to deploy such a large force at this time, bearing in mind the significant

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logistical support that will be required over the prolonged period. The Secretary of State seemed to indicate in his statement earlier this week that a force of this size can be maintained in theatre indefinitely, but that is not a view shared by many other experienced commentators. Is it realistic to think that our troops can be maintained over a prolonged period, to enable inspections to be fully completed and weapons inspectors' reports to be received and considered, before any action is taken?
I welcome the Secretary of State's statement on Monday that a substantive vote in the House would precede any commitment of British troops. That has considerable public support. What would happen, however, if the House were to vote no or with only a relatively small majority in favour? Could we realistically opt out of any operation if the Government chose not to support a US-led invasion? Are we not so operationally tied in to the United States plans that if President Bush gives the word, we will have no real alternative but to follow?
As regards the preparations for the deployment of our troops, there are many questions concerning the quality of the regulation kit, the capability of tanks and helicopters to operate under desert conditions and the position in hospitals at home once military medical staff have been deployed. The time available to make the modifications to the equipment and artillery seems, at best, to be extremely tight, with little or no opportunity for full testing to ensure that the alternations have been successful. In particular, the communications problems identified in Oman are very significant so much so that the National Audit Office declared a capability gap until 2004. In an increasingly technological world, communications are clearly vital. Will the Secretary of State or the Minister who winds up the debate confirm just how our forces will talk to each other on the battlefield?
As has been said, it is impossible to exclude entirely the possibility of incidents of friendly fire in warfare. However, everything should be done to ensure that they are reduced to the absolute minimum, so will the Minister indicate what identification friend or foe—IFF—upgrades are not yet complete and what preparations are in hand to ensure that British tanks are not bombed by US planes?
I briefly want to mention defence medical services where the shortfalls in capability are perhaps most stark. Considerable pressure is being placed on the reservists to fulfil other international peacekeeping commitments—let alone those in the middle east. Ministry of Defence hospital units are understaffed and locums are employed to take up the slack. Even the use of private hospitals to treat service members is beginning to fail to cope with the situation. In my local district general hospital at Derriford in Plymouth, the deployment of military medical staff has already brought the closure of a 35-bed surgical ward. I am therefore extremely concerned that any further deployment of such staff will have even more profound effects on a hospital that is already struggling to cope with other related problems.
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I applaud the staff and managers alike at Derriford for their manful attempts to keep all hospital services running as normal, but further reductions in key medical staff will inevitably mean that patient care is compromised and that waiting lists will lengthen. What contingency plans have been made by the Ministry of Defence, in conjunction with the Department of Health, to spread the pressure more evenly, so that particular hospitals that have a higher than normal proportion of military medical staff are supported by other units that are not so greatly affected?
I turn now to missile defence. Can the Minister explain the seemingly incredible rush to judgment on an issue that is of huge strategic and political importance? It seems only a matter of days since the Secretary of State received the formal request from the United States, yet here he is, inviting consultation on the one hand, while wishing to sanction the request at the very earliest opportunity on the other. If, indeed, the decision to allow the US to upgrade the radar station at Fylingdales in no way commits us to participate in the US programme, why did the Secretary of State feel the need to make such a lengthy statement extolling the virtues of missile defence if his only purpose was to announce a simple software upgrade? His Department's public discussion document was published just before the Christmas recess, but already a number of serious questions about our participation in a future US programme remain unanswered.
First, is any agreement to this upgrade truly "not at odds with the view of our allies"? The NATO Prague summit agreed to examine options for different kinds of missile defence; it certainly did not issue a statement in favour of the development of a US programme. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with our allies and what do they really think of this US request? What are the terms of the memorandum of understanding that the MOD is apparently negotiating with the US on access to the American missile defence programme? This is an important aspect of any technological integration and needs to be more clearly explained.
Many strategic and technological dimensions to the missile system are not well understood, and the hasty deployment of any system must carry political and strategic consequences, not least among other nuclear powers and for the integrity of the non-proliferation regime. Will the Government set out the clear criteria by which they seem to have already judged their decision on this matter? The Foreign Office deserves recognition for its role in promoting the new Hague code of conduct against ballistic missile proliferation, so are the Government satisfied that this, and other non-proliferation measures, will not be undermined by the missile defence system, whether at the instigation of the US alone or the US with others?
What is certain, however, is that missile defence is not an option just yet, and that the dangers of proliferation represented by North Korea, Iran and Libya, which the MOD consultation document discusses at length, are problems that have to be dealt with now with the tools currently available. Does the Minister agree that, regardless of the development of future defensive measures, the best way to reduce the threat from ballistic missiles is to strengthen the international non-proliferation and monitoring regimes?

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I began by saying that we live in an uncertain world. It is unlikely that a war on Iraq will eradicate the fight against international terrorism in one fell swoop. The next few months will be a defining time for the UN and the countries that support it. The threats to world peace now offer far more complex challenges to all countries and their Governments. The UK has played a significant role in the defence of the world and the maintenance of peace, and it must continue to do so using its influence, patience and long-standing policy of military force as the very last resort, having exhausted all other avenues to peace. The British Government must hold on to those principles in the face of what appears to be considerable pressure for more immediate action. They must ensure that firm political control is maintained over their armed forces so that any future decision on their use is retained and not compromised by their deployment as part of an international force.
3.25 pm
Mr. John Smith: I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate. As we do not have much time, I shall raise only a couple of points that the Government should consider. Obviously, Iraq is the main focus of our attention, but the debate is about defence in the world. I share the views of the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) to the extent that I, too, am not certain that the Government have fully appreciated the change in the security environment, especially after 11 September.
We all welcomed the new chapter in the strategic defence review and it has made an important contribution to defence thinking in this country. I am not convinced, however, that we have gone far enough. Perhaps that is understandable. The events of 11 September were so unequalled and horrendous that their consequences have not fully sunk in. It was a unique event in human history because it was an attack on a civilian population that was not directly involved in a conflict, disagreement or warfare. No notice of the attack was given. Asymmetrical weapons—non-traditional methods—were used. No one seriously predicted that such a thing would happen. We should bear in mind the fact that the terrorists targeted 50,000 people, not the 3,000 who were killed. It was only a combination of luck and circumstances that so few died.
It should also be borne in mind that the evidence shows that the target of the previous attack on the twin towers some years earlier, which was not taken seriously, was an unbelievable 300,000 innocent civilians. The intention was to blow up the basement of one tower and for it to fall in such a way that it would have a domino effect and destroy half of Manhattan. The planned attack may have been unworkable and unrealistic, but the fact is that it was proposed, and on a scale that we had never heard of before. That has to affect our defence thinking. I am delighted that NATO addressed the problem in the Berlin-plus arrangements by developing a counter-terrorist strategy and a rapid response force, which is important, but we have a long way to go. This country can make a unique contribution to the debate in the changed security environment because of our bitter experience of fighting terrorism over the past 30 years within our isles.
I am worried that in my discussions with the Americans as part of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, of which I am proud and privileged to be a
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member representing this Parliament, it has become clear that their response does not fully grasp the scale of the security threat that we face throughout the world. We should use our close alliance with that country to get the message across.
I do not have time to develop all these ideas, but I will hint at a couple. The Americans believe that Europe, and they include us in Europe, does not take terrorism seriously after their experience of 11 September. They think that we are soft on terrorists and that we are not prepared to take the tough decisions necessary to sort them out. My reaction is that the Americans have not had the same experience of dealing with terrorists that we have had, and they make a fundamental mistake if they think that the solution to international terrorism is purely military.
That is a lesson that the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe have had to learn the hard way, and we would make a mistake if we did not use those lessons now to tackle international terrorism. Our American military counterparts talk about the changed environment after the cold war, but I do not think that they fully grasp the changed environment after 11 September.
We should also take into consideration the psychology of the United States since 11 September. The average American citizen is terrified. It is some time since the attacks on Washington and New York, but the people there feel physically threatened 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We should be aware of that in any debate about these issues.
The world has changed. We should not—this has been the case since the end of the cold war—take the traditional views of defence policy and military tactics, as portrayed classically by Clausewitz. We should not look at the military tactics set out by Tsun Tsu, or at guerrilla tactics or at the tactics of deception; we should consider the military tactics of Michael Collins in a world environment in which there is access to apocalyptic and elliptic weapons. That is the challenge that we face, and we need to tackle it in a completely new way. I hope that the Government will consider that in due course.
As a founder member of the campaign against repression in Iraq, which was launched just after Saddam Hussein usurped power, I have supported regime change in Iraq since long before it was popular to do so. We argued that that man and his country would be a threat in years to come if we went on selling weapons to him and doing business with him. We all made a big mistake in doing that, but that does not change the fact that he must be dealt with now.
Since 11 September and the threat of mass international terrorism, which takes an unprecedented form, the need to deal with Saddam Hussein has become even more pressing. What has changed is not the threat that he poses but the environment in which he makes that threat and the fact that there are people who will take advantage of, and use, the weapons that he has developed and that he is prepared to develop.
Huw Irranca-Davies: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Smith: No, I am running out of time.

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We should not believe for one second that Saddam Hussein would be going along with the weapons inspectorate if forces were not building up as they are. That man only understands violence and the politics of brute force and power. That is why he has acted, and if we took away the threat, he would stop.
There are those who want to argue in favour of Saddam Hussein—I can think of examples—and say that he is a reasonable, rational man. Someone who, despite being called the defender of the faith by some, can order that the most senior Muslim cleric in his country is arrested, that the man's wife is systematically raped in his presence, that his facial hair is set on fire and that 4 in nails are hammered into his skull while he is still conscious, is not someone with whom any of us can do business. Somebody in that position who has weapons of mass destruction has to be dealt with. My view is that he can be dealt with without a war. He understands power, and if we build up forces and present a serious and credible threat, he will know what to do. I remain hopeful that we can avoid war—I hope and pray that we do. We are going the right way about preventing a war that none of us wants.
Finally, our brave soldiers have embarked on a journey to that part of the world and could face great direct danger, although I hope that they do not. I am glad that anthrax vaccinations have been given to them well in advance of a move forward to the front line. I understand that a lot of soldiers have not taken up the option of vaccination, but may decide to do so later. Will the Minister assure me that the Government will not use pertussis vaccinations as they did last time to speed up the effectiveness—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.
3.36 pm
Mr. David Atkinson: I want to make three points to which I would appreciate a response from the Minister in his winding-up speech, and shall then speak about missile defence and Iraq.
First, an inter-parliamentary dimension in European security and defence policy has, as the House knows, been maintained for more than 50 years by the Assembly of the Western European Union. It remains the only way in which directly elected members of 28 national Parliaments can co-ordinate a response to current issues with an input and influence that are impossible for national Parliaments to achieve on their own. With the assets of the WEU now being merged with those of the European Union, it is expected that the fate of its Assembly will be decided at next year's intergovernmental conference. Meanwhile, the Assembly's budget has been cut by 30 per cent., reducing both the quality and quantity of its input. Will the Minister tell the House if he considers that an interparliamentary dimension to European defence policy should be maintained and, if so, how? With the long experience of the WEU Assembly, why reinvent the wheel?
Secondly, further to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), can the Minister clarify what the Secretary of State meant when
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he reportedly told journalists last week that BAE Systems is not a British company and can expect no favours from the Government? If BAE Systems is not British, what is it? Its headquarters are in Britain; its senior management must be British; the majority of board members must be British; the British Government holds the golden share in the company; 50,000 of its employees are based in Britain; a good many more people have jobs supplying BAE, including some in my constituency; half its turnover originates in Britain; and it is Britain's largest defence contractor. Is the Secretary of State saying that that will all be disregarded when contracts are placed, or can the Minister assure us that British jobs matter?
Thirdly, will the Minister respond to the concerns of a constituent who complained to me that his son, who serves in the Royal Marines and is going to the Gulf, has to pay nearly £500 to buy kit, including a sleeping bag, back pack, combat knife and desert boots, which the Marines either cannot supply or, my constituent says, supply as
"old, worn and second-hand rubbish"?
Will he get his money back?
For the past 10 years, I have been the rapporteur for the WEU Assembly on transatlantic co-operation on ballistic missile defence. Following fact-finding visits to the USA and Canada by the Technological and Aerospace Committee in 1994, 1997 and 2000, we presented three reports that were unanimously endorsed by the Assembly, and I shared with the House our principal conclusion that Europe remains defenceless against a ballistic missile attack. Moreover, we are concerned that neither the WEU nor NATO has a firm, clear and coherent response policy. I am therefore encouraged by the Secretary of State's statement to the House last Thursday and by his speech today that he has agreed to upgrade Fylingdales for missile defence. In my view, that decision must be the start of a clear commitment to the development of a missile defence system for the continent of Europe in which the Russian Federation should be invited to participate.
Even before his election, President Bush was clear in his support of a national missile defence system in response to the Tenet report of 1999, in which the then director of central intelligence warned that, in the next 15 years, American cities would face ballistic missile threats from a variety of sources. Some experts even warn that such threats could come much sooner. That warning also applies to this country and Europe. When the Secretary of State said last Thursday that the threat was a combination of intention and capability, he was right also to point out that intentions can change with Governments, that Governments can change overnight and that capability can change as soon as Governments decide to purchase such capability.
In the past 25 years, ballistic missiles have been used to destroy, threaten and intimidate in Europe, the near east, the middle east and Asia. They can affect whole economies and impact on foreign policies. Today, a growing number of third-world Governments are buying and developing missiles. They are easier to maintain and cheaper to acquire than squadrons of fighter aircraft. At least 18 such countries, which are ignoring the missile control regime, have ballistic missiles on which nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological warheads are capable of installation.

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Let us remind ourselves that this country was the first in history to experience a ballistic missile attack. It came from the V2 rockets that rained down on our capital city, killing some 2,500 Londoners, and against which we had no defence. I am sorry that some Labour Members representing London seats do not recall that.
Mr. Mark Hendrick: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people who speak out against missile defence should be asked whether they would have spoken out against the development of radar during the second world war and in the run-up to it? Would those who did so on the basis that it might have upset the Germans and destabilised relationships with Germany and England say the same thing today?
Mr. Atkinson: Thank God we developed radar and the Spitfire, which managed to defeat the Nazi forces ranged against us. Surely, common prudence and sense should encourage us in the United Kingdom to accept the American offer of a missile defence shield and to contribute to it.
I come now to Iraq. Yesterday, the House was lobbied by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament against a war with Iraq. Those involved were right to lobby and to do so now, but they were wrong to lobby us. They should all have been in Baghdad, outside one of Saddam's many palaces, demanding that he disarm his weapons of mass destruction in response to resolution 1441 and all the other United Nations mandatory resolutions that have called on him to do so over the past 12 years. The issue today is not the threat of war against Iraq, but the threat posed by Iraq to the authority of the United Nations. Since CND would not have been allowed to lobby Iraq, the question that it should have been asking us yesterday was how much longer we in this House were prepared to allow the United Nations to be undermined in such a way, demonstrating to Israel and others that it can be ignored with impunity. If CND and some Labour Members really support the United Nations, they should recall that it was the failure of the League of Nations to demonstrate any will against the dictators that led to the second world war. If we do not enforce the will of the United Nations today, it will be even more difficult to do so tomorrow.
Glenda Jackson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Atkinson: I am glad to give way to the hon. Lady.
Glenda Jackson: I am most grateful. If it is the will of the United Nations not to accord a second mandate authorising military action against Iraq, and if the United States and the United Kingdom ignore that will and engage in a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, would the hon. Gentleman regard that as an endorsement of international law?
Mr. Atkinson: I ask the hon. Lady to wait for a little more of what I have to say. I am sure that I shall provide her with the answer that she seeks.
I applaud the Prime Minister and President Bush for now insisting that time must run out for Saddam Hussein. They were right to insist that resolution 1441 warn of the consequences of Iraq's failure to disarm. They are right, in learning the lessons of the past,
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to build up a force which, if Saddam does not comply, will do that for him. I must say to the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), for whom I have the greatest respect, that it is Saddam Hussein and not the Prime Minister and President Bush who should be hauled before an international tribunal and charged with crimes of war and genocide.
It will be for Hans Blix, when he goes before the Security Council on Monday, to say whether he needs more time, but I have no doubt that he will conclude what is already clear: Iraq has continued to ignore the will of the world community. In that case, the United Nations must insist under a new resolution that Saddam disarms or departs. If he refuses to do so, or if for reasons of narrow, national, ideological self-interest on the part of other dictatorial regimes such a new resolution is not passed or is vetoed, resolution 1441 remains to be enforced by force. Long-term peace on this planet will be at stake if it is not.
3.46 pm
Mr. Marsha Singh: I am pleased to take part in this debate. As we approach war with Iraq, it is worth remembering that there are more than 30 conflicts in the world at the moment. As we continue with the war against terror, it is worth remembering some of the causes of terror. During this debate, it is worth remembering some of our responsibilities for the situation in the world today.
In India, for example, we were responsible for partition, and we left behind the dispute in Kashmir. There have been three wars between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, and two have recently been averted. Just last year, 1 million men faced each other across the border between Pakistan and India. Thousands of Kashmiris have died in their struggle for self-determination. Despite countless United Nations resolutions—people talk about UN resolutions—what response has there been from the international community? The answer is that there has been no concerted international response to resolve the dispute in Kashmir peacefully.
The result is two nuclear powers facing each other with barely concealed hostility and aggression. What has been the international response to that and to the near war last year? Our response has been to try to sell India 16 Hawk fighter training aircraft. Russia's recent response has been to sign a multi-million pound deal to sell and lease long-range strategic bombers and nuclear-powered submarines. What price defence in the world?
In Palestine, we were responsible for the creation of the state of Israel. Again, despite UN resolution after UN resolution, the Palestinian people still have no homeland or compensation. Indeed, in direct defiance of the UN, Israel continues to occupy Palestine. Hundreds of Israelis and many thousands of Palestinians have
died. Palestinians are living the life of the refugee—or worse—in their own homeland. That has gone on for more than 50 years. What is the response of the international community? It has turned a blind eye and ignored the plight of the Palestinian people.
But there has been a response. Britain has licensed components for F-16 fighters to be sold to Israel, despite the fact that it regularly uses them to attack Palestinians. Germany recently announced the sale of Patriot missiles to Israel; God knows what the United States sells it. With such policies, what price defence in the world?

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In the 1980s, we armed Saddam Hussein to fight Iran. We turned a blind eye to his use of chemical weapons against Iranians, never mind his own people. We are responsible for that. Again in the 1980s, the US poured arms into the mujaheddin to fight the Government of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. The Taliban inherited the weaponry, and the policies led to recent events in Afghanistan. Was that a price worth paying?
Let us consider terrorism. We all know what it is, but is there room for grey areas? Should the war on terror be all embracing? After being ignored by the international community, those who take up the armed struggle in Kashmir see themselves as freedom fighters for self-determination. Palestinians who take up the armed struggle perceive themselves to be freedom fighters, fighting the illegal occupation of their country. More recently, Chechens have regarded themselves as freedom fighters for independence. What is the difference between those people, who have a national cause, and the French resistance? What is the difference between them and the African National Congress? Were ANC members terrorists or freedom fighters? We need to examine our actions—and inaction—which have led to what we call terrorism today.
In the war against terror, the international community cannot continue to ignore legitimate aspirations. Indeed, if we do that we can never win the war against terror.
Mr. Eric Joyce: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Singh: No.
As we prepare for the war on Iraq, I question the logic behind it. It appears to be that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction and that he must therefore disarm or be attacked. That is strange and dangerous logic. If we follow it to its conclusion, do we wage war against every country with weapons of mass destruction? If not, how do we pick and choose? Do we go to war with North Korea, Pakistan, China, India and former Soviet republics?
Mr. Joyce: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Singh: No. If we do not follow our logic, how do we get those countries to disarm? Where do we go after Iraq if we follow the logic to its conclusion?
I have tried, but I find no justification for a war against Iraq. I find that the Muslim world, not only part of it, is completely bemused. It asks why United Nations resolutions are enforced against Iraq but not against Israel; why Palestinians are not given their homeland, and why that is not a priority for the international community. Muslims are asking, "Why is Kashmir not a priority for the international community?" They are bemused, and they have every right to be.
Saddam Hussein has been contained since 1991. He has not posed a realistic threat to anyone since then. Apart from Kuwait, none of Saddam's neighbours has asked us to attack Iraq, or offered to help us. How is Iraq an imminent danger to this country? Will someone
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please answer that question? No other significant world leader backs the US in this war. Do other leaders see something that we do not?
I do not see why we should spend billions on a war that cannot be justified, when our own people have economic needs, or why we should damage our political and economic relations with the Muslim world. I cannot countenance the deaths of service people and of thousands of innocent Iraqis in this pointless war. I see the danger of regional instability. I agree with the ordinary men and women on the streets of this country who ask, "What has this war got to do with us?"
The best defence in the world is peace. To get peace, we need conflict resolution in the trouble spots. We need to halt the arms trade, cancel third world debt and encourage good and transparent Government. We need disarmament, and we should lead by example.
3.56 pm
Mr. Mike Hancock: I am delighted to get the opportunity to speak in this debate. I echo the sentiments of the Secretary of State and the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman in paying tribute to Lord Robertson. I am desperately sorry that he could not be persuaded to take a second term as NATO Secretary-General. I think that all of us would have welcomed that, and that we all appreciate his work in bringing NATO together and making it a more positive force than it has been for some time, especially from a political point of view. He will be sadly missed, and a very tough act to follow.
I also congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) on his speech. I am disappointed that he is not present just now. I share many of the sentiments that he expressed, and I am sure that many other hon. Members do too. I am a member of the NATO parliamentary assembly, and I am always amazed by the extent to which members of the US Senate and Congress fail to understand why so much of the rest of the world has a problem with the actions that America has taken. In the US, American citizens are even more resentful of the fact that a sizable chunk of the rest of the world does not always perceive their country as a power for good.
The hon. and learned Member for Medway and I are the same age. We grew up seeing the goodness that can come from the US, as well as the awful mistakes made over the past 50 years by various Administrations. I grew up in Portsmouth, and I have often stood on the beach and on the old town's fortifications to wave off Navy and other personnel, among them members of my own family. My earliest recollection is of waving my father off to the Korean war, along with thousands of other servicemen.
A week or so ago, I was there to see the Ark Royal leave. The crowds were as big as usual. Various television crews were interviewing Portsmouth residents and the families of the service men and women on the aircraft carrier. Not a person there did not wish the crew all the best and godspeed, and hope that all of them returned safely. There was no dissenting voice to be heard.
For the first time in my experience, however, I heard serious doubts being raised by the families of the service personnel, in response to questions asked by the

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domestic and foreign media crews recording the occasion, about the logic and the aims of what those young men and women were being sent to do. Serious questions were asked. My local newspaper has supported the armed forces historically, and still does, but its editorial that week was very questioning of the Government's motives. We need to examine and get answers to these serious questions.
Since 1996, there have been outstanding UN resolutions concerning attacks on Iraq that would have given the same mandate as the Government now suggest they need to use force in Iraq. However, there was no move to enforce those UN resolutions. For some mysterious reason, five or six years elapsed. If one were really cynical, one might think that someone explained to President Bush in the middle of last year that it was going to be very unlikely that he was going to catch Osama bin Laden, which would be a real failure for his Administration and for him. Perhaps he needed a target that was more achievable than the capture of bin Laden. There was then the zeroing-in on Iraq.
The British people, have rightly, demanded that the evidence be forthcoming. Earlier this week, I asked the Secretary of State whether he was satisfied that the right message was being given to people inside Iraq and in the surrounding countries as to why we were sending 30,000 men and women to the Gulf for a potential war with Iraq. He said that he believed it was. That is different from what one hears when one talks to people from the region.
I was in my hospital in Portsmouth at the end of last week, where I spoke to an Iraqi who works there and who told me his family's story about the situation there. I spoke to another Iraqi—a UK citizen, but a former citizen of Iraq who has been in the UK for more than 25 years—who told me of the spin that is put on this subject inside Iraq. Little or no effort is being made to put the Government's case, or the United States Government's case, to the people of Iraq. There is a great deal of ignorance. We will not win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people by convincing the dissidents outside Iraq of the justification of the case. The main bulk of the people within Iraq do not understand or appreciate the sentiments that the Prime Minister and others portray time and time again.
Today, the Secretary of State virtually dismissed the public opinion polls; he said that he had seen the latest one. He cannot have seen The Guardian poll, which was quite clear; 47 per cent. of the British people said that they were not in favour of a war and 81 per cent. said that they would not support a war unless there were a second resolution. The Prime Minister had a question and answer session with Select Committee chairmen, a newspaper report of which said:
"But again Tony knows best. He said yesterday that the new UN resolution would be "desirable", but that the UN will not be allowed to stand in the way of dealing with Saddam Hussein."
The British people have a right to know exactly what that means; the Prime Minister has had many opportunities to explain it. Does it mean that the Germans, who will chair the Security Council from the end of this month—they do not have a veto but are vital in terms of bringing the subject on to the agenda—will say no? Does it mean that the Germans do not believe that we are ready and that the inspectors need more time? Or will it be France, which has a veto on the
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Security Council and might exercise it? What is the Prime Minister's response? What does he mean when he says, "We are not going to allow the UN to stand in the way of dealing with Saddam Hussein"?
Huw Irranca-Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hancock: We do not have enough time to take interventions and, to be fair—[HON.MEMBERS: "We get injury time."] If we get injury time, I welcome the opportunity of giving way.
Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; the time that I take will be added on at the end of his speech. While I and many others agree that it would be good to have a second resolution, what would be the Liberal Democrat position if all bar one of the United Nations members said that they agreed that there was a case for tackling Saddam Hussein?
Mr. Hancock: That will largely depend on who the one is and their reason for objecting. What the hon. Gentleman has got from me is a lot closer to an answer than anything that any of us have got from the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister had gone that far, I think that some of us would have been appreciative, but sadly he has not even been prepared to take that question on.
Are we convinced as a nation that we have given all the information that is available to us to the UN inspectors? Has the United States given the UN inspectors the best possible chance to achieve their goal? It is very difficult to get anyone to give a straight answer to that question. If we are sending people to a country such as Iraq—in some instances possibly even putting their lives on the line—to seek out information, and we claim as a nation and a Government, as does the United States, that we have that evidence, and that it is strong and compelling enough for us to send 30,000 people halfway around the world to fight a war, have we left it to the 300 or 400 people on the ground in Iraq to prove it? The answer is that the Government have not given the House an assurance that they have made that information available.
Mr. Joyce: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if there were such excellent intelligence, if it were given to 400 people it might just possibly be compromised in one way or another?
Mr. Hancock: The likelihood of compromise is always there; our own Security Service has been compromised many times in the past 50 years in various ways. However, if we are to take on a whole country, we must also define the targets that we shall bomb. Presumably those targets will he where we suspect the weapons to be hidden, and I think that we have a right to expect the inspectors to have at least a level playing field in which to operate.
In the few minutes remaining to me, I want to mention the current debate, in the House and in my city, over the future contracts for the two aircraft carriers. The matter is unrelated to Iraq, but it does affect jobs in our area. At the end of the day, the Government will have to decide whether BAE Systems or Thales gets the contracts, and they must make their choice for the right

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reason, for the right price and for the right product. We need to know that the decision is based on those criteria and not on a vendetta between the Secretary of State and the chief executive of BAE Systems, or on the fact that BAE Systems has done a good wrecking job by suggesting that Thales is a foreign company, although it is itself 54 per cent. controlled by people outside the UK. The Government must insist that the successful contractor live up to the expectations of the House, of the Government and, more important, work forces in shipyards all round the country, and that work for those carriers is evenly spread around the United Kingdom, which of course includes Vosper Thornycroft in Portsmouth.
4.8 pm
Mrs. Alice Mahon: Today the German Chancellor and the French President have pledged to work together to prevent a war in Iraq, and the contrast between their courage in standing up to the United States, and our Government's position could not be greater.
Resolution 1441 is not a resolution for war. It does not authorise military action and the Government know that it does not. It does not contain the automatic trigger that the United States wanted; it simply requires that the Security Council must meet if a breach is thought to have taken place.
Mr. Gerald Howarth indicated dissent.
Mrs. Mahon: The Opposition spokesman shakes his head.
From the moment that resolution 1441 was passed, both the United States and our Government have sought to interpret it as a vote to make war possible, and not a vote for peace. It has not brought the United States back under the umbrella of international law, as many hoped that it would, and the central issue remains: will the British Government defend international law, and by that I mean the charter—not a resolution that has been arrived at by arm twisting, by bribing, by intimidation—which says that when we are not being threatened we should not pre-emptively attack? Or will that fall as a result of United States muscle?
Throughout all this, the Government have refused to recognise the dangers inherent in allowing an unchecked US superpower to set the international agenda. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) for a brilliant speech about that; I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh). Both set out the position with great clarity.
It is a shame that the Prime Minister appears to be set on following President Bush. I think that the Government have shown a great deal of dishonesty in today's debate, and a great deal of cowardice. Not for the first time, they are not prepared to put their position to the vote—but we will call a vote today. I believe that this is our last chance to do so before a war against Iraq.
The Government know that they are prepared to take Britain into a war with Iraq if, or should I say when, President Bush decides to go, and they are prepared to
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do so regardless of the UN. I believe that when the Prime Minister visited the ranch in Texas he promised that he would give that support. A deception has been carried on for months. I think the Government are too cowardly to face up to opposition among the electorate and admit the truth. They are too cowardly to face up to opposition within their own party, and they are too cowardly to face up to the hostility expressed by many of our constituents.
It is worth going back to the Security Council, many of whose members were against any kind of resolution. They wanted the weapons inspectors to return. During the negotiations on resolution 1441, they supported France's proposal committing Washington to seeking Security Council authorisation. The United States had to do an awful lot of arm twisting to get the resolution through. I think I know why it succeeded.
Some may recall what happened in 1991, when Yemen dared to vote against the first Gulf war. The United States made sure that it withdrew all aid from that impoverished country, and persuaded the Saudis to send the guest workers back, thus wrecking the country's economy. The United States wields enormous economic as well as military clout, and things are no different today. We are left relying on Germany and France, which might be able to use its veto. I think that China will be threatened with the withdrawal of trade with America, on which it relies heavily. The Russians, of course, are worried about oil contracts.
The truth is that the United States, being the only superpower, is corrupting the one international organisation that we should all be protecting. We should be honest about the UN charter: it does not provide for pre-emptive attacks.
I want to say a little about why the United States is going to all this trouble to wage war on Iraq. The point has been well made that the US could not catch Osama bin Laden of al-Qaeda, and needs another villain. But when we talk about Iraq, it is also worth talking about oil. The United States already imports 50 per cent. of the oil that it needs, and that need will increase in the next 20 years. According to the Cheney report—named after the American Vice-President—America will need to import more than 60 per cent. more oil in 2020 than it imports today.
Oil is not just an old bit of economic policy; it is indispensable to a modern economy. The protection of oil is a central plank of America's foreign policy. Washington says it wants to eliminate any threat of interruption of the flow of oil, to ensure that it will be accessible to US oil companies and will not be controlled by Russia, China or any European firms. A different and more compliant Government in Iraq would make that possible.
The Americans say that weapons of mass destruction, not regime change, are the issue. Sometimes they change their minds; we hear different versions. We must ask ourselves, why we would bomb Iraq if some weapons were found. Why have we sent the inspectors in? Have we not sent them in to destroy the weapons if they find any? Why do we have to slaughter hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians if we can get at the weapons and contain the regime? The latest UN figures

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on projected casualties and refugees make war absolutely unthinkable. How much will going to war so that America can get access to oil cost this country?
Mr. Joyce: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Mahon: No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. He can make his own war-like speech, and I am sure that he will.
How many more recruits will al-Qaeda have if we go to war? What strategy have we to deal with the huge numbers of Kurds and Iraqis who will seek asylum in Britain? When will the Secretary of State for International Development come to tell us about contingency plans? Should the Government be putting taxpayers' money into a needless war when they say that we cannot afford decent public services and when our firefighters are going on strike? Today, we have introduced proposals that will make the price so high that those from low-income families cannot go to the best universities in the country, regardless of talent.
War is not a computer game. I advise my hon. Friends, particularly those who want to sit here and send our young service men and women to war, to read "War Brought us Here"—a Save the Children report on what happens to the children and many millions of innocent victims when we decide to unleash such weaponry on civilians.
I remind the House that it is civilians who die now in any war. People 20,000 ft in the air are relatively safe. Sitting in an inadequate bunker, trying to protect children, or trying to put them to bed somewhere so that they might be alive in the morning, is entirely different. I cannot bear to think about the sheer terror of the parents and mothers in Baghdad at the moment, as the most awesome force in the world surrounds their country and makes ever-more threatening noises.
Little publicity has been given to the civilians who died in Afghanistan. Those people seem to be invisible. I asked the Library how many civilians had died during the successful war in Afghanistan. I believe that the jury is still well and truly out on whether it was a success. Professor Marc Herold of the university of New Hampshire has estimated that, as of 16 January 2003, there have been between 3,100 and 3,600 civilians deaths as a consequence of the US-led war in Afghanistan. Some people think that the figures might be as high as 8,000. The victims of cluster bombs, daisy cutters and depleted uranium should not be invisible. Now and again, we should visit them and have a look at them.
I get tired of people saying that we would not defend ourselves, and I want to give the last word to a man who defended his country. He is one of the bravest men and one of my heroes—after my father. Simon Weston says:
"This war is wrong. Where is the proof? There is no heart for this one. There is no belief."
Do not take us into a war without the British people believing in it, and I think that they do not.
4.18 pm
Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: The speech made by the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) has one virtue: consistency. I do not share her anti-United States feelings, but I do wish to concentrate on the possible war in Iraq.
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Some 17 years ago, on 6 June 1985, I warned the House of the dangers of Iraq and similar states. I said that
"if nuclear war ever broke out it would be initiated not by the superpowers but by a nation without any sense of responsibility, where power is concentrated in the hands of the evil, the insane, or the bigoted dictator".—[Official Report, 6 June 1985; Vol. 80, c. 537.]
I mention that not as a matter of self-appreciation, but because when I argue that although a war against Iraq may become a necessary continuation of political means but that I am not convinced that it has yet been proved necessary, I do so in the clear appreciation that Saddam Hussein constitutes a malevolent threat that cannot be ignored.
In terms of international law, Iraq compounds substantial and undeniable violations in many different areas in ways few states can match. Saddam Hussein has used chemical and biological weapons, and, given the leakage of fissile material from the former Soviet Union, it is likely that he is very close to producing atomic weapons. I am in no doubt that he must be denied the ability to do us harm, and if in that process he and his regime are destroyed, hardly anyone anywhere in the world, including the Arab world, will weep.
However, can a defensive war really be justified on the grounds of possibility? Is there a greater threat from Iraq now than there was before 11 September 2001, and what new evidence is there of proven links between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda? I accept that it is impossible to disclose publicly all intelligence without endangering the very sources of that intelligence. But if that vital intelligence exists, it should, as I proposed to the Prime Minister last week, at the very least be made available to the Intelligence and Security Committee, a Committee that the Prime Minister accepts does not leak. To date the Government have not made the case for war or done enough to dispel the impression of the inevitability of a possibly unnecessary war.
So for me the essential questions remain, and asking them should be interpreted as an act not of disloyalty to the armed forces, to which I once belonged, but of rational concern for our enlightened self-interest.
They are as follows. First, can we achieve what our own safety compels us to achieve, short of war? Can we, by showing continued determination and reasoned restraint, make less likely a fundamentalist Islamic backlash manufactured by the political rhetoric of victimisation? If there is a chance that all we need can be delivered without the death of thousands of oppressed Iraqis, should we not at least try all these political possibilities?
We must acknowledge that, however surgical and technologically inspired a war in Iraq may be, however careful we are to safeguard our own troops and accurately target our own munitions, many in Iraq will perish or lose their families, their homes or their livelihood. Saddam Hussein will undoubtedly continue to place legitimate military targets close to population centres, and we shall have to destroy those targets in order to safeguard our own personnel. Every television company will broadcast to the world, including the Arab world, harrowing pictures of the human catastrophe that warfare leaves in its wake, and the closer war comes to Baghdad, the greater will be the innocent casualties.

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I have no doubt that pressure on Iraq, reinforced by the clear threat of military action, is necessary. I have no doubt that Saddam Hussein must not labour under any misapprehension as to international determination. But I believe that before the final decision is taken, we should intensify the pressure on the Iraqi regime so that we can achieve what we need without Iraqi and British lives being lost.
So what measures could we consider? I should like to suggest just a few. First, the no-fly zone should cover the whole of Iraq for all Iraqi military fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, and friendly aircraft should have complete freedom to roam those skies and destroy any Iraqi military aircraft that leaves the ground.
Secondly, all Iraqi military installations should be listed, and its military personnel and equipment should be required to return to barracks or agreed positions. Any major military excursion should be met by immediate force.
There should be no limit on the number of weapons inspectors or on their capacity to carry out their tasks and there should be no time constraint. At the discretion of the inspectors, interviews with Iraqi personnel should be in private and take place outside Iraq. We must make, what Saddam Hussein will never make—every attempt to protect the lives of the innocent, be they our own people threatened by the upsurge of Islamic terrorism, or those who have for so long been oppressed in Iraq.
If we can achieve what is necessary by peaceful, albeit admittedly, draconian means, that is clearly preferable. The Iraqi regime must be in no doubt that non-compliance would reap dire repercussions, but it is in our own interests that we demonstrate that war is our last resort.
If Iraq is to return to the amity of nations, it will not be enough to disarm it and leave. Much has been said about the need for the future state of Iraq to retain, after any action, the shape and form that it has now. Such decisions should not be a matter for us, Turkey, or anyone other than a free Iraqi people, with the advice of those experienced in democratic reconstruction. It may well be that, given the three or more different areas and ethnic groupings of Iraq, a loose federation of autonomous or semi-autonomous regions might be preferred. If we want to ensure a Balkans-type war in the middle east, we need only impose an unnatural or unwanted union, a democratic façade maintained by our own troops in order to indulge and assuage Turkish fears of a Kurdish state.
If, on the other hand, we are concerned, as we should be, that a new Iraq offers its people safety, prosperity and opportunity, we must make real the empty principle contained in the declaration to the Seven concerning the partition of the Arab states in 1918
—"the consent of the governed".
4.27 pm
Colin Burgon: I am glad to take part in the debate. I do not think for one minute that I can approach the kind of passion displayed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), but, for what it is worth, I shall try to put over my historical perspective on the situation that we now confront.
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As has already been said in the debate, we live in a world where the United States is now the only world superpower. We are living really at the apex of the American century. In our lifetime—looking round the Chamber I am confirmed in this view by the advanced age of most of the Members present we have had what was called the balance of terror between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But we have also had an international stalemate, notwithstanding the fact that we also had a large number of localised conflicts.
The collapse of communism changed all that. The 20th century is over, but the 21st century opens, I would argue, in twilight and obscurity. We are now sailing in completely uncharted waters. Using an admittedly Western perspective, it is the first time that we have had one global superpower, probably since Spain of the late 1500s or the British Empire in the 19th century.
The decisive question of the 21st century is how the United States will use its power and position. How we react to that question is itself instructive. Are we relaxed about it, or are we apprehensive? What, if any, checks and balances—like the American constitution is itself—should we attempt to put in place to control that situation?
I pick up very much on the comments of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews). I, too, am not anti-American. I find the United States fascinating. It has massive diversity: although some of it is sometimes not worth looking at, I respect its vibrancy and energy. I have American friends whom I value greatly, and I immensely enjoy the study of the history of the United States. I have been lucky enough, for instance, to walk the beautiful states of Virginia and Maryland on their civil war battlefields. To take a diversion, it is worth noting that the American civil war saw more American deaths than every other war and action in which America has been involved. That period of history is well worth studying, as it is part of the American psyche, and it is arguable that we have yet to get the result of the American civil war.
As a friend of America and its people, I say that honesty is central to any proper friendship. If the US has no better friend than the UK, we should be able to tell the US if we think that it is heading in the wrong direction. I therefore agree with the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton—this will not get me any brownie points from the current President—who said:
"You cannot have an integrated world and have your say all the time. America can lead the world towards that but we cannot dominate and run the world".
The test of a mature and confident nation should be its response to such a view, and America's friends hope that it can accept what could be seen as constructive criticism. I am lucky enough to be reading at the moment Eric Hobsbawm's fantastic book, "A Twentieth Century Life". Drawing towards the end of the last century, he writes:
"Our problem is that the US Empire does not know what it wants to do or can do with its power, or its limits. It merely insists that those who are not with it are against it."
Life is sometimes a little more subtle than that.
We must also reflect in this Chamber on the views put to us by constituents. It is clear from opinion polls, not only in this country but in America, that there is a deep

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reservation about possible action in Iraq. The concerns that I promised constituents who have written to me that I would raise include, to put it bluntly, a profound distrust of President Bush, his judgment and some of the people who surround and advise him. Some of my constituents think that possible action against Iraq is dominated by the domestic American agenda and an attempt to distract attention from the state of economy there. In addition, there is the question of oil supplies, which has been mentioned in the House previously. Many constituents have written to me to say that we are entering a situation the outcome of which is completely unknown. Another group of people, for sincere, pacifist reasons, think that all wars are wrong. I respect their opinion but I do not share it. On balance, I have even had a few letters from people who say, "I oppose everything Tony Blair does, but I support him on this one," which could be a warning sign to us.
Something else that has surprised me—I do not know whether this is reflected in other Members' experiences—has been the paucity of letters that I have received on this subject relative to its importance.
Mrs. Mahon: I have had thousands.
Colin Burgon: I have not. I ask myself why, and I can only presume that people feel powerless—that they feel that events are completely out of their control, and that we are sleepwalking into a war. My view is that the basic preconditions for winning a battle for public opinion in this country are a second resolution from the Security Council, taken in the context of the evidence in the current situation, and a vote in this House.
I have another two concerns to which I hope that Ministers will respond. There is a strong argument that intervention in Iraq represents a massive diversion from the vital struggle against al-Qaeda and all the elements allied with it. That struggle is tremendously important. It is an ideological and military struggle that we cannot afford to lose. The whole basis of western secular society is under threat from the assault from al-Qaeda. Any action in Iraq will divert resources from that battle. It is estimated that we may need 100,000 troops minimum to bring stability to a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
If the US and Britain act unilaterally or bilaterally and ignore the UN, any regime that is set up in Iraq will be severely compromised. It will be seen as the puppet of two western powers. Therefore, it is absolutely vital that the UN throws its support behind any intervention, if there has to be an intervention in Iraq.
I mentioned the American civil war earlier. It was the northern general, Sherman, who made the famous remark, "War is hell." We must do our utmost to make sure that the innocent civilians of Iraq are spared that particular experience.
4.36 pm
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) and the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) on their superb speeches. I very much associate myself with their views. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith)
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made an interesting speech but, with respect, I do not know of anyone on either side of the House who is pro-Saddam.
Mr. John Smith: It was not my intention to imply that. My intention was to make those who think that they can conduct normal business with such a tyrant realise that they cannot.
Mr. Llwyd: I am obliged for that explanation.
I am pleased to take part in this debate on behalf of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party. We all know that much has happened over the past two months or so but, in essence, the main questions remain exactly the same. Could the use of military force against Iraq without UN sanction be lawful? There are two avenues through which such action could be deemed lawful. The first is if there were a material breach of resolution 1441 and a further resolution were sought from the Security Council to authorise such action. The second relates to the inherent right of self-defence as encapsulated in article 51 of the UN charter. Any action that is not caught by one or other criterion would not therefore be lawful.
That is not simply my contention but that of the leading human rights lawyer, Rabinder Singh QC. His opinion was set out with clarity and great detail in a written opinion prepared for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament dated 15 November 2002. I commend that document to anyone in this place or outside who is in any doubt about the legality of a unilateral strike by the United States.
There is no clear or compelling evidence to suggest that the United States or the United Kingdom could invoke the self-defence provisions. One would have thought that the dossier that was the subject of the recall of Parliament in September would have spelt out the case for self-defence. Alas, that document did nothing of the kind. In fact, there was nothing in it that could not have been gleaned from the broadsheets and from the internet. Certainly, there was no urgency in any perceived threat. If anything, the document tended to defuse the case for urgent action. The ifs, buts and suppositions in the document spoke volumes. No one could seriously allege that there is an imminent danger of attack that would legitimise an act of self-defence.
Let us consider whether resolution 1441 authorises the use of force. The proponents of military action argue that it does, but previous Security Council resolutions—for example resolution 678—have adopted strong and very different language to authorise the use of force. States are authorised to use "all necessary means" or take "all necessary measures". Those are not merely issues of semantics. Undoubtedly, the consideration of such words took a lot of time when resolution 1441 was discussed. It is known that the United Kingdom and the United States sought an express authorisation, but such authorisation is manifestly lacking in the final wording. Security Council permanent members, Russia, France and China made their position crystal clear: they did not want the resolution to authorise force.
Instead, resolution 1441 provides at paragraphs 4, 11 and 12 that, in the event of non-compliance, the matter will be referred to the Security Council, which will convene to consider the need for full compliance

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and so on. That clearly means that it is for the Security Council to decide on any further action that might be taken against Iraq. Having failed to obtain express authorisation for the use of force, having incorporated minute changes to the final draft, the sole purpose of which was to exclude the possibility of hidden triggers and to preserve the role of the Security Council, and having publicly agreed in the explanation of the vote for adopting resolution 1441 that there was no such implied authorisation for the use of force, would it not be extraordinary for the UK and the US to regard the resolution as now providing such authorisation?
Mr. Hendrick: What does the hon. Gentleman take the words "serious consequences" to mean if it is not military action?
Mr. Llwyd: According to diplomatic language and the way in which previous resolutions have been drafted, those words do not authorise military action. Any expert on legal interpretation would confirm that. I am no expert, but I prefer to believe them than the hon. Gentleman.
The Government argue that sending 30,000 troops to the middle east does not make war inevitable. I hope that that is so. Last week, the Prime Minister tried to reassure his Back Benchers that Britain will follow the United Nations route. Like many hon. Members, I hope that that is so. Many of us believe, however, that the United States has decided on war. In less than four weeks' time, 160,000 US troops will be in the region. Is the United States President going to hold them there if, as appears likely, the weapons inspectors request a substantial extension of time on 27 January? What if the prevailing view in the International Atomic Energy Agency is correct and it takes 12 months to complete the inspectors' work, with or without the sanctions argument?
A friend of mine, a highly regarded retired judge, recently wrote to the Prime Minister. He said:
"Any military action carried out against Iraq, whatever the justification or pretext, without the authority and full consent of the United Nations would be a grave breach of the comity of nations, the basic principle of international law."
I wholeheartedly agree. On 11 January, Javier Solana said:
"The legitimacy of such a war will be determined by the Security Council. The UN arms inspectors derive their legitimacy from the Council … so if there is not any information deemed sufficient by the Security Council … I would find it very difficult to act."
Speaking on 14 January, the French Prime Minister said:
"If there is going to be the use of force, there will have to be a deliberation other than that for 1441, because the source of international law—essential for us—is the UN and the Security Council."
Like many others, I feel that we are on an inexorable slide to war. Public opinion is against it. In The Guardian/ICM poll referred to earlier, outright opposition to war is 47 per cent. Some 81 per cent. of those polled say that a further UN mandate is essential. Interestingly, the opposition of Labour voters has risen to 43 per cent. Conservative opposition stands at 41 per cent. The public are saying that a further UN mandate
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is not just "preferable", to use the Prime Minister's word, but essential. The Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee yesterday that he believed that the public would back a war if Saddam Hussein refused to disarm. I wonder whether he is right.
Plaid Cymru fundamentally opposes the concept of pre-emptive strikes, as proposed by the Bush Administration, and firmly believes that conflict between nations should be resolved through international institutions, such as the UN and the establishment of an international court. The United States and the United Kingdom should allow UN inspectors to complete their inspection and to have as much time as they desire to undertake their investigations. If they do discover evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and of an intention to use them, that would breach resolution 1441. However, that would not sanction the use of military force; rather, further action would be needed which would the take the form of peaceful and diplomatic measures. As I said at the beginning of my speech, we see no evidence of an imminent attack.
I conclude by quoting Kofi Annan, who said that if
"the inspectors continue to work as aggressively as they are doing, we may be able to disarm Iraq peacefully".
I join many in this House, in the UK and throughout the world in hoping that he is right.
4.45 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Following one of the important questions asked by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), I think that he may recollect that at Prime Minister's questions, his fellow countryman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Denzil Davies), asked a similar crucial question—supposing the weapons inspectors report "no failure", does Britain then go to war? I listened carefully to the Prime Minister's answer, but honestly there was no addressing of that critical question. I say to my Front-Bench colleague that if tonight that question could be addressed, we would be grateful.
Do not British servicemen, when asked to risk their lives and those of possibly hundred of thousands of innocent civilians, have one right in particular, which is to know that it is the overwhelming opinion of their fellow countrymen and women that their cause is just and that what they are being asked to do is important and urgent for the British state? Well, there is no settled conviction. I wonder what servicemen and women in HMS Ocean or HMS Ark Royal make of the Daily Mirror today and yesterday. I am not saying that the Daily Mirror is absolutely right in all that it has said, but it must surely sow the seeds of the greatest doubt whether the majority of their fellow countrymen think that the task on which they have been sent, risking their lives, is worth while.
It is not only the Churches and the usual suspects on the left of the Labour party; there is a new ingredient in the doubt, and that is the senior military: Field Marshal Lord Bramall and Field Marshal Sir John Stanier. When I wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister, which was published in The Times, who should appear in the major letters column, with the lead letter, supporting the general view that I put forward with many of my hon. Friends but Field Marshal Sir John

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Stanier—no leftie he. The doubts go right across the political spectrum. They have been expressed by the commander of 7 Armoured Brigade, of which I was once a very junior member for two years, General Patrick Cordingley, who was the Armoured Commander in the Gulf last time. When these serious people express doubt, what does that do to servicemen dispatched on this folly of a war?
There is something else. I do not know about the timing. People talk about March, but it is then said that there must be a softening up, which would be aerial bombardment for so many days or weeks. My God—aerial bombardment from 15,000 ft? Of course that will happen, because what is the American imperative? Above all, it is that body bags are not taken back to Alabama, Wyoming and all the states in between. They will make damn certain that they do everything to destroy anything that could risk American lives, and that means huge collateral damage.
I want to ask the Minister a particular question that I asked earlier today of the Secretary of State. What are the facts about inoculations? I refer again to today's edition of the Daily Mirror and, indeed, The Times. There was an undertaking that medically things had been learned since the last Gulf campaign. In particular, jabs and inoculations would be given one after the other, not in multiple doses. However, it appears that some multiple doses have been given. Have people just slipped through the net or, if not, what has happened? The House of Commons deserves the facts.
Like a number of my hon. Friends, I regret that we are having this debate without a substantive motion—an opportunity allowed the Scottish Parliament but denied the House of Commons. I deem it deeply unsatisfactory that at 6.58 pm I shall rise to ask that the question be put. It would have been infinitely more satisfactory to have had the opportunity to divide on a reasoned amendment, when people know what they are voting for and against. In response to the Conservative spokesman who raised the issue, I am not at all clear about whether or not an undertaking has been given that the House of Commons will have a vote. The Leader of the House said that it was "inconceivable"—that was the word he used—that there would not be a vote before or after critical decisions had been made. If the House is not to be demeaned, it should have a vote before any commitment to action. I hope that the House authorities and those who control these things will take that seriously, otherwise the House of Commons will be greatly demeaned.
4.57 pm
Patrick Mercer: It is a privilege to follow the Father of the House. If forces' morale is being undermined by the press or Members of Parliament, thank God that we have forces whom we can trust to do their duty, whether deterring oppression or fighting.
The press do the forces a disservice when they say that if they are deployed they must be used. That is not the case—troops can be withdrawn without a shot being fired. I fervently hope and pray that that will be so. I hope that we do not have to fight a war. If we do, I trust that war will be brief and that casualties will be kept to a minimum on both sides. I stick to my premise, however, that war is not inevitable. Whether or not it
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happens, whatever the press tell us, our terrorist enemies are now operating in this country. I wish that the House would lose its hang-up about the term "al-Qaeda". I do not know whether there is a connection between Baghdad and al-Qaeda, but there is a connection between Baghdad and Islamic terrorism. Those terrorists do not, to use a military phrase, necessarily wear the cap badge of al-Qaeda, but that does not matter—their cause is the same. Anyone who doubts that should ask the wife of Detective Constable Oake, "Who killed that brave officer?" It was probably not a member of al-Qaeda, but someone serving the same cause.
Mr. Dalyell: There is a connection between al-Qaeda and Baghdad—al-Qaeda has twice tried to kill Saddam Hussein.
Patrick Mercer: I am grateful to the Father of the House for underlining the point that I am trying to make. I do not think that that relationship matters. There is plenty of evidence in open sources of connections between Baghdad and Islamic terrorists bent on death, destruction and mayhem in this country. When I put that point to the Foreign Secretary yesterday, he blanked me and said that making public certain information could compromise intelligence sources. I say this to him: if open sources are reporting that information, let us see them brought together. Let the dossier be added to, let us be convinced and let our troops be given a clear indication of where the threat lies.
Mr. Barnes rose—
Mr. Savidge rose—
Patrick Mercer: I have given way once; I shall not do so again for a moment.
Whether or not we go to war, this country lies at risk. I urge the Government to use the troops who remain behind in this country properly, correctly and sensibly. These are trained nuclear, biological and chemical warfare troops who can be equipped to assist in any emergency in this country. Will the Minister investigate, for instance, whether troops currently deployed on firefighting duties are carrying that equipment with them? He will find that the answer is no.
If we go to war—I hope that we will not do so—will our commanders be backed up better than they were during the Afghan campaign? Will the Minister assure me that there will be no more disgraceful conduct of the sort that arose in the case of Brigadier Roger Lane? Will he assure me that the commander of 3 Commando Brigade, 7 Armoured Brigade and 16 Air Assault Brigade will not be subjected to the same sort of public criticism and humiliation?
Whatever happens to the enemy forces, I believe that only two divisions of the Iraqis will fight, if it comes to it. As many hon. Members will know, however, two divisions are a lot of troops. The ultimate fight, as Labour Members have clearly pointed out, will come in Baghdad. There are three options: bombardment, infantry assault—or a combination of the two—and siege warfare. None of those forms of warfare is

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acceptable. With the media and civilians present, we will not be able to use any of those methods with a clear mind and conscience.
In the event of such fighting, who will be asked to do the job? Let us remember what happened at Tora Bora, when American forces found the going a little bit too tough. The Royal Marines were called for. The force that we have sent is infantry heavy. The Fusiliers, the Black Watch, the Royal Marines and the Parachute Regiment are the men who will be asked to fight, should those circumstances pertain. We must be ready for that, should it happen, and this House must support our troops.
Finally, what happens after the war? What will happen if the regime changes? It does not matter whether we fight or not; I believe that the regime will change. The Americans have said many times that they do not do mountains, but they do deserts and they do not do peace. Well, our troops do peace and they do it well. How well prepared are our forces to rebuild a country and to give humanitarian aid? How well prepared and equipped are they to cope with that altogether gentler but no less important role?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie): Better than anyone else.
Patrick Mercer: I hope that the Minister is right. I ask him carefully to consider our role post-conflict or regime change, because as sure as eggs are eggs, it will be Tommy Atkins and Jack Tar who are asked to remain behind and do the job.
If that happens, a huge number of troops will be deployed. We have already heard that more than a quarter of the Army is deployed and that 50 per cent. is currently on operations of one sort or another. Following on from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), I should like to iterate these words: our Army is too small to do this job. On Monday, I asked the Secretary of State for Defence why, in the current circumstances, as we stand on the brink of war and our Army is between 6,000 and 7,000 men under strength, recruiting has been suspended in certain parts of the Army. He answered that it was because recruiting had gone well. I am sure that there was no intent to deceive, but, sadly, he was wrong. I ask the Minister to look closely at what is going on and at why the MOD has chosen to suspend recruiting to the infantry and other divisions between now and the end of the financial year. The Army is between 5,000 and 6,000 men short.
The true answer is that money and resolve have run out. That is a disgrace when our forces are about to go into action. I invite the Minister to ask anybody from the First Battalion the Black Watch what it is like to be in an undermanned battalion as it is deployed to war. I am sure that he would get a trenchant answer.
Whether we approve or disapprove of standing shoulder to shoulder—I use the words advisedly—with the United States, the fact is that our troops, sailors and airmen are now in danger. I believe that they will be subject to terrorist attack in theatre before the fighting starts. We must therefore consider for how much longer
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we are prepared to stand alongside America as it proceeds with its campaign against the axis of evil. We have uncomplainingly backed America in Afghanistan; we are backing America in its action against Saddam Hussein. Where else might such an approach lead? Let us start to look over the horizon and to decide where our loyalties and our duty lie.
I very much hope that we can avoid war. If we do go to war, I pray that this House will support our gallant soldiers, sailors and airmen.
5.1 pm
Huw Irranca-Davies: I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this very important debate. I have a twofold message to put to the House. As a relatively new Back Bencher, and having listened to many hours of debate on this issue, I hope to give a considered point of view, sharing the sympathies of many in the House who urge caution and consideration, while recognising the role that the Government have played. The fact that weapons inspectors are now in Iraq and, for the moment at least, the United States Administration are on board for a project that is proceeding through the United Nations is due solely to the role played by the Government and the Prime Minister.
We are reaching a critical period. War, say some, is inevitable. I still feel that it is avoidable and that there are ways for which we should be pushing in order to try at all costs to avoid it. Having said that, it would be wholly unrealistic to say that war is not a very strong possibility. Anybody who took that card away might as well take the weapons inspectors away from their inspections and forget any other possible escape routes by which we can avoid war. I shall explain why.
What are the alternatives to war? There has been speculation among different Governments on the possibility of exiling or finding an escape route for Saddam Hussein and many members of his family. Donald Rumsfeld has said:
"I think that would be a fair trade to avoid a war",
but stopped short of offering immunity. He avoided that interesting question. Would the House consider palatable a horrible compromise or trade-off that allowed villains such as Saddam Hussein and his many lieutenants—many of whom are members of his family—to escape the reaches of international law? Would we allow such a solution in order to avoid the collateral damage, civilian casualties in their thousands and military casualties on both sides that would result from conflict? I would welcome more details from the Government about whether it is a realistic possibility. The Foreign Secretary said that offering any immunity would be unpalatable, but if the alternative is war, most people would swallow hard and accept it. However, I urge caution. The possibility was mooted in 1991 and Saddam's regime dismissed it out of hand, while many Arab nations laughed at it. Even the Opposition paper, Al-Mutamar reports:
"The thought of escaping cruises in the hearts of many of those close to Saddam."
Even in the Arab nations it is acknowledged that the hierarchy of Saddam's regime is beginning to crumble. That is partly due to the weight of diplomatic and military pressure that is being brought to bear. Hon. Members should consider and debate the matter in full.

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Does a precedent exist for such a horrible compromise? There are examples of compromises that were not necessarily engineered. The murderous Idi Amin, whose regime murdered up to 500,000 people in Uganda in the 1970s, is now 77 and sits fishing in the Red sea off Jeddah with a monthly stipend as president for life. Mengistu Haile Mariam, who tortured and killed tens of thousands of people in Ethiopia in the 1970s as part of the red terror campaign, lives in exile in Zimbabwe. The list goes on, including Baby Doc Duvalier, Ferdinand Marcos and Bokassa. Those names fill hon. Members with distaste and revulsion. However, when we consider the revulsion to which casualties, including civilian casualties, and war give rise, we should fully consider such immunity. We should urge the Arab nations, our Government and other western countries to put their weight behind it.
In the world of diplomacy, with its clever words, it would be wonderful if we could allow such people to go into exile without holding out the hope of complete escape from international persecution for genocide and other crimes against humanity.
The Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal, told reporters:
"The concept is if you have a decision by the UN to go to war, give a chance for diplomacy to work before you go to war".
I urge the Government to do that. War is not inevitable. It may happen, but let us continue to use every diplomatic means. It is wrong to call for a vote now. I understand the principle, but we do not have the evidence that the UN weapons inspectors are putting to the Security Council and we have not yet made the decision to go to war. It is therefore vital to continue the pressure.
There is another way out. Mounting pressure may cause the Iraqi regime to topple internally, either by a coup led by the generals or by internal opposition. If that happens, let us hope that it has the full support of the international community. The opposition should not be left to hang out to dry, as has happened previously.
We hear that 3,000 Iraqis in exile are currently in training at a US base in Hungary. Whether that is correct or not, we should try to find a solution that delivers democracy to the Iraqi people for the Iraqi people, not simply at the behest and for the good of western nations. Arab and western nations will benefit from getting rid of Saddam; nobody pretends otherwise. However, if we are to do it, we must be clear that our priority is to return power to the indigenous people.
There are other agendas, but the primary purpose must be restoring democracy, stability and peace to the middle east, and thereby to the world. We are considering not simply missiles being aimed at us today, but what will happen one year, two years and five years hence.
All the options to avoid war that I have set out still depend on increasing the diplomatic and military pressure. They all recognise that it is inconceivable that Saddam Hussein should remain in power. That is a bold-as-brass statement, and it is based on the fact that we are not talking about weapons of mass destruction only. If we want to end the suffering of the Iraqi people and to restore democracy, Saddam Hussein has no more part to play in Iraq.
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We are faced with a classic example of what-if history—otherwise known as contrafactual history. What happens if there is a military invasion, or if we leave Saddam Hussein in place? The latter option is inconceivable and we must not take it, for the sake of peace in the world as much as in the middle east, and for the sake of the Iraqi people.
Saddam has a track record. He has used biochemical weapons, and he clearly would do more, if he was able. There is no provable link between Iraq and terrorism, but the lines are not as clear as those shown on organisational charts. We are talking about dotted lines and informal channels: weapons of mass destruction and biochemical weapons pass among nations and terrorist groups in a very fluid way. That is what we need to be afraid of.
I urge the House to continue to support the Government. There is still time to avoid a military conflict and the civilian and military casualties that would be incurred. If we can avoid that, we should, but we must face up to the possibility that the decision to wage war will have to be made sometime. The House cannot hide behind UN resolution—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.
5.12 pm
Dr. Vincent Cable: The debate about Iraq has been moving and often effective. I apologise for interrupting it. Despite what the Father of the House has warned, I think that we will get an opportunity to debate this immensely important subject again. However, we may not get another chance to debate a matter that I believe will come before the Cabinet tomorrow—the question of who will win the aircraft carrier contract. The first stage of that contract is worth around £3 billion, and the full contract could be worth as much as £10 billion.
I do not expect Ministers to give any hint of what decision will be made, but it is legitimate to ask about the principles and processes involved. Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) briefly but effectively set out what those principles should be. The primary concern should be to secure the systems that the armed forces need for national security, and the other key consideration should be value for money.
What should not be at issue is flag-waving nationalism. Moreover, although I am sure that most hon. Members would be pleased to have additional business in their constituencies, the contract should not be determined by the length of the gravy train of subcontractors that will be generated.
It is clear that the two major consortiums involved in the bid are excellent companies, with high levels of expertise among their scientists, engineers and skilled craftsmen. Whichever company wins the contract, it will place most of its development and manufacturing work in the UK. However, if the Government were to be advised that the Thales contract was the best, it would take a lot of political courage for them to take that decision. If they are advised to opt for the Thales contract, they should do so, in the interests of the armed forces and of the taxpayer. I would fully support that decision.

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The contract could provide an opportunity to adopt a more mature approach to the matter of defence contracting.
Mr. Hendrick: Clearly the Government would like all the work to be carried out in the UK, irrespective of which contractor gets the contract. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that, in the long-term strategic interests of the defence of this country, it is important that much of the development of the new technologies that will go into building these aircraft carriers—including the intellectual property and the expertise—must remain in this country and not go to France? Is it not also important to consider whether France would have carried out a similar exercise and allowed British companies to bid?
Dr. Cable: My understanding is that the intellectual property remains in this country, whichever of the two bids wins. The hon. Gentleman is right that it would be very much in the interests of Europe, Britain and France if the French became less nationalistic in their approach to these matters. However, that should not prejudice our decision about what is good for the British armed forces.
I hope that we will advance to a more mature way of looking at these things. For example, when the Government make a decision on a new generation of cancer drugs, they make that decision on the basis of what is necessary for patients and issues of cost. They do not make the decision on the basis of the distribution of the shareholding of the companies that may have patented the different competing varieties; or, indeed, of whether the research and development have been done in British, French or American laboratories. We should apply the same logic to our defence decisions.
I should like to commend the Government at this point for making a considerable advance in terms of the maturity with which we approach these decisions, in two key respects. The Secretary of State has made it clear—he is to be commended for this—that no company should have a guaranteed monopoly, which companies have demanded. He has made it absolutely clear that there should be competition and smart procurement. That is a big step forward.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there was an enormous amount of waste in defence procurement. Brigadier Kincaid, who retired in 1997, gave a figure of 25 per cent. in terms of the total waste in the defence procurement budget from soft contracts from guaranteed suppliers. It is very important that we move—as I think the Government want to do—to genuine competition; but genuine competition means that different companies may win big contracts.
The second thing that the Government have done right—I hope that they will have the courage to follow this through—is to say that when commercial companies enter into binding contracts, they should be made to adhere to them. When there are major overruns of cost that are the fault of the company and not the fault of the Government, the contracts should be honoured; the shareholders are then responsible for the overrun and not the taxpayer. In this case, there are enormous cost overruns in the Nimrod and the
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submarine contracts. It is not just BAE Systems; all the contractors have for many years got away with padded contracts and large overruns and then got the Government to pay for them. That must stop, and hopefully that will be an integral part of the decision.
Having complimented the Government, I must say that, to a degree, they have got themselves to blame for the expectation that had been built up in BAE Systems that it had some automatic right to this and other big contracts. The reason for that is the way in which the Government behave in other contexts. We have become used to the idea that British Ministers are free, in some cases, to subvert foreign policy and development objectives by promoting arms sales to countries that often do not need the equipment or cannot afford it. The worst case in recent months was the Tanzania contract for air traffic control systems.
BAE Systems executives who have been used to having such support—with Ministers, effectively, acting as their salesmen—are now rather confused. Are the Government there to promote them or to promote competitive contracts? The opportunity now exists for the Government—I hope that they will exercise it in this case—to insist that, in the interests of the armed forces and the taxpayer, there is real and effective competition; and if necessary, not to flinch from unpopular decisions that may have to be made here.
5.19 pm
Llew Smith: Some 33 years ago, the Labour Prime Minister was faced with a foreign policy dilemma: whether we should support the American action—indeed, American war—in Vietnam. So concerned was my predecessor, Michael Foot, that he managed to obtain an urgent parliamentary debate on the issue, and I think that all hon. Members would benefit if they took the time to read his speech.
It is worth quoting a few of the comments that Michael made that day. He warned:
"The events … can have the gravest consequences for us all. In my opinion, it is sheer despair for people to say that nothing that we can do or say can have much influence on such distant occurrences, and that, therefore, we should keep our mouths shut, and possibly keep our eyes closed as well. I believe that we should debate these matters".
Sadly in my opinion, the present Prime Minister wants us to keep our mouths shut and our eyes closed. He wants a Parliament which, in the face of war, remains silent, and where the words and voices of the peacemakers are gagged. Hopefully, Labour Back Benchers, unlike the Prime Minister, will learn from history and have the same wisdom and courage as did Labour Back Benchers in 1970, when they forced the Labour Government not to support that war with British troops. We must warn the Prime Minister that, unlike him, we will not act as some puppet for the American Government or as their 51st state.
Our Prime Minister is in danger of being seen as a warmonger, and he would be wise to read the speech by Michael, who to this day is still very much an "inveterate peacemonger".
Michael also warned in that speech that the United States could create
"a wilderness and desolation",
but it could never win a victory. He said that

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"the best friends of the Americans are those who join the growing host of brave Americans who themselves are telling the truth about this war."—[Official Report, 5 May 1970; Vol. 801, c. 208, 214.]
Michael was also wise to remind us that our refusal to support America's military ambitions did not make us anti-American, as our present Prime Minister on occasion seems to imply.
Some of us realise that there is a need to make a distinction between those great American people—those who, in the face of adversity, had the good sense and courage to ensure that the voice of the peacemakers was, and still is, heard; those who campaigned and often gave their lives so that all people could be treated equally; and those who were, and still are, determined to defend free speech, while others around them merely pay lip service to that concept—and the bloodthirsty and oil-grabbing American Administration, headed by Bush, who are determined to plunge us into a war with Iraq. Bush would like us to believe that that war is about weapons of mass destruction, about the breaking of UN resolutions, about a threat to world peace, and about Saddam Hussein, who in the opinion of the American Administration represents all that is evil, when we all know that it is about George Bush Jr. finishing the job that his father started many years ago. It is about who controls the Gulf; it is about the need to set up an American puppet Government in that region, and linked to that, and most important of all, it is about oil.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) made that suggestion at last week's Prime Minister's questions, the Prime Minister implied that he was just pushing some ridiculous conspiracy theory, but, as on so many occasions, my hon. Friend was right. The Prime Minister was left muttering the American line, which, in my opinion and that of the vast majority of the people in the United Kingdom, is divorced from reality. The Prime Minister should remember that it was the oil barons who financed Bush, who wrote his manifesto and who now control his Administration. Working together, they are determined to control the second biggest oilfield in the world.
If I am wrong, why has the United States failed to declare war on Israel; failed to condemn its possession of the ultimate weapons of mass destruction—nuclear weapons; failed to protest at the jailing of Mordecai Vanunu, who has been rotting in an Israeli jail for 16 years now for telling the truth about Israel's nuclear weapons when all around him were lying; failed to stop their daily attacks on the Palestinian people and their breaking of the UN resolution; and failed to expose Sharon for what he is—a state terrorist?
I do not wish to go to war with Israel, but the hypocrisy and double standards of the Administrations of both the UK and the US are highlighted by their decision to ignore Israel's wrongdoing, while being more than willing to go to war with Iraq. In an answer to a question from me, the Prime Minister demonstrated the lack of concern about Israel's behaviour and the threat that it poses by admitting that he had not had any discussions with the Israeli Government about their weapons of mass destruction in the last 12 months.
It is obvious that the US and UK Administrations believe that Israel's weapons of mass destruction are harmless, that they do not threaten world peace, and that it is OK to jail anyone who says otherwise.
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They are weapons in a war machine that the west has helped to finance; but the weapons of mass destruction that those Administrations say Iraq has are nasty—a threat to world peace and to democracy.
I take the view that all weapons of mass destruction, including our own, are unacceptable and a threat to world peace. I do not believe that Britain should have a foreign policy based on the idea that "my enemy's enemy is my friend". That is how the west ended up backing Saddam Hussein's tyranny in Iraq. He too was opposed to the fundamentalist militants in Iran who, in turn, hated the Americans. Our foreign policy and, dare I say, our aid policy should be based on ethical judgments of what is right.
Not just the Government but the Conservative Opposition are guilty of hypocrisy. The Opposition also stand shoulder to shoulder with the American Administration in wanting to go to war with Iraq. They did not always have such anti-Saddam policies. Indeed, not so long ago, they stood shoulder to shoulder with Saddam. In 1989 the Department of Trade and Industry assisted British exporters to the Baghdad arms fair, advising them on "current bilateral commercial relations". We now know that the DTI's trade Minister, the late Alan Clark, encouraged exporters with a nod and a wink to sell military equipment and arms to Iraq. Anyone who doubts that should take time to read the conclusions of the Scott inquiry.
The Tories supped with the devil of Baghdad. That should be a warning that we should not sup with the devils of Washington. If anyone believes that the word "devil" is an offensive description of members of the American Administration, he or she should pause for a while and consider some of their appointments. Bush has appointed as his ambassador to the UN John Negroponte—a man who at best turned a blind eye to, but probably supported, the death squads in central America in the 1980s, when Reagan supported the Contras and other terrorists in despicable crimes against humanity.
Elliot Abrahams, whom Bush has appointed senior director of the National Security Council Office for Democracy Human Rights and International Operations, is even worse that Negroponte. He has defended the actions of death squads and dictators, denied the existence of massacres and lied to Congress about the Reagan Administration's support for the Contras. He has been described in The Washington Post as the "pit bull" of that Administration,
"who promoted the policy in Central America of 'better dead than red'".
We have nothing to learn from the George Bushes of this world, or from the oil barons of this world; but I believe that Labour Members, at least, can learn from our internationalism and our socialism that peace with justice is the only way. If we fail to heed that advice, once again the losers will be not only our soldiers, but tens and tens of thousands of Iraqis—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has had his time.
5.29 pm
Mr. Peter Viggers: The guiding principle in foreign policy for centuries—indeed, it is associated with the treaty of Westphalia in 1648—has been respect for national borders and the concept of the nation state, but the viability of that model has been threatened and eroded with increasing speed in recent years.
In a speech at Reykjavik, the Prime Minister proposed the concept that, where events take place within the borders of a nation where people are being oppressed, tortured and murdered, it is appropriate to cross national borders to rectify the situation. He used that as an argument in favour of intervening in Kosovo. I am not at all sure about that concept, but I am certain that, where a realistic threat to the world and our own security comes from within a national border, crossing national borders can be justified.
With global communications increasing all the time, with media communications increasing so that messages, signals and pictures can be flashed around the world instantaneously and with transport links improving so that aircraft can travel half way round the world, missiles can travel enormous distances and weapons of mass destruction can threaten other countries from many thousands of miles of away, it sometimes becomes necessary to say that one cannot just respect national borders and that it is necessary to take action within them.
The threat of weapons of mass destruction is very considerable. One of the sub-committees of the political committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, of which I am a member, has been studying that subject in some depth in recent years. The threats of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons are very dangerous and frightening. The only reassuring factor is that weapons of mass destruction tend to be quite difficult to deliver.
World leaders cannot stand aside from that threat. In fact, there is one leader in the world: the United States, which, as we all know, now spends as much on defence as the next 14 countries put together. The United States takes its responsibilities profoundly seriously, so I would take issue with the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Llew Smith), whose speech preceded mine.
I know many Americans and have spent much time in America. I have great respect for that country, although it is a rather insular nation. Some 7 per cent. or 8 per cent. of the population of the United States have passports, and some Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives boast of not having a passport and not needing to travel outside its borders. Nevertheless, the United States is the world leader and it takes its responsibilities deeply seriously.
The United States was and remains shaken by the events of 11 September, the first major occasion on which terrorism was brought to American soil. They and we cannot allow Security Council resolutions to be ignored and flouted. They and we believe that action is necessary. Saddam Hussein must be made to comply. Although I recognise that it has been an extremely difficult path for the Prime Minister to follow, I respect what he and the Government are seeking to do.
My constituents will be thinking and praying for the men and women in the armed forces who are proceeding now to the middle east and those who may be sent there. We must hope that war does not become an inevitable
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event—we must hope that it can be avoided—but we must use military threats if we are to achieve any progress.
This debate is not on Iraq and the threat of war in the middle east, but on defence in the world. Of course, it succeeds the two-day debate on the defence estimates and the separate one-day debates on the Army, Navy and Air Force that we used to have. So although the threat of Iraq is overwhelmingly important, I would prefer to move off that subject and say a few words about the reserve forces—a completely different, but extremely important subject, on which I should like to put down a marker.
The 1998 strategic defence review announced a 3,000 increase in the size of the regular Army, but, because of recruitment and retention problems, the strength of the armed forces has decreased, making it much more important that we should have viable reserve forces of sufficient strength.
We need reserve forces for four reasons: first, as a framework for expansion in case it is necessary to expand our armed forces to cater for the unforeseen; secondly, to reinforce our regular forces during wartime or operations other than war, such as peacekeeping, either at home or overseas; thirdly, to provide aid to the civil community in times of emergency or natural disaster; and, fourthly and very importantly, to act as a link between the armed forces and the civil community.
The regular Army is dependent on the Territorial Army to complete its mobilised order of battle. The TA and the regular Army share a common doctrine; they operate within the same command structure; they have the same reliance on the regimental system; and they use the same equipment. But the Territorial Army is different. Many of its members are young. They are not all in full-time regular employment and can regularly and easily be deployed if necessary, but a significant cadre are much older and have secure peacetime employment, which makes it quite difficult to deploy them.
The Territorial Army should therefore be big enough to be deployed without calling on its members too frequently; we must ensure that we have a sufficient cadre of territorial solders to be deployed from time to time. The announced reduction by the Labour Government from 59,000 to 41,200 was too great. I maintain that 59,000, the number established by the previous Conservative Government, is approximately right. If we need that number of Territorial Army soldiers, we need it to be available at all times. We must remember that there is a 30 per cent. turnover, especially in the first year. In order to have 59,000 troops always available, we need approximately 78,000 to allow for depletion. Therefore, I urge that consideration be given to a significant increase in the Territorial Army, from its present level of about 40,000 to 70,000-plus.
The United Kingdom is now the only major country in the world with such a limited capacity to reconstitute its regular forces. The United States, which is about four times our size, has 10 regular army divisions, supported by the equivalent of 13 reserve divisions. Australia, which is about a third of our size, is planning a force structure based on two and a half regular brigades supported by five and a half territorial brigades. We are out of step with the rest of the world in having such thin

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reserve forces capable of reconstituting our regular forces. I urge that consideration be given to a significant increase.
Moreover, the strategic defence review identified the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, terrorism and drug-related crime, environmental damage and possible technological attack, perhaps through information technology, as significant threats to the nation. In all those areas the reserve forces, with their high degree of external experience and the ability to be called up if necessary, are ideal to take on those possible threats. Other countries do much more than we do in this area. The United States, as the Minister will well know, has taken considerable steps to prepare against nuclear, biological and chemical attack. The reserve forces should be used to prepare this nation similarly.
5.39 pm
Glenda Jackson: In common with other hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, I pay tribute to the contribution of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), who, with no small eloquence, demolished the somewhat patronising attempt of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to dismiss opposition to a war in Iraq as being anti-American. I, like my hon. and learned Friend, am by no means anti-American. I can remember those care packages that came after the war, and I have always paid tribute to the Marshall plan. But I am most certainly opposed to the present American Administration.
The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed), who again I regret is not in his place, in a thoughtful contribution posed the question: is Saddam Hussein more of a danger now than he was before 11 September? The answer to that has to be no. I would argue that Saddam Hussein is no more of a real and present danger now than he was in 1998.
The argument that one sometimes hears that Saddam Hussein is hiding his weapons of mass destruction I find utterly unacceptable. The President of the United States has stated that he is personally tired of this game of hide and seek. If one accepts that Iraq has been overflown by American spy satellites year after year and probably hour on hour and that the aeroplanes that are engaged in the no-fly zone are exclusively fighters and, if one accepts that, as the Prime Minster has said, the flow of intelligence from Iraq is increasing, but that does not persuade one that that would furnish the UN inspectors with no small detailed information as to where they should look for these supposed weapons of destruction, I do not know quite what would.
The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who, again I regret is not in his place, clearly spoke from direct experience of military action. He too asked some searching questions, not only how a war, if it goes ahead, would actively be conducted, but what would happen when the war was over. He asked whether we would, in effect, keep faith with the Iraqi people whom we have been urging to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
I well remember the encouragement that was furnished to the Iraqi opposition at the end of the Kuwait war by the then Prime Minister of this country, Margaret Thatcher, and the then President of the
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United States, George Bush, urging and encouraging opposition by the Iraqi people. But support from the United Kingdom and the United States was conspicuous by its absence, and those people who had attempted to overturn their Government were slaughtered.
The point I am attempting to make here is that the same kind of promises were made by the western nation states to Afghanistan. I entirely supported the military action in Afghanistan. I entirely supported what I understood at the time were firm promises on the part of the western nation states to assist Afghanistan to rebuild itself as a democratic society, but although those promises are only minutely being delivered with regard to Kabul, the wider area of Afghanistan is reverting to the state that it was in before. The opium is flourishing and being sold in probably greater amounts than ever before, the warlords are taking over and women are again being denied education and the opportunity to work.
A war against Iraq is totally and utterly unacceptable unless up-to-date, verifiable evidence can be presented that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and the means of and intent to deliver them, and unless there is a second mandate from the UN endorsing military action. If war takes place, it will undoubtedly be won by what many hon. Members have defined as the most powerful nation in the world; it will be a war which in the first instance will be conducted by, I imagine, saturation bombing from the air, where the victims will not be Saddam Hussein and his Government but, again, the innocent. I do not believe Saddam Hussein's protestations that he will stay and fight with his people; that he will repel the Mongol horde. I believe that he will go. Equally, I do not believe that having won the war we, the United Kingdom and the United States, will be prepared to commit the money, people, material and time to create a new democratic society in Iraq.
Mr. Joyce: Can I take it from what my hon. Friend just said that if there were a new UN resolution, she would agree with subsequent military action?
Glenda Jackson: As I have always argued, if the evidence is presented to the United Nations that Saddam Hussein indeed has weapons of mass destruction, it would certainly be for the Security Council to place a second mandate on the table and to begin to define the parameters of any military action against Iraq. Let no one be in any doubt: if the United Kingdom and the United States, without a second mandate from the UN, engage in a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, the people who will die will not be military forces. They will be men, women, children, the elderly and the ill—all civilians. The engagement of ground forces, as the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) pointed out in his thoughtful contribution, will essentially be for the taking of Baghdad. By that time, I repeat that in my interpretation Saddam Hussein will be long gone; he will be in another country, and, as I have had occasion to say previously in this House, he will act as a focus for undermining any kind of Government that either a combination of the United States and the United Kingdom or the wider United Nations attempt to impose.

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I also find totally unacceptable—and this has its own dangers at home—the Government's attempts to link Saddam Hussein with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The most recent example of that was in the statement by the Foreign Secretary yesterday on the most recent Security Council meeting. I freely admit that I paraphrase, but he said that the most overwhelming danger facing the United Kingdom was from international terrorism and rogue states. He went on to say that the most dangerous international terrorist was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and the most aggressive rogue state was Iraq and Saddam Hussein, despite the fact that he and the Prime Minister have said on the Floor of the House that there is no evidence linking Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. How could there be? They are miles apart philosophically. Their avowed aims are entirely different. One wishes to maintain a secular dictatorship, while Osama bin Laden wishes to see a fundamentalist religious Islam take over the world.
Mr. Hendrick: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Glenda Jackson: I beg my hon. Friend's pardon. He also cannot recognise men from women.
Mr. Hendrick: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she not also remember the Foreign Secretary referring to Hezbollah and Hamas as international terrorists that may be supported by the regime in Baghdad?
Glenda Jackson: There is no question but that Saddam Hussein supports Hamas. He supports it by funding the families of suicide bombers, which no one would support or endorse, but that is not the point that I am attempting to make. What the Government have attempted to do is to convince the British people—for whom my admiration goes up in leaps and bounds, as the Government have significantly failed to convince them—that the need for a war in Iraq has nothing really to do with whether Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction but that it must be a central and essential part of the Government's fight against international terrorism and the defeat of international terrorism.
We saw yesterday a mass lobby of people protesting outside the House that there should be no war against Iraq without evidence and a mandate from the United Nations. That protest, which included every age group and, I would argue, every economic group, was a simple request to the Government to think again. The Government have not convinced the people of this country of the rightness or justness of a war against Iraq. I am deeply ashamed that my Government—a Labour Government—should consider for a second a pre-emptive strike against another nation state that is offering no real, immediate and present danger to this country or, I would argue, to our allies. My admiration for the British people goes up by leaps and bounds because of the way in which they have not been convinced by arguments from the British Government that essentially attempt to delude and, in some instances, to deceive.
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I spoke earlier of what I regard as the British Government's dangerous policy on this issue. Their insistence that there is a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda has caused concerned about terrorists being in this country. The risk has certainly been inflated by the press, and that is having a knock-on effect on race relations. The most immediate alleged terrorist attack in this country, which was prosecuted with desperate success, was carried out using a kitchen knife. The argument that terrorists are holed up in this country—the example has been given of the minute amounts of ricin that were discovered in Wood Green—bears absolutely no relation to reality. One can get a recipe to create ricin and other weapons off the internet—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order.
5.51 pm
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger: I want to consider not only the issue of Iraq, but that of procurement.
I joined the Territorial Army in 1979, and what has changed since then? The boots fell to bits, the uniform did not fit—the trousers were especially renowned for falling to bits—and anyone who could get the helmet to stay on was doing better than most. The radios were old and did not work. The one good thing that we had was a rifle, but that had had all its teething problems 20 years earlier.
Where have we now got to on procurement? We can get an army to the front line and get it ready to do its job, but if we do not equip it and do not provide information and back-up, such as the material that people are developing at home, it will not achieve anything. I have an enormous amount of sympathy for the troops who go overseas and who say that their kit is not up to the job. I certainly remember buying kit; we always used to. That was a normal part of being a soldier. We bought an early version of Gortex and sleeping bags that did not leak. On occasions, we bought our own helmets because they would fit and would not give us headaches after we had worn them for 12 or 13 hours.
We had a debate last July on defence procurement. Where have we got to all these months later when we are deploying British troops overseas? The Defence Procurement Agency has an annual budget of £6 billion; it is the single biggest purchaser of manufactured goods in the United Kingdom. At any one time, it is has 4,300 staff managing about 13,000 contracts. They purchase everything from field radios to submarines, and they are responsible for getting what the military needs to the front line and in good order and ready to go.
There are always delays in supplying the equipment, and we have faced that problem for years and, I suspect, for generations. For example, if one's radio switches itself off after a burst of fire or after an explosion, one is in real trouble, but we are not yet ready to supply the new radios to our forces. The Hercules transport aircraft is late and we all know that the Apache attack helicopters are in garages. The Merlin HC3 support helicopter still faces problems. In the past year, the agency has delivered equipment worth £3.5 billion, but it has slipped on the delivery of 40 per cent. of that. We cannot continue to have such problems because, if we do, we may encounter other problems of which we are not yet aware.

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The total budget in Europe for defence procurement is £95 billion and Lord Robertson, the Secretary-General of NATO, has said that
"the public is not getting value for money."
I am not in favour of a European army, but the cost of defence procurement for such things as Eurofighter and Merlin requires us to have partners, and such orders are slipping badly.
Lord Robertson said:
"There are two million troops in uniform in Europe, half a million more than the Americans, but only a fraction"
are deployed with the kit that they are meant to have. That is obviously wrong. He also said that there are 2,800 attack aircraft. The Americans have half that number, but only 10 per cent. of our attack aircraft can fly at night and in all weather. The British have discovered that low flying in the Gulf is not always a good idea. Again, the necessary equipment is not ready and the Eurofighter is unable to perform a support role.
The US Arms Export Control Act says at the outset:
"In furtherance to world peace and the security and foreign policy of the United States, the President is authorised to control the import and export of defense articles and defense services and to provide foreign policy guidance to the persons of the United States"
and its allies. Let us consider that in the context of BAE Systems, the main defence contractor of the DPA with responsibility for supplying our forces with goods that are up to date, workable and operational. BAE Systems is in a complete shambles. The Secretary of State is in a meeting with the company now. I would love to know what he is saying because it has to pull its socks up. I strongly believe that it is a British company. It supplies British goods to British troops, and it must stay that way.
However, BAE Systems has taken on a contract for the biggest armaments factory in the world. It is in Tennessee, and it may well move the manufacture of the explosive and bullet capacity of our shells and ammunition there. If such production is not in line with American foreign policy, the President can stop any country, friend or foe, getting hold of those goods. I accept that some countries do not have a great record on exporting arms, but what if we were to do another Suez and the Americans were unhappy with our involvement in that part of the world? They could stop us getting ammunition—the propellant and the rest of it—because BAE Systems has been given millions by the American military to upgrade the plant in Tennessee. That is not right. British troops should be supplied with British equipment. If we break the security of supply, we will have to depend on people who may not always be friendly to us and our aspirations, now or in the future. We would have a major problem if an American President decided to cut off our supply on a whim.
Procurement also starts at home. I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence is in the Chamber because I received a letter from him on 15 January. The Ministry lost 20 anti-tank missiles in the Bristol channel. Perhaps that is carelessness or just something that happens, but the letter says that the final report is classified. Why is the report on equipment that has been accidentally lost classified? Perhaps the Under-Secretary can give us a clue. I signed the Official Secrets Act when I joined the military and, as far as I am aware,
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I am still bound by it. Why is it not possible for me to find out what happened to anti-tank missiles that are slopping around in a puddle of water?
The BAE Systems contract for the carriers is vital. We should not allow the French to have it for the simple reason that we will not get anything from them to build in return. BAE Systems is a British contractor. It is owned by the British and, I hope, will continue to be so. We cannot give away contracts of that size and complexity when we have no guarantee of getting anything in return. Surely the art of trade is being able to trade; it is not about giving things away.
5.59 pm
Mr. Eric Joyce: It is a privilege to take part in the debate after a number of excellent speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), who is no longer in his seat, made a number of excellent points that are worth following up.
I do not know whether this is a consequence of the change in the way in which this place operates, but I cannot help noticing that a number of hon. Members who have taken part in this debate seem to have joined an all-party group on town crying, of which I was not advised. I tried to make interventions, but it seems to be taken as normal by some Members, none of whom is in his place at the moment, simply to stand up, read out a polemic, take no interventions and then complain that they did not get a chance to debate the issue in the House. It seems to me that they are not taking part in this debate.
Mr. Barnes: If I have an opportunity to speak, I will read out a polemic and readily offer my hon. Friend an opportunity to intervene.
Mr. Banks: You have given him an extra minute.
Mr. Joyce: My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) is a scholar and a gentleman, and he has given me an extra minute, for which I thank him, although I may not need it.
I have been listening to this debate and, over the past weeks and months, to other similar debates. I thought that I would label one or two of the generic arguments that have been applied to Iraq and the possible military action. Hopefully, it will not take place. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who spoke very well, said that he hoped that it would not come to that. Some of these specious generic arguments have been deployed today, and it is worth giving them a label and quickly running through them.
For one argument I have simply written down in my notes the word "oil". I keep hearing, in debates such as this, that the only reason behind any possible action in the Gulf is oil. President Bush wants to get his hands on the oil; it is as simple as that. However, there are many sources of oil supply, and the United States, the United Kingdom and all the other users of petrol and oil products in the world do not go about invading countries simply to get their oil. I am sure that if we wanted to, and if it were simply a matter of oil, we could cut a deal with Saddam Hussein for his oil. That argument seems so transparent that it is preposterous that it is made again and again, yet it is.

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Another argument that I have heard, which I call the parasite argument, was encapsulated extremely well by Simon Tisdall in The Guardian on Monday. Simon Tisdall and, in the past few weeks, a number of others have said that under no circumstances should we take any action in Iraq, regardless of UN resolutions; we should simply rely on UNMOVIC's inspection regime. That is entirely incoherent and parasitical because it relies on the threat of military action poised over Saddam Hussein, which is implied by UNMOVIC being in Iraq in the first place.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon), who is not in her place, deployed the Catch-22 argument. Those who previously argued that there must be a second UN resolution now realise that, if such a resolution is necessary, it is highly likely that there will be one, so they suddenly want to undermine it. They say that any second resolution will indicate only that the Americans have strong-armed everybody else into passing it, so it is effectively invalid. Yet much of the time the same people argue that the UN is important.
The third argument I call the missionary position, because I have heard it deployed by a number of Lords Spiritual in the other place. This is essentially the argument for containment. It says that for the past 12 years we have managed nicely to contain Saddam Hussein within his own boundaries and he has posed no direct threat to this country, so we should just let him crack on, persecuting his people and murdering as many people as he wants. As long as he is not bothering us directly, we should do nothing. It seems ludicrous, but it is true, that that argument is deployed alongside one that stresses the importance of humanitarian principles. How people can produce the containment argument while ignoring the humanitarian implications is beyond me.
Mr. Savidge: Is my hon. Friend saying that he is opposed to Government policy? Is the aim to try to disarm Saddam Hussein, and does my hon. Friend believe that we should go to war with him and other countries simply on the basis of human rights issues?
Mr. Joyce: My hon. Friend should not draw that conclusion from what I said, and I am at a loss to explain how he did so. My answer is no—I do not know why he drew that inference. Perhaps we can discuss this later, as there is a gap in his logic.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) offered what may be called the "shoot the messenger" argument. If there is any intelligence whatsoever that reveals bad things about Saddam Hussein, such as his having weapons of mass destruction, we should say so and tell The Sun. We should record it in the national press, then there will be no adverse effects. While we need to know as much as possible, we must consider the implications of revealing such information for individuals who may be killed as a consequence—we must be wary of compromising our position.
I shall quickly run through the argument deployed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), which could be called the "others"
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argument. If we are not dealing with all the other problems in the world, why should we deal with the Iraq problem? That is the most ludicrous shift imaginable. Of course, there are many problems in the world, such as those in Palestine and Kashmir, but the idea that we should not therefore deal with an immense threat is too ridiculous for words. I would have asked my hon. Friend if he was arguing for intervention in Iraq and all those other places, but he would not accept interventions, which is a great pity.
Mr. Banks: Will my hon. and gallant Friend address in his thoughtful speech the question whether we should view Saddam Hussein and the regime in Iraq as uniquely threatening to this country? There are a lot of nasty regimes, as he has said, but we have to be satisfied that Saddam Hussein poses a unique threat because we are treating him as such.
Mr. Joyce: I thank my hon. Friend. Saddam Hussein probably does pose such a threat, but it is not necessarily the most serious threat—that may come from North Korea or another country that has already acquired nuclear weapons. Iraq does not have such weapons, and—if Members will excuse the use of a word to which some of them object—we want to pre-empt acquisition because, once it has them, there is much less that we can do. We believe that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, but we can do something about that and prevent a scenario in two or three years' time in which, it is not impossible to imagine, Iraq has a nuclear capability, however modest, and terrorists are travelling the world in search of an easy source of such weapons, and the two come together. Saddam probably does represent a unique threat in that respect.
Joan Ruddock: If my hon. Friend believes in pre-emption, does he acknowledge that it can operate legally and morally if inspectors have the time to find weapons and destroy them, for which provision is made in UN resolution 1441?
Mr. Joyce: I am not convinced that the inspectors' role is to destroy equipment, but whether it is or not, this is not a game of hide and seek. That brings me back to the argument that I was parodying at the beginning of my speech. If the inspectors find something—the smoking gun, as it were—that may be viewed as evidence for their continuing to inspect, rather than evidence that Saddam Hussein is concealing a great deal and that we should take action in response to that threat. A subjective view can be taken, but I think that if we find something very significant, it will be a reason to take direct action on Saddam. My hon. Friend may think that that would be reason to stall and do nothing, but that would simply increase the risk.
I shall conclude my remarks, as I only have about a minute left. There is no question but that all of us want to see this whole Iraq business concluded without military action, but the fact is that there is a significant threat—I think that it is beyond serious doubt—and it has to be neutralised. Of course, debates have to take place in the House. It would be good if hon. Members at least recognised that such debates were taking place and if I did not have to talk on the radio tomorrow, as I probably shall, to an hon. Member whose complaint is

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that no debates take place. It would also help the quality of public discourse if some of the specious arguments that I have described today were not deployed. If people want to produce a pacifist argument—and I think perhaps most people do not—they should. What they should not do is produce an argument that is essentially pacifist but which is based on some other, rather weak proxy argument.
6.11 pm
Sue Doughty: At the beginning of the debate, the Secretary of State referred to a vigorous three months of public debate, which reminded me of what happens when a council makes an unpopular proposal to close a school and conducts a consultation process that is not genuine. I am very concerned about the remarks made by the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Joyce), which suggested that he sees any opposition to his point of view as a specious argument. He and one of his colleagues managed to make a large number of interventions and yet expressed astonishment that even more were not taken.
We have heard some tremendous contributions. The hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) made a very powerful speech in which he set straight the attitude of hon. Members by stating the fact that people who are not in favour of this war are not automatically enemies of the United States. All of us have friends there with whom we constantly communicate; we discuss things with them and we share our concerns. We are all opposed to Saddam Hussein. Nobody in this House carries a brief for what he does, but that does not necessarily justify the actions that are being proposed.
We have heard many very powerful arguments and I shall not deal with all of them. I was especially moved yesterday by the constituents who came to see me—some of them from the far left. Pacifists would never countenance any war, and we know that some people will be of that persuasion. Others were of a school of thought in which, like the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson), they can say, "I supported the Afghanistan war, possibly with reluctance, because I saw no alternative." Yet the objectives of that war have not been met. I saw people who will support a war if the cause is just and the action is appropriate, but they are not supporting war in Iraq. I also saw people from the more right-wing end of my constituency, which includes the prosperous Surrey villages, bringing messages of good will from their neighbours. Those are not the naturally left-wing and anti-war people. Indeed, the opposition that has been so eloquently expressed by many hon. Members stretches across the House.
We all have many causes for concern. As my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) said, our servicemen and women have gone to the middle east with our hopes, prayers and good wishes. Of course, we are desperately anxious about them. We are also anxious about the innocent men, women and children of Iraq, who will inevitably face slaughter in any military action. The numbers will not be small. It seems a strange sort of justice where we put matters right for them, but they die along the way. Possibly, those who are in favour of military action will square up those issues, but I do not think that I can do so.
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One of the issues that I am concerned about in any proposed military action is what we will do, why we will do it and what we will hope to achieve? Will we be aiming for regime change or securing oil? What will be the objective of such action? How will we know when we have achieved it? That was one of the dreadful unanswered questions of previous military action against Iraq. We did not quite know whether we had achieved our objective, but seeing the pictures of aircraft strafing conscripted boy soldiers as they went home, having admitted defeat by the combined forces, brought a sudden end to the war in many people's minds. A day or two afterwards, that is just what happened—the public would not stomach the conflict any longer.
We have yet to establish sufficient evidence. There are still unanswered questions about what will happen if the arms inspectors need more time. I understand the need for confidences—perhaps we in Parliament are not allowed the information—but negotiations with some of our European partners such as France and Germany will surely have entitled them to see the evidence as part of the argument. Evidence is shared among those with a need to know, yet such countries are not buying the argument. Russia and China are not convinced either. There is a lack of international consensus.
The issue of oil has been touched on. There is likely to be a lot more than the 115 billion barrels of petroleum reserves in Iraq about which we know. Venezuela is in an impossible situation and Saudi Arabian oil is less secure than it used to be, so we cannot deny that oil is an issue. I ask Ministers to answer a question that we have posed before. When, as the Secretary of State has said, we are seeking consensus with other countries, will the Government ensure that the possible presence of oil does not form part of any negotiations? To many members of the public, it appears that alliances are being sought on those grounds. Those questions are present in many people's minds.
Another query has been reinforced by the leader of the Iraqi National Congress. He told The Washington Post in September 2002:
"American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil."
There are many arguments about why the Americans have not been able to do a deal on that oil before now. After a war, they might be able to do so. Those arguments need exploration; we need more information about the part that oil plays in the proposals.
The issue of arms exports plays an important part in a debate about defence in the world. As part of the war on terror, the United Kingdom Government have, to a certain extent, relaxed export controls. They did so after 11 September and, as a result, arms were exported to countries that were perceived to be on side—but not necessarily with a guarantee that such arms would not be used on their own people. We are talking about countries such as Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which were criticised in the 2001 Foreign Office human rights report. None the less, licences were granted. That is not acceptable.
Let us consider the human rights record in Uzbekistan. Human Rights Watch noted:
"Torture and other abuses in Uzbek prisons and police precincts remain commonplace."

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There have been 11 deaths in
"highly suspicious circumstances in custody in the past 16 months."
Yet we are talking about exporting arms to such people.
In 2001, the UK licensed 6,780 assault rifles to Nepal, yet the Nepalese Government face a serious insurgency from Maoist opposition groups. We are not sure what part those arms will play in that. The Government must be most certain that in exporting arms they are not conveniently buying support from the wrong people in order to do what they want to do. We must look most carefully at that in future.
Another aspect of proposed military action that worries me deeply is the outstanding issue of child soldiers and the fact that the United Kingdom continues to allow boys and girls who are under 18 to take part in military action.
Mr. Keith Simpson: That is not true.
Sue Doughty: If it is not true, I want the Government's assurance about that. Several commentators suggest that it is true.
Despite the comments of the hon. Member for Falkirk, West, we need today's debate and also a specific debate on Iraq. We need to understand the reasons for proposed military action, the exit strategy and the effects of war to enable our Parliament, alone in Europe, to decide whether to support the action. The Government must make time for that and allow us to vote on a specific motion for or against the action.
6.20 pm
Ross Cranston: The response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was Security Council resolution 678 in 1990. It authorised the
"use of all necessary means"
to end Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. After enforcement action against Iraq, resolution 687 imposed an obligation on it to disarm. After only four months, Security Council resolution 707 condemned Iraq's failure to comply as a "serious violation" and a "material breach" of its obligations. "Material" alludes to the language in the Vienna convention on treaties. It means a breach so serious that the other party to a treaty can end it. There is a good argument that a material breach of a Security Council resolution constitutes a breach of the United Nations charter.
Other Security Council resolutions followed. They include 1060, which condemns Iraq's "clear violation" of its obligations; 1134, which refers to a "flagrant violation" by Iraq, and 1205, which also mentions a "flagrant violation" that the Security Council found. In November's resolution 1441, the Security Council decided by 15 votes to 0 that Iraq had been and remained in material breach of its obligations. Paragraph 2 affords Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations. Paragraph 12 states that the Security Council must convene immediately on receipt of a report by the inspectors, to consider the need for Iraq's full compliance with its obligations.
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What is the upshot of the various Security Council resolutions? First, Iraq has an obligation to disarm. Secondly, it has failed to comply. Not only has it failed, but in the language of the resolutions, it has committed a "serious", "clear" or "flagrant" violation of its obligation to disarm. That is a material breach of its international law obligations. Thirdly, the resolutions that set out Iraq's obligations were passed under chapter VII of the United Nations charter.
When collective security was established under the UN charter after the second world war, it provided for the maintenance of international peace and security, and granted the Security Council the prime responsibility for that. Under article 25 of the charter, the Security Council's decisions are binding on all member states. It provides for two avenues: chapter VI and chapter VII.
Chapter VI deals with the peaceful settlement of disputes. Resolutions under that chapter are recommendations. That does not mean that chapter VI resolutions are less important than those under chapter VII. Hon. Members have mentioned resolutions on Israel and Palestine. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) mentioned an early Security Council resolution: 47, of 1948, on Kashmir. Perhaps they are chapter VI resolutions because of geopolitical realities, but I want to make two points.
First, two parties are involved in these chapter VI resolutions—Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan—and the best hope may be a negotiated rather than an imposed outcome. The second point is the character of the issue. Disarmament at one level is relatively straightforward, whereas finding a solution to the middle east or Kashmiri conflicts is more complex, because more than one party and mutual obligations are involved.
Resolutions on Iraq involve chapter VII, which enables the use of force under article 42 of the UN charter. Despite early expectations, it became clear that the UN was not by itself capable of extensive enforcement action. Over the years, it has authorised states to use force under chapter VII. I have already mentioned resolution 678, in relation to Iraq, and there was resolution 749 in relation to Yugoslavia. Other resolutions were passed in relation to Rwanda and Haiti in 1994, and Albania and the Central African Republic in 1997.
It is inconceivable that the Security Council will not authorise the use of force in the same way if the inspectors find a material breach by Iraq. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister asked yesterday, if the UN does not act in this case, how can it have any credibility in relation to North Korea? Moreover, although I support the UN unreservedly, I believe that it would be weakened almost fatally if it did not authorise the use of force in this case. Kofi Annan has said:
"If Iraq's defiance continues … the Security Council must face its responsibilities."
I acknowledge that very important considerations are in the balance. They include the impact of enforcement action on neighbouring countries in the middle east, and the opportunity that conflict with Iraq would give to Islamic fundamentalists to portray the west as hostile to Muslims. However, I believe that a more important consideration is the future of the UN's system of collective security.

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As I have said, I think it inconceivable that the Security Council will not act if a material breach is found, but the hypothetical question has been asked about what would happen if the UN did not explicitly authorise the use of force. Could one or a number of states take enforcement action to give effect to a Security Council resolution?
As a matter of international law, that possibility cannot be ruled out. Authorisation does not necessarily imply prior approval. There are arguments about automaticity into which I do not have time to go this evening, and about the resurrection of Security Council resolution 678, but one example is worth giving. In 1990, the Economic Community of West African States intervened militarily in Liberia without explicit authorisation from the Security Council, although the Council subsequently approved the action that was taken.
In the present case involving Iraq, the argument would be that, if the Security Council was thwarted by the arbitrary action of one permanent member, enforcement action approved by the other states could be sanctioned. In fairness, however, I should add that the view that commands more support among international lawyers is that explicit authorisation of enforcement action is necessary, and is required by the fundamental values underpinning the UN charter.
I shall conclude with three brief points. First, Iraq has been in material breach of its obligations under the UN charter. Secondly, if the inspectors find that it continues in that breach, it would be almost inconceivable for the Security Council not to authorise enforcement action. Thirdly, if the Security Council did not act in those circumstances, that would undermine the credibility of the UN and the principles of international law.
6.28 pm
Mr. Gerald Howarth: I am sure that the Government will have noted the sound—and free—advice given by the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston), the former Solicitor-General.
I have a relatively short time-15 minutes—to wind up a debate so modestly entitled "Defence in the World". As my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) pointed out, we used to have two-day debates on the defence estimates, and individual debates on each service. I hope that the Government will recognise that Opposition Members believe that a procurement debate is long overdue. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) said that they had concerns about that subject, as do many hon. Members on both sides of the House with defence industrial interests in their constituency. We need a procurement debate in the very near future, particularly given that there are major procurement issues coming up shortly for decision by the Government.
The debate, inevitably, has been dominated by Iraq; indeed the Secretary of State invited Members to use this opportunity to raise concerns. At one point, it looked like a reunion meeting of CND—of which, of course, no Minister has ever been a member. However, the Government had a hard time from most of their
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Members. I would like to inflict some damage—not intentionally, but I fear that this might be the effect—on the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith), who made an important, interesting and thoughtful speech. I hope that he will have an opportunity to expand his remarks, and I shall be watching for any retaliatory attempts on him for having expressed his views so eloquently and courageously in the House.
We have had interesting contributions from the hon. and gallant Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Joyce), and from my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson), for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) and for Newark (Patrick Mercer).
My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) has set out the reasons for our support, in principle, for the Govt's position on Iraq. But there are a number of issues that need to be addressed, some of which my hon. Friend has mentioned. I should like to single out the following ones. First, the maritime taskforce, led by HMS Ark Royal, has embarked without its Sea Harrier air superiority fighters. The Minister knows that we have consistently opposed the decision to scrap the Sea Harriers, and now we see a major capital force of ships deployed without that air cover. Although the Iraqi air force is unlikely to present a major threat, what plans do the Government have to protect the taskforce from air attack? Will the taskforce be relying upon United States air cover for that purpose?
Secondly, I should like to refer to vaccinations. Clearly there is concern among many hon. Members at what their constituents are reporting about inoculations given to those who are being deployed to the Gulf. I have had two cases drawn to my attention today by the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, and others have approached me as well. The first of the two cases concerns a Royal Navy man whose mother stated that he has had a number of inoculations at the same time; notwithstanding the Secretary of State's assurance to the House that there would not be a plethora given at the same time. The second involves a young female attached to 16th Air Assault Brigade, who—despite having the anthrax inoculation—still had to sign a waiver to state that no further action would be taken in the event of illness and that she had had the injection voluntarily. I have heard from other sources that they are being required to sign a waiver.
Dr. Moonie: Not true.
Mr. Howarth: The Under-Secretary says that that is not true. These reports are coming to hon. Members; if the honourable Gentleman wants to assure the House and the country that these things are not happening, this is an opportunity so to do.
The third issue is the International Criminal Court. As has been pointed out—particularly by Melanie Phillips—the forces of Iraq and of the United States will not be covered by the International Criminal Court, because neither country has signed up; but the United Kingdom has. Given all the uncertainty about what may happen and about possible military operations—whether they flow from a second United Nations resolution, or from a belief that the current resolution 1441 is sufficient—it is important that our forces, who

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are embarked to take part in possible military operations, be assured that they have the full protection of the law in carrying out the duties imposed upon them by their senior officers, themselves acting on behalf of Ministers of the Crown.
Fourthly, I shall discuss homeland defence, the importance of which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark, and emphasised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) on 17 October, in our previous defence debate. It is crucial that we have sufficient protection at home, particularly in the event of hostilities in Iraq. It is clear that the contingency reserve reaction forces are not yet up and running, and are not intended to be until the end of March at the earliest. It would help if the Minister would say something about what will happen on that front.
I have been told that there is a lack of toxicologists in this country—indeed, that there are only six whole-time equivalents. That is the unusual formula that the national health service uses. Given the risk to the country, which the Prime Minister articulated as recently as yesterday, we need the assurance that we have the requisite skills to identify and deal with possible chemical attacks on the people of this country.
We also need to be sure that we can deal with possible fifth columnists at home. I do not know whether the Minister has read an article in today's Evening Standard. It is headed, "Muslim extremists out to harass the Army's 'soft targets'". It continues:
"A group of Islamic extremists has launched a campaign against army 'soft targets' in a bid to harass the military as it prepares for possible war against Iraq."
Our forces are entitled to proper protection. I hope that the clearest possible message will go out from all quarters of the House that people in this country, enjoying the privileges of citizenship or residence in this country, must not attempt to take any action against our armed forces doing their duty on behalf of Queen and country, because it is only right that they should receive that protection.
The Government are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the people at home. They are obviously unable to persuade some of their hon. Friends, and they are failing to persuade people in the country.
Let me make an following observations on behalf of the official Opposition. First, our firm view is that war is not inevitable. Secondly, Saddam Hussein has a long history of brutality at home and has attacked or invaded four sovereign states: Kuwait, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. He finances Hezbollah, offering large bounties—paradoxically in United States dollars—to suicide bombers to help perpetuate the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has failed to account for chemical weapons components identified by the United Nations weapons inspectors in 1998 and, as the hon. Member for Falkirk, West pointed out, the weapons inspectors are back there again only because the United Nations has taken action and said that there will be serious consequences unless Iraq complies with UN resolution 1441 and the 23 other resolutions of which Iraq stands accused of being in breach at the present time.
To my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire and others, I say this. If they are wrong and Saddam Hussein does succeed in developing evil weapons and
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using them himself, or handing them to terrorists to be deployed on the streets of Halifax, or Bedford, the people of Britain may not forgive us for having given the benefit of the doubt to a man with such a proven disgusting record. It is important that we should be clear about that. These are not easy decisions. It is not the job of the Opposition to make the case for the Government, when the Government are in possession of documents and intelligence that they cannot publish and to which we do not have access, but I do say that if the Government want the support of the British people to enforce the United Nations resolutions, they must make a better effort than they are making at the moment.
Mr. Sayeed: It possibly was my fault. Maybe what I said was not adequately clear. I said that war may be necessary, but that I was unpersuaded that it was necessary yet, and that other things could be done to ratchet up pressure on Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Howarth: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who has pre-empted what I was about to say. The United States in particular, but we too, must redouble our efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. There can be no either/or; work must be done to show the Arab world that we are serious about trying to resolve that conflict, notwithstanding the difficulties faced by Israel.
If there should be conflict in Iraq, at a time when our forces are already so heavily committed, we cannot afford to have them tied down in one theatre for any length of time. In Afghanistan there was a clear plan for British troops to be replaced by troops from other nations once the principal battle was over. Even then, we were committed for six months longer than the Government had originally intended. The House will therefore expect the Government to provide us, in due course, with information on the exit strategy should conflict with Iraq take place. I think it important for them to share with us their ideas of what will happen, in the event of conflict, to the governance of the people of Iraq. I think the House and the country are entitled to know what plans, or ideas, they may have.
That leads me to the inevitable issue of overstretch. Our armed forces are overstretched. Both my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex and my hon. Friend the Member for Newark pointed out that there has been a freeze on recruitment. I find it inexplicable that the Government should freeze recruitment at a time when we are 5,000 soldiers under strength. We have not heard an adequate explanation—but we think we know the truth, which is that the Government are not funding the Army Training and Recruiting Agency to the extent that they should. It is no good saying that that is not having an impact on troops. I am told that there are now 10 months between tour intervals for the Royal Engineers, which is putting a great strain on soldiers and their families.
This is a debate about defence in the world, and I think we need to look beyond the horizon of the post-Iraq world. North Korea has been mentioned. I think the Government should tell us a little more of their thoughts about the risk that it poses to the rest of the world. Last week the Secretary of State confirmed to the Defence Committee that North Korea has a missile system capable of flying some 4,000 miles. It has that capability, and now that it has dismissed the

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International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors we must not take our eye off the ball. We do not want suddenly to be faced with a flare-up in the region because we have not been duly attentive to developments that may be taking place there. The Taepo-Dong II missile could reach the United Kingdom, and we need to do something about it.
The Secretary of State made an articulate case on missile defence, but he has spent an entire year stalling, saying that no request had been received from the United States and that therefore we need do nothing. As Members have pointed out, however, no sooner did the right hon. Gentleman receive that request than he made up his mind—but he could not share the thought process that he underwent before making up his mind during the year in which he waited for that little letter from Donald Rumsfeld.
We support the decision, of course. We agree that the Secretary of State eventually made the right decision.
Mr. Savidge: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howarth: I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not. I have only two minutes in which to finish my speech.
The Government did eventually make the right decision, but we need to exploit Britain's support for the US programme by striking a hard bargain on British industrial participation in the development of the interceptor programme. If we do not take advantage of that, the Government will sell British industry short. There is an opportunity here. The Government should also bite the bullet and say that they are prepared to participate in the interceptor programme, and to consider having interceptors on UK soil.
Let me say a word about the Government's current industrial policy. I think they have done a great disservice to BAE Systems. They bounced the company into making a stock exchange announcement wiping millions of pounds from their share value, and the Secretary of State then had the temerity to say that it was not a British company. The Government need to re-establish an industry policy that puts British business first.
Finally, I am sure that I echo the words of all hon. Members—I hope that I echo the sentiment of all hon. Members—when I say that, whatever differences of view we may have about the events that are unfolding in the middle east, the House has enormous pride in the men and women in our armed forces, who join up to put their lives on the line if necessary. They are the most professional forces in the world. They have never let us down. Their worry is that they may be stretched to such a point that, one day, they may not be able to deliver that which they have always been able to deliver in the past. I hope, therefore, that the House can unite tonight in saying that all the men and women in our armed forces—whether on their way to the Gulf, or fighting fires in the United Kingdom, or simply defending us—have our full support, and we wish them well and every success in what they do.
6.45 pm
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr. Adam Ingram): I should like to begin by thanking hon. Members for their contributions to today's debate.
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As hon. Members have acknowledged, these are challenging and testing times. I, too, would like to pay tribute to the continued hard work and dedication of our armed forces and the civil servants who support them in the defence of this country. I echo the sentiments with which the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) closed his speech.
As ever, the issues raised are diverse, and it is not possible in the time available to address all the points in depth. Given the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has indicated that he will eat into my time by calling for a vote before I have finished my full time allocation, it is probably best that I do not take any interventions, but let us see how things progress.
Following the terrible events of 11 September 2001, the past year has been marked by further terrorist outrages in Bali and Kenya and many other thwarted attempts worldwide and in the United Kingdom. Those recent developments have served only to strengthen our resolve to deal decisively with the threats posed by groups, such as al-Qaeda, and by rogue states, such as Iraq.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States, the Government set out objectives that would guide our efforts in the international campaign against terror. We declared a new focus in our diplomatic efforts to break the links between states and terror groups. We committed ourselves to the reintegration of Afghanistan into the international community, and we reiterated the need to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
We acknowledged the depth and complexity of the threats that we face. We recognised that a solely military response would not be enough and that addressing the root causes of hostility and conflict is just as important as military action itself to counter the challenges that terrorism and rogue states pose. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) made a similar point, although I would take issue with the other points that he made in his contribution.
Against those objectives, there have been important achievements recently, with terror plots foiled and key members of al-Qaeda and affiliate groups arrested. In large part, those successes have been due to unprecedented levels of intelligence co-operation between allies—both old and new—and the ability that that provides to pre-empt planned attacks. I should like to pay tribute to our own intelligence and security services, including the police, for their unstinting efforts in dealing with those threats, often in dangerous circumstances.
Our battle against terrorism is fought on a broad front and is not easy. Although much has been achieved in the short term, the reality is that it may take years of continuing, unremitting effort to achieve our objectives, but we are right to persevere.
I shall now deal with some of the specific points raised by hon. Members during this debate. The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) asked about the command arrangements that will apply if the armed forces are required to go into action and about the mix of those forces as our options become more defined.
We have consistently informed the House as and when we needed to take preparatory steps, such as the call up of reserves, the procurement of equipment and of

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course the deployments that we have already announced. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear in his opening speech, when we have reached final decisions on the composition of a balanced contribution from the RAF we shall make a further announcement to the House. We already maintain a significant presence in the region as part of the United Kingdom's contribution to the patrolling of the no-fly zone. Again I pay tribute to the servicemen and servicewomen who daily face the threat from Iraqi anti-aircraft fire as part of the work of patrolling those zones.
Clearly, in managing our deployments in the region we shall need to ensure the availability in due course of the sort of air capabilities that may be required in the event of operations in Iraq. We may therefore make some adjustments to existing deployments in order to facilitate this, but I can assure the House that we will continue to keep it properly and appropriately informed.
The hon. Member for North Essex also asked about troops trained for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare being deployed to the Gulf and what that means for our protection at home. May I gently tell him that he does not quite understand the role of those troops. Their capabilities are to meet the needs of forces in a deployed environment. The question of NBC protection in the event of any such attack is a matter that rests elsewhere; it is a responsibility of the Home Office. Increasingly, our posture and response are having to be increased to meet those growing pressure points.
I turn to matters relating to Iraq. I recognise the strong opinion voiced by those opposed to the current posture that we are adopting to deal with the threat posed to the international community by Saddam Hussein. Strong arguments have been put forward. I understand the views advanced by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed), my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) and for Elmet (Colin Burgon), the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) and the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). They reflect a body of public opinion. That cannot be denied.
However, in response I say this: it is clear what they want us not to do, but they fail to set out what should be done to make Saddam Hussein and his barbaric regime comply with international obligations. It is a case of where the negative lies, not how we move forward on that vital agenda.
It was argued that we should give the United Nations inspectors more time. Time they will get. However, it is not unlimited time that the inspectors need; it is truth. Adherence to truth has been manifestly missing in all of Saddam Hussein's dealings with the United Nations over many years, and it is missing now, despite the new demands set out in United Nations Security Council resolution 1441. In six days Hans Blix will give his interim report to the Security Council. We cannot anticipate that report. However, two things are clear.
First, Iraq must comply fully, actively and positively with all its international obligations. Secondly, diplomatic pressure, without the visible and credible
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threat of force, will not bring that about. Let us be clear that the only reason the inspectors are back in Iraq is the threat of force. If Saddam Hussein eventually complies, which all of us want him to do in order to avoid conflict, it will be because that threat of force has been increased over recent weeks. Sadly. it is the only language that Saddam Hussein seems to understand. My hon. Friends the Members for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) and Falkirk, West (Mr. Joyce) made very powerful contributions on that very point, as the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) said.
The solution now lies in Saddam's hands. He can avoid war by openly and verifiably disarming his weapons of mass destruction. I ask those who criticise the Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States and other allies, for doing what is right in facing up to that challenge, to turn their campaign and energy towards stopping Saddam Hussein doing what is unquestionably wrong. The more they campaign, the more they encourage him not to disarm. I know that that is not their intention, but that is likely to be the effect in the mind of that particular dictator.
I come now to missile defence. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out a balanced case as to why we agreed to the US request for an upgrade at Fylingdales, as he did in a statement last week. The hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) and others argued that by taking this decision we have pre-empted and foreclosed a major discussion on the future of the missile defence system. I do not accept that. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, this is the beginning of a process, not an end. The time for fuller decisions lies in the future, but I am sure that the debate will continue in this House and outside, and the Government welcome that.
Equally, I do not accept that it is proven that the development of that system will lead to a new arms race. It may be an opinion that is sincerely held by those hon. Members who expressed it, but sincerity and passion do not establish a fact. My right hon. Friend explained why we do not accept the logic of the inevitability of proliferation. No doubt we shall return to that time and again, and I again look forward to that debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) raised the question of vaccinations and matters relating to that. It is our policy to ensure that all troops are vaccinated routinely and it should not be necessary to administer several vaccinations upon deployment. Should circumstances arise where individuals are not up to date with their vaccinations, immunisation takes account of any other treatment or medication that an individual may be receiving at the time. However, independent medical advice is that it is better to administer vaccinations with reduced time scales between them than expose individuals to the risk of infection. We should remember that a routine vaccination schedule, as in civilian practice, involves some use of multiple immunisations.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be placing a full report on all those matters in the Library of the House and will communicate that to the major Opposition parties, setting out the position on that point.

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I come now to matters relating to equipment. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear at the beginning of the debate, our armed forces will be properly equipped for any task that may be asked of them. All service personnel will be issued with the necessary personal kit. I can assure the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall that our forces will be provided with adequate secure communications systems, which will include the Bowman personal role radios.
Other major equipment, including the AS90 gun and the Challenger 2 tank, are receiving modifications, and the SA-80A2 rifle will be issued to all combat and close support troops. We continue to make the best provision possible in equipping our personnel.
I come now to matters relating to the procurement of the new aircraft carrier, about which concern has been expressed. The MOD has been assessing the proposals of BAE Systems and Thales since the end of last November when the second stage of the future carrier assessment phase was successfully completed. The choice of a preferred contractor represents a key decision in one of our largest and most significant new equipment projects. It is vital that we make the right decision and we are assessing carefully all the available information covering a wide range of technical and industrial factors. We hope—
Mr. Dalyell rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That this House do now adjourn:—
The House divided: Ayes 0, Noes 53.

Division No. 59]

6:59 pm

AYES

Tellers for the Ayes: Andrew Bennett and David Taylor

NOES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Clapham, Michael

Austin, John

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Barnes, Harry

Cohen, Harry

Beggs, Roy (E Antrim)

Corbyn, Jeremy

Berry, Roger

Cryer, Ann (Keighley)

Best, Harold

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Breed, Colin

Dalyell, Tam

Burden, Richard

Etherington, Bill

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Fisher, Mark

406

Flynn, Paul (Newport W)

Price, Adam (E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

Francis, Dr. Hywel

Galloway, George

Salmond, Alex

Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

Sawford, Phil

Hancock, Mike

Sedgemore, Brian

Hermon, Lady

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead & Highgate)

Singh, Marsha

Skinner, Dennis

Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

Llwyd, Elfyn

Vis, Dr. Rudi

McDonnell, John

Wareing, Robert N.

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Weir, Michael

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Williams, Betty (Conwy)

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

Morgan, Julie

Wishart, Pete

Organ, Diana

Wood, Mike (Batley)

Owen, Albert

Tellers for the Noes:

Page, Richard

Mr. Kelvin Hopkins and

Perham, Linda

Sue Doughty

Question accordingly negatived.

PETITION

  Natural Health Products
  7.10 pm
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. There is further business to complete. Will hon. Members who are not staying please leave quickly and quietly?
  Mr. McLoughlin: I wish to present a petition collected by Mr. Parker in Ashbourne and its surrounding areas.
  The petition states:
  The Petition of consumers for health choices and it supporters
  Declares that consumers in the UK have for many years maintained good health by choosing to take safe vitamin and mineral supplements and herbal remedies; and fears that the European food supplements directive and the proposed European directive on traditional herbal and medicinal products would severely restrict the number and range of such products on general retail sale in the future.
  The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons requires that the Secretary of State for Health does all in his power to protect the rights of UK consumers by ensuring that such European legislation does not unnecessarily and unacceptably restrict the availability of natural health products.
  And the Petitioners remain, etc.
  To lie upon the Table.

Overseas Service Pensioners
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heppell.]
7.12 pm
Mr. Tim Boswell: The British empire, excluding what were often known as the old dominions, was, by and large, wound up quickly in the 30 years after India and Pakistan were granted independence in 1947. Those who had served it, by which I mean both the colonies and the home country, often did so with great distinction and sometimes at risk to their life and creature comforts. They were progressively repatriated and almost all of them have now returned. No one would, or indeed does, begrudge them a pension. Indeed, the various arrangements made post-independence have been achieved to secure and make certain the pensions of those involved. In many cases, they are paid through what is now known as the Department for International Development, and I am delighted that its Minister, who is also my constituency neighbour, is to reply to the debate.
I should explain my interest in the matter. As so often in my experience, it arises from the case of one of my constituents, in this case Mr. Douglas Hodson of Byfield, who has given me permission to quote from his file. I have come to admire him for his articulacy and persistence, which he has demonstrated over the years since I first heard of his case in 1999. He got me involved with the Overseas Service Pensioners Association, with which I had not dealt before. Its secretary, Mr. David Le Breton, has provided invaluable and exemplary briefing on the wider aspects of the matter.
The association provides a focus of interest and representation for the distinctive interests of colonial pensioners and presses for equitable treatment alongside that available for home civil servants in the principal civil service pension scheme, of which I was fleetingly a member. For completeness, I add that, more recently, I have held some Front-Bench responsibilities for issues relating to pensions generally.
The wider matters raised by issues of colonial pensioners, such as the revised principal civil service pension scheme and the anomalies in armed forces pensions, which I know greatly concern my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), who is also involved with OSPA, would perhaps overload this debate, so I do no more than flag them up and emphasise that they are relevant to the pursuit of equity. Equally, I shall do no more than touch on some of the special problems of pensioners with colonial service in the then Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
Mark Tami: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on securing this debate on such an important topic. To be frank, I knew little about this issue until one of my constituents, Mr. Arnold Woolley from Buckley, who served in Rhodesia, informed me of the pension received by him and many of those who served with him. I was struck by the fact that because the pension is linked to the local currency, and we all know of the current state
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of Zimbabwe, what may have seemed a good pension is now worth pennies a week. That is a terrible way to treat people who have served us so well.
Mr. Boswell: I very much agree. I have at least one constituent who is in that situation. All those people have lost out badly, and the Minister may want to clarify their situation when she responds to my remarks.
The important principle underlying the concern of anyone who attends this debate should be that, as far as possible, those who have served the Crown in whatever capacity should be treated equitably. It remains incumbent on Ministers to identify, monitor and iron out any anomalies wherever possible.
OSPA, the representative association of these pensioners, was founded in 1960. As it says in its briefing, since then,
"successive Governments, slowly and usually reluctantly, have conceded that … members should not be treated worse than their counterparts in the two UK services",
by which it means the home civil service and the diplomatic service. It refers to a number of advances that its pressure, and that applied by the House, has helped to secure.
Those include the extension of indexation to colonial pensioners in the 1960s, the Overseas Pensions Act 1973, which allowed for the central takeover of such pensions to ensure their continuing payment, and, in the 1980s and 1990s, important concessions to war service credit. Most recently, in 1996, the Government agreed to a special safeguard scheme for colonial pensioners who had served in Hong Kong. I shall refer to that service in a minute.
OSPA believes, and in this it goes along with modern good pension practice, that the position of widows and dependants in the various schemes should also be fairly aligned. It says that
"the most glaring case of inequality at present is that of post-retirement marriages."
That brings me squarely to the case of my constituent, Mr. Hodson. His first marriage ended in divorce, but many years ago. He remarried 14 years ago, and has one young daughter of that marriage. Understandably, as he is now in his 60s, he is anxious to safeguard his family's position.
Under present arrangements, as Mr. Hodson's remarriage took place after his retirement, his pension will die with him. What he finds particularly galling is that although he saw many years of service with the colonial police, first in Uganda, then Fiji and finally Hong Kong, he knows of cases in which the widows of other colonial servants in Hong Kong are receiving a discretionary pension from the Chinese authorities, even though the remarriage was also post-retirement.
Leaving aside the oddity of a communist Chinese regime being more generous to former servants of the Crown than Ministers of the Crown, there are important anomalies in the treatment of home civil servants. A concern for those civil servants and their unions is the fact that in introducing the new principal civil service pension scheme in 2000, the Government decided not to make any change to the rule added to the old scheme in 1978, but without retrospective effect, thus allowing pensions for widows of post-retirement

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marriages for service after April 1978 only. There is therefore discrimination between the oldest and often neediest pensioners in various Crown pensions and people with later service.
Another anomaly, which bears directly on Mr. Hodson's case, is that the 1978 decision was applicable only to civil servants, not colonial servants. However, Mr. Hodson, unlike a large number of colonial servants, was still in service in Hong Kong at that time, as the colony was our main outstanding colonial commitment, although officers may have been serving in the Gilbert and Ellice islands—I use the colonial name—the Solomon islands, the New Hebrides and British Honduras, which did not achieve independence until just after 1978. The old colonial pension schemes had a different funding basis from the home scheme, but I cannot help but agree with OSPA, which says that
"denial to the few officers still then serving in these territories and who subsequently became married after their retirement of treatment given to their home counterparts is hard to defend".
Although data are scarce, any contingent liability for such cases would not amount to more than a tiny fraction of the departmental budget.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: As my hon. Friend knows, I am an unpaid consultant to OSPA. Does he agree that those colonial servants were vital to the smooth running of some territories, particularly the former Rhodesia? If they had not stayed on, even though they were not part of the United Kingdom's domestic civil service or the Foreign Office, without their continued commitment to that country, there would not have been a period of calm for many years after independence.
Mr. Boswell: I agree entirely. It is one thing to run a colony, but to disengage our country from its responsibilities and achieve a smooth and peaceful transition of power to a successor Government is a genuine achievement. Many of those people put themselves to great personal inconvenience in doing so.
I shall touch for completeness on two minor aspects of my constituent's case, both of which relate to the rules of the Uganda pension scheme, which he joined many years ago. That scheme includes an additional disqualification rule if a marriage is concluded before 55. That seems to be a belt-and-braces approach or an oblique way of ruling out a post-retirement marriage, as 55 was the retirement age. The nature of Mr. Hodson's subsequent service in Hong Kong from 1976 to 1988 was on contract gratuity terms. The Department seems to have argued in correspondence with him that that disqualified as public service under the original Uganda scheme, which is at best nit-picking.
I shall close with the wider issues. British colonial servants, now sadly declining in number and nearly all retired, did a good job and deserve fair treatment. That is easier said than done because of the complexity of the various pension schemes and employments, and I have shared some of those issues with the House tonight.
As a former Minister, I appreciate that the Treasury and others are always vigilant and properly on the look-out for contingent liabilities, Trojan horses and dangerous precedents. I also acknowledge that, in a
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Department whose vital daily business is the delivery of aid and development resources to very needy people in the third world and developing countries, the matter of discharging traditional responsibilities may not carry the highest priority, but I hope that it carries the sympathy of this Minister and her Secretary of State. I was somewhat disappointed by a written reply that I received from the Secretary of State on 20 June 2002. I asked her
"what plans she has to review the pension arrangements of British colonial officials",
and received this very short, dusty and, if I may say, somewhat uncharacteristic answer:
"None."—[Official Report, 20 June 2002; Vol. 387, c. 502W.]
I think that this Minister could do better than that. What is required is a better understanding of what is involved and, if I may put it this way, a determination to achieve fairness in the treatment of my constituent's particular case and others.
That is a legitimate and pressing public concern for the House. I invite the Minister to respond by explaining her understanding of these problems and, I hope, by giving the House some assurance as to her readiness to examine ways of overcoming them.
7.26 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Ms Sally Keeble): I congratulate the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) on securing this debate and join him in paying tribute to the people who previously worked in the colonial service. I am of course aware of his interest in development issues and colonial pensions, including those relating to Zimbabwe and the former Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, as well as the particular issues that he raised about the variation of clauses and terms in the different pension schemes.
I know that the subject of Zimbabwe pensions is also of considerable interest to the Overseas Service Pensioners Association, which has expressed its concerns on numerous occasions and continues to do so, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami).
I should like to deal first with the points that the hon. Gentleman made about his constituent, Mr. Douglas Hodson, after which I shall deal with some of the other points concerning Zimbabwe and federation public service pensions. I believe that Mr. Hodson was present at a meeting in Daventry that both the hon. Gentleman and I attended. I do not want to speak in detail about the personal circumstances of Mr. Hodson's case. The hon. Gentleman has obviously had his permission to do so, but I do not feel it appropriate for me to speak about such matters across the Floor of the House.
I am glad to have this opportunity to draw the attention of the House to this particular aspect of my Department's work. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is separate from the main business of development assistance, but it is worth pointing out that DFID currently pays and administers some 50,000 pensions to more than 23,000 former colonial public servants. Although some problems have been raised from time to time—they include, in particular, those that he mentioned—it is a major operation and for the most

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part a very efficient one. I pay tribute to those of my Department's staff who have to administer such a complex operation. The type of issues that he raised illustrates why it is so complex. There is a variety of different schemes relating to different countries and periods. Having had to deal with a number of the cases, I know that variations in terms and conditions are widespread. They are sometimes due to the very different terms on which people were employed, which may not be immediately obvious either to the people themselves or to the wider public.
The point that the hon. Gentleman raised in respect of his constituent, Mr. Hodson, concerns pensions for the widows of colonial service officers where the marriage has taken place after the officer's retirement. Under the rules of most of the colonial widows and orphans schemes, second or subsequent wives are entitled to be registered as potential beneficiaries only where the marriage has taken place before the termination of the officer's public service.
Occasionally, colonial pensioners have requested that the colonial schemes be amended to allow post-retirement wives to be registered as potential beneficiaries, in line with what happened in the principal civil service pension scheme, which for ease I shall refer to as the principal scheme. The principal scheme was amended in April 1978 to allow the widows of post-retirement marriages to qualify for pensions.
A similar change to the colonial widows and orphans schemes was considered after 1978 but, whereas the principal scheme was, and still is, a very large and active scheme, the many colonial schemes were not. In fact, by 1978, most colonial officers had already retired and ceased to be contributors to the various widows and orphans schemes. It was therefore not a viable option to change the law for the few officers who were still contributing at that time. The colonial widows and orphans schemes differed from the principal scheme in many other respects, and there was no justification for bringing that single provision into line.
The hon. Gentleman referred to a response given to him by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 1 June last year. The hon. Gentleman also received a detailed explanation on 13 October 1999, which sets out quite a number of the details relating to Mr. Hodson.
I turn to the issue of Zimbabwe public service pensions, and if there is time I shall also deal briefly with pensions paid to former staff of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Although the British Government acknowledge that they have a special responsibility to protect the pensions of certain officers who were employed in the public services of our former dependent territories, that responsibility extends only to those who were appointed by or on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Colonies to serve overseas on expatriate terms in the central Government of a colony. Zimbabwe public service pensioners or those recruited directly to the former Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland do not fall within those protection arrangements—the reason being that such staff were not appointed by or on behalf of the Secretary of State and all served on local, as opposed to expatriate, terms of service.
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Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing colony from 1923 and was directly responsible for recruiting its own public servants, including those who were recruited directly from Britain. The British Government were not involved with the recruitment process or the formulation of terms and conditions of service for any Southern Rhodesia or Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland public service staff.
All Zimbabwe public service pensions—to come to the reasons behind the problems highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside—are the responsibility of the Zimbabwe Government. That has always been the case. At the time of independence, the pension rights of both retired and serving Zimbabwe public servants were preserved under the Zimbabwe constitution, which was formulated during the Lancaster house negotiations. The constitution guaranteed that existing pension entitlements would not be adversely affected by any changes in law that came into effect after independence, and that pensions paid externally would not be subject to any deductions. The constitution also guarantees to continue payment of pensions to former Zimbabwe public servants, wherever they reside.
As my hon. Friend said, the major problem with Zimbabwe pensions has been the gradual diminution of their sterling value—in recent times, it has perhaps diminished more rapidly—as the Zimbabwe dollar has fallen against the pound. There is no provision in the Zimbabwe constitution to protect externally paid pensions against adverse exchange rate movements, and the pensions increases awarded by Zimbabwe have not compensated for the shortfall. The problem is not just internal inflation but the exchange rate.
Over the years, this problem has triggered many calls from Zimbabwe pensioners and their pensioner associations—representations have been made directly and through their Members of Parliament—for the British Government to intervene and include Zimbabwe pensions in our pension protection arrangements. Successive Governments have rejected those representations.
Although the Government accept that they have a special responsibility to protect the pensions of officers who were employed under the auspices of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Zimbabwe public service pensioners do not fulfil the long-standing and clearly defined criteria for inclusion in the arrangements. The terms and conditions of their employment are normally clearly established at the outset.
A more recent problem, which has been the subject of several representations at different times, is the delay that pensioners who live outside Zimbabwe experience in receiving their monthly pension payments. That has occurred in the past, generally due to lack of foreign exchange. On those occasions, the British Government have always reminded the Zimbabwean Government of their responsibilities. We continue to do that. However, we have also been advised that pensioners who are not receiving their pensions should contact the director of Zimbabwean Government pensions. He has promised to examine the reasons for the delay in pension payments. I have received several such representations. It has been possible, through the numbers that have

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been distributed, for the pensioners to contact the Government directly. The problem of delays has therefore been resolved.
On post-retirement marriages, the small numbers involved mean that it was not considered viable in 1978 to bring the variety of colonial widows and orphans schemes into line with the principal civil service pensions scheme when it was amended to allow the widows of post-retirement marriages to qualify for the pension. That was one of several differences between the various schemes. Some 25 years later, when there are no colonial officers in service or contributing, there is no prospect of revisiting the issue. It is only fair to make that clear.
We acknowledge and sympathise with the many problems that Zimbabwe and Federal pensioners face. However, we would need to breach fundamentally the long-standing arrangements for pension protection if we provided assistance. We understand the deep anxieties of pensioners whose incomes have been severely eroded by the currency depreciation that the gross economic mismanagement in Zimbabwe caused. However, Zimbabwe must deal with the matter; the Government cannot tackle it in the framework of our colonial pension arrangements.
I hope that I have set out some of the framework of a complex matter, which covers a wide range of different pension schemes that affect people who were employed on a variety of different contracts or bases. I hope that that provides some clarity.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: It is most generous of the Minister to give way. My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Bosworth) and I—and, I am sure, the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami)—all understand the legalities of the position. We are trying to make the point on behalf of our constituents who fled Zimbabwe that, although the Lancaster House agreement did not cover them, if they had not been there during the transition to provide continuity, the British Government would not have been able to make the Lancaster House agreement. We implore the Minister to revisit the issue in the light of the circumstances, which
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she accurately described, under which the country has been destroyed by the mismanagement of the Mugabe regime.
Ms Keeble: The pension schemes were set up on specific criteria for people who were employed in a variety of countries in different circumstances. When examining the cases that are referred to me, it is clear that officials administer the schemes properly. However, I am also aware that those schemes were clearly drawn up, and that there is therefore no basis for varying them. Some schemes have continued, while others have been closed. No people have served under those terms and conditions for a long time. Unpicking some of the schemes would cause an injustice, as it is impossible to harmonise across the range of different provisions.
Mr. Boswell: Will the Minister give way?
Ms Keeble: I am afraid that we are very near the end of the debate. If the hon. Gentleman, or any other hon. Member, has any remaining problems, he should put them in writing. I shall be very happy to write back in detail, but it would be wrong of me to stand here and pretend that it is possible to harmonise a plethora of different pension schemes to suit the circumstances of a very few people, even though I understand that they have given great service to different Governments.
The people in Zimbabwe were employed on local terms, not expatriate terms. I understand that changing circumstances have left them in a difficult position. I pay tribute to the service that they gave to the wider community and recognise the difficulties that they face, but it would be wrong to pretend that those problems could be rectified by attempting to harmonise the various schemes. That would be impossible. However, if any matters remain outstanding for the hon. Member for Daventry, I should be happy go through them in detail with him.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Eight o'clock.

Preamble
[MR. JOHN MCWILLIAM in the Chair]

King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
9.30 am
Mr. Andrew Tyrie: The first point that I want to make to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Salford (Ms Hazel Blears), about the impending closure of the King Edward VII hospital is that the campaign to try to save the hospital enjoys cross-party support, as can be seen by the fact that Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members are present for the debate. I have also received many messages from Labour Members and a huge amount of support from people throughout the country. The issue is neither purely local nor party political, but it is extremely grave.
I shall read out one of the several hundred letters that I have received from consultants and general practitioners who practise in the area. It states:
"I am a Chichester GP. Closing King Edward VII will cost lives. Here's why."
The doctor points out that the Portsmouth machines for radiotherapy are not all in good shape:
"One will be closed from April … Without the one at KE7, they will have 50‥ reduction in capacity. Waiting times for radiotherapy for breast and other cancers are currently 12 weeks at Portsmouth. They will double or more in April if KE7 closes."
He notes that the standard waiting time for radiotherapy is four weeks. The letter continues:
"So West Sussex and Hampshire patients will be terribly at risk, waiting perhaps 6 months to start treatment instead of 4 weeks. Survival at 5 years is related to time of starting treatment.
Apparently the bosses at the Strategic Health Authority are saying that the closure will not affect waiting times. They say that existing facilities can absorb the load without increasing delays. They must be wrong.
The public will not hear about this"—
well, they are hearing about it now—
"Why? Because the consultants that work in the Portsmouth department have been told they cannot speak to the press. That is terrible.
I work in the Orthopaedic department at St Richards, assessing patients before they have their long-awaited hip or knee replacements. I know that the department cannot do more operations per week. There are too many blocks—time available in theatre being the biggest … without the previous use of KE7 for elective orthopaedic surgery, waits are bound to go up—they are already currently around 1 year."
I have received hundreds of similar letters.
The King Edward VII will close in three days. Only the national health service can save it. The immediate cause of the hospital's difficulties is the sharp decline in the work given to it by the NHS. It is extraordinary that a hospital of such quality, with spare capacity to provide crucial cardiac, cancer and orthopaedic procedures can be faced with closure at a time when the NHS is
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desperate to find places to treat patients. The hospital needs to address some issues for the future, but one point is clear, if the hospital closes in the next few weeks, it will be because the NHS turned off the blood supply.
In the House last week, the Minister said that the NHS was in the business of increasing capacity, not reducing it. The opposite seems about to happen. That will be incomprehensible to my constituents and to those in neighbouring constituencies, many of whose MPs are in the Chamber today to add their support to the campaign to save the hospital.
Mr. David Tredinnick: I have a long association with the county of Sussex. My mother worked in the King Edward VII hospital for many years. My father died there. I know the premises well and I urge the Minister to visit the hospital before the proposed closure and save it. It is set in the rolling Sussex countryside and has wonderful rehabilitation facilities.
Furthermore, is my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) aware that, last summer, a friend and I had to queue for five hours for treatment in the accident and emergency department at St. Richard's? It is well known in West Sussex that that hospital is overloaded.
Mr. Tyrie: I strongly agree with my hon. Friend's comments. His points are well taken. St. Richard's does a very good job, but it is under enormous strain.
If the NHS closes the King Edward VII, it will be seen to have made a colossal blunder. A sign of the concern about the closure is the fact that 75,000 people signed a petition that was put together in less than a fortnight. Could many issues in British politics at present generate such a response?
In the past few weeks, there has been a miasma of claim and counter-claim in the local, regional and, to some degree, national press about the reason for the closure, so I want to get some basic facts straight. First, is the King Edward VII a private or an NHS hospital? The answer is neither. It is a unique, independent, non-profit-making charitable foundation.
The hospital has a 125-bed capacity and can treat 400 cardiac, 2,000 radiotherapy and 3,000 hip and knee patients per year. It has been treating large numbers of NHS patients since the NHS was created. Since 1948, well over a third of its income and nearly half its patients have been from the NHS. That has been broadly true for the past 10 years, too. No distinction is made between public and private patients in respect of their medical care. The gap between the amount of NHS funding coming to the hospital and the number of patients makes it clear that the charity subsidises NHS work. The Minister frowns, but if she has concerns about that point I shall be happy to give way.
Furthermore, the NHS has benefited from the huge groundswell of local good will for the hospital, which has enabled it to mobilise enormous funds in charitable giving for the benefit of both the public and private sectors. During the past eight years, £10 million has been raised, providing a magnetic resonance imaging scanner, a linear accelerator for radiotherapy and other facilities.

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In that respect, King Edward VII is a prototype for what I thought the Government meant by foundation hospitals: hospitals that work closely with, and in, their local communities. Last year, the Secretary of State said that foundation hospitals would be
"modelled on co-operative societies and mutual organisations."
That is what King Edward VII is.
Mr. Francis Maude: Can my hon. Friend confirm that some of the excellent new state-of-the-art facilities at the hospital, especially the radiotherapy units for cancer care, were paid for by the hospital itself, from its own cash flow and voluntary donations? At present, people with cancer have to wait for up to 14 weeks after their diagnosis to start radiotherapy. If the hospital closes, those waiting lists will go up and people will die needlessly.
Mr. Tyrie: I agree with my right hon. Friend. Indeed, several of the hundreds of letters that I have received from clinicians and doctors far and wide made the same point. People will die if the hospital closes.
A second area of dispute in the press about the hospital relates to the reasons for its financial difficulties. At present, the hospital has expenditure of about £20 million per annum and income of £17 million. Most of that deficit has opened up in the past couple of years and the lion's share of the accumulated deficit of £8 million is attributable to the gap between those figures. The number of private patients and the income for private work increased slightly in the same period.
Why has the gap between income and expenditure opened up? The answer is unambiguous: the sharp reduction in NHS business. The number of patients being treated has gone down drastically and the amount of cash coming in has also decreased. Since I became MP for the area a little more than five years ago, I have been worried about the hospital's vulnerability to NHS strategic planning. In 1999, I warned that the hospital's long-term future could be jeopardised if the NHS turned off the tap. That is exactly what has happened: contracts have been withdrawn almost without warning.
The NHS line on the hospital's financial problems is that the hospital has been mismanaged. An official spokesman for the NHS described King Edward VII as "a failed hospital". That claim does not bear serious scrutiny. In an immediate sense, the hospital is failing largely because the NHS has ensured that it does so. That is why the official spokesman's description of the hospital as a failure sticks in the gullet of every member of its staff, from receptionists to surgeons.
For a failed hospital, the King Edward VII has done pretty well. In the past five years, it has treated 30,000 in patients and 90,000 out-patients. Its output measures and survival rates for cardiac care are well above those of nearby NHS hospitals, even after adjusting for differences in case mix. In all major areas of care, it is at least as good as the NHS. Readmission rates for unsuccessful procedures are lower than those in the NHS and, above all, staff retention rates are high, which shows that it is a happy place in which to work, with very high morale. That is also reflected in the quality of care.
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The King Edward VII is a wonderful place. As a charitable institution, the hospital is a not-for-profit organisation, so one would not expect it to have a large surplus. In any case, if running a deficit is a definition of failure, many NHS hospitals are failures, too.
It is true that the hospital, like many—public and private—must deal with some longer-term issues. It was doing that and, as the liquidator pointed out, it had a good chance of success. It would probably have succeeded if the NHS had not pulled the plug. Some NHS managers have suggested that poor management and nothing else is to blame. Whether or not that is true of the King Edward VII, it is certainly true of much health care in the NHS, which has one or two severe management problems of its own to sort out, as the Secretary of State and others have frequently pointed out.
The Surrey and Sussex strategic health authority has an accumulated deficit of £60 million. Which part of the NHS planning process allowed that to happen, with all the related managerial stresses and the shocking implications for waiting times for my constituents? It is deeply regrettable that the NHS primary care trusts, especially the Western Sussex PCT, and the Sussex and Surrey strategic health authority have reacted to the closure by suggesting that their role in it was peripheral—that it was nothing to do with them. A more thorough and frank explanation of the financial constraints that led them to those contracting decisions would have been much better.
Any reasonable assessment of the accounts—I have taken a look at them—will show that the lion's share of the shortfall that triggered the financial crisis and led to the appointment of a provisional liquidator was a consequence of the loss of NHS business. The hospital made repeated attempts to engage the strategic health authorities, PCTs and trust hospitals in discussions but it was largely ignored.
Peter Bottomley: Some of the hospital staff live in Worthing and we also have a number of NHS patients who have benefited from the hospital. The Government cannot walk away from the issue; they set up the constraints and created chaos in the NHS due to the continual reorganisation of the past five years—tomorrow, they will be advertising for a chairman of the strategic health authority. It is not capacity, cash or the commissioning system that is at fault, but the Government. The problem is in the hands of the Government; it requires action and they should treat it as important.
Mr. Tyrie: I agree with my hon. Friend. There is a drive towards decentralization at least that is the current rhetoric—but in fact much of the responsibility for such issues and the authority to deal with them still lies with the Department of Health.
Another allegation is that the hospital lost business because its charges were too high. However, a detailed examination of prices shows that that is not true. If the Minister has been given figures, I warn her that many of them do not bear careful scrutiny. The Western Sussex trust has put out some highly contentious figures—on the cost of cardiac treatment, for example. Some of the more bizarre claims that the trust has put into the press

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about the relationship between the PCT and the hospital are not true either. I do not want to delay the debate by going into detail, but I shall refer to one claim about cardiac care. On 14 January, the PCT issued a press release which stated:
"The PCT had recently negotiated a three year agreement with KEVII for cardiac surgery."
A reasonable man might have concluded that a three-year deal had been struck—very good news. However, when I examined the matter in detail I found that no such deal had been struck. Some discussions had taken place, but there was no financial support for a three-year deal for cardiac surgery.
I have also been told privately by PCT management on two occasions that the quality of care in cardiac surgery is lower at King Edward VII than at Southampton. I was surprised to hear that, so I took the trouble to obtain the British Cardiac Society's peer review of the hospital, conducted about a year ago. Unless the Minister challenges me, I shall not go into the detail of the review, but it concludes that the overall level of cardiac care in the hospital is excellent and is higher than in the NHS alternatives available, including Southampton.
The Minister should be wary of taking at face value some of the highly controversial public and private briefing that she has probably been receiving. If she takes a careful look at it and asks some penetrating questions, she will find that things are not quite as they appear.
Of course, no one suggests that life is easy for the PCTs or the STHAs affected. They have been constrained in the amount of business that they can send to the hospital, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) pointed out. They have not been given sufficient funds to enable them to take people off waiting lists. Locally, the waiting time for cardiology and cardiac surgery is 12 weeks; for radiotherapy, it is up to 12 weeks and rising; and for orthopaedics, it is 15 months. That compares with national targets published by the Government that the maximum waiting time for elective surgery should fall from 18 to six months by 2005.
Mr. James Arbuthnot: I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend who is making an excellent speech in defence of a superb local hospital. Is not one of the problems that the local area receives only 83 or 84 per cent. of the average health spending per person nationally? It is not an area in which it is cheap to live or to employ people, so we need significantly more funding. That might help to save the hospital.
Mr. Tyrie: My right hon. Friend describes a double whammy. First, money has been moved away from the south to other parts of the country. Part of the reason that more hospitals in the north of England have higher star ratings is that they are not under such intense strain as hospitals in the south, as several of the Government's advisers on that issue have recently pointed out. Secondly, costs in the south are much higher than they are in the north. The hospitals are squeezed from both sides.
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The targets set for NHS hospitals locally would have been difficult to achieve in any case, but they will be impossible if the King Edward VII is closed. Waiting times will rise further. The claim that things could be otherwise, as the STHA suggests, is ludicrous.
That brings me back to one of my earlier points: at the very time when massive capacity constraints throughout the NHS are leaving patients untreated, the King Edward VII hospital is to be closed. Has the NHS done all that it should have done to keep the hospital's capacity on stream? Regrettably, I think not, although it seems that at one minute to midnight something may be stirring.
What can the Minister do to help? First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) suggested, she could visit the hospital—before Friday—and see for herself. It is only an hour from her Department by train and it would take her less than three hours to do the journey and see everything that she needs to see. She could then make up her own mind.
Secondly, the Minister could take a look at the huge raft of schemes, some of which are run centrally, that enable the distribution of discretionary finance to help PCTs. For example, can something be done through the access initiative scheme for orthopaedics? Can end-year flexibility be used to bring money forward from the next financial year?
Thirdly, will the Minister bring an end to the absurdity that forces my constituents to be taken abroad for treatment at huge cost when they could be treated up the road at the King Edward VII at less expense to the taxpayer? I have heard grotesque stories about people being lined up to get on coaches to be treated in France after expensive pre-operative investigations at the Nuffield hospital—at £1,000 a throw—for treatment that will cost even more than at the King Edward VII once the travel costs are included. That is absurd and will require considerable justification. The budget is ring-fenced. Will the Minister consider what could be done about the ring-fencing?
Mr. Andrew Turner: Does my hon. Friend agree with Dr. Mark Connaughton, the heart specialist at St. Mary's hospital, Newport, who points out that when a patient is treated outside this country, responsibility for their long-term care falls back on the NHS, whereas it would remain the responsibility of the King Edward VII if they were treated there?
Mr. Tyrie: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. It leads me to reflect more generally that NHS planners have not taken into account the fact that if the hospital closes, the NHS will have responsibility not only for its current NHS patients but for a fair number of its private patients because they may not immediately be able to find alternative care elsewhere, or may decide not to do so.
I was setting out a list of things that the Minister could do. Fourthly, she could bring forward an announcement that the Department will have to make about the need for more cash for Hampshire because the county will face a crisis when it is stripped of the doctors and support staff who will go to the Gulf as part of the contingency planning for a possible Gulf war. There will be an acute shortage in some Hampshire hospitals; Portsmouth will be hit especially hard.

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I hope that the Minister will announce that she will release some funds. After all, we are not talking about new money—it will have to be released in any case, as everyone knows—and it will help enormously. The extra capacity in the King Edward VII is already needed, but it will be vital in the event of action, or even preparation for action, in the Gulf.
Fifthly, will the Minister examine carefully the waiting time targets that have been set and consider whether they could be delivered even before the closure of the King Edward VII? Is there a cat in hell's chance of delivering them after it closes? Any reasonable appraisal would conclude that keeping the hospital going for the next year would be extremely important to the NHS in delivering those waiting-time targets and, as I have just suggested, it would cost the NHS little or no extra money. The money would have to be found in any case.
As the Minister knows, the hospital has just offered to carry out 300 cardiac procedures, 2,500 elective surgery procedures, 420 radiotherapy procedures and 1,000 investigative cardiology procedures. All are being offered at the NHS's own reference prices for the coming year—the marker prices that it considers right for work put out to the private sector. Throughout the south, people are waiting desperately for treatment for those conditions. The deal that is being offered could save the hospital and do something to plug that gap.
Ministers have repeatedly said that capacity not cash is the real constraint. They now have an opportunity to demonstrate that. I urge the Minister to encourage acceptance of the deal. I do not urge her to interfere but merely to pick up the phone and say to her senior management team, "Use some common sense."
Several hon. Members rose
Mr. John McWilliam (in the Chair): Order. A large number of hon. Members want to speak, so may I ask them to be as brief as possible?
9.53 am
Mr. James Arbuthnot: I shall be extremely brief, Mr. McWilliam.
The long-term problem in our health system is not the quality of its staff, who are superb, nor is it the quality of our hospitals, which are often superb—in the case of the King Edward VII, my constituents have been writing to me in their hundreds to tell me how superb it is. The long-term problem in the national health service is capacity. I am not alone in saying that, the Minister has said it, too.
Closing such an excellent hospital will astonish and anger my constituents, and it ought to astonish and anger the Minister. I ask her to listen very carefully indeed to what is being said in the letters that she has been receiving from my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie). I endorse everything that he said.
If the hon. Lady does not take the action to which my hon. Friend referred, she risks being part of the problem, even though she is an extremely hard-working and effective Minister. The NHS runs the risk of being
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seen as remote from the people of this country. The Minister should make it plain that we need to deliver on the health system and that means providing this local hospital—King Edward VII—for our constituents. I hope that she will listen to what my hon. Friend said.
9.55 am
Sue Doughty: I shall concentrate on how the closure will affect the Royal Surrey county hospital in Guildford. I shall not repeat what has already been said. Instead, I shall set out some of the good things that the management and clinical staff at Guildford have told me about the high quality of care, especially in orthopaedics, at the King Edward VII hospital. When a health care professional says, "If I had to have my hip done, that is where I would want to go", things do not get much better than that.
Some staff work at both Guildford and the King Edward VII, so there is continuity of patient care and a close working relationship. I understand that about 400 orthopaedic cases were expected to be undertaken at the King Edward VII next year. A certain amount of general surgery takes place. Less cardiac surgery is undertaken because there are facilities for that elsewhere. The closure of the King Edward VII will have a bearing on the Royal Surrey county hospital, especially in terms of radiotheraphy.
If the King Edward VII closes, Guildford will take more cases. Is that feasible? Royal Surrey county hospital is a good hospital. It has excellent staff who work desperately hard to try to meet targets. A huge effort is involved. Like everyone else in the south-east, we have massive problems involving national pay scales and a hugely expensive cost of living. These factors work against staff retention. As a result, we are continually investing in recruiting. However, we get there.
The closure of the King Edward VII will have an impact. Local private hospitals are already running near to capacity. In Guildford, fortunately, some people are better off than others and will not wait, or they club together to buy treatment for family members. As a result, we do not have a large amount of spare capacity, even though several private hospitals are immediately local to us.
I was pleased to hear that the strategic health authority is talking to the liquidators to ascertain what can be done. We would want any action taken that would delay or avoid closure to be explored in every way possible. As I have said, closure will have a huge impact.
On cancer care, the closure of the King Edward VII will have an impact on Guildford's performance and its ability to treat many people in Guildford and the surrounding area. I am speaking not only of my constituents but of all people who use the hospital. First, Guildford is unhappy that it takes seven weeks to get somebody into radiotherapy. That period is substantially longer in Portsmouth, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) will have something to say about the problems in Portsmouth, where the waiting time is about 17 weeks. It should be understood that those patients will be coming to Guildford. That will extend waiting times.
When I spoke to specialists, I was told that the strategic health authority is considering commissioning more linear accelerators. I asked the hospital whether, if

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that happened, and the hospital was closed tomorrow, patients would receive treatment. Two linear accelerators are already in commission to deal with the existing work-load, but not the work-load that would accrue as a result of closure of the King Edward VII. Even if orders are in place, that does not solve the problem. If the hospital is closed tomorrow and orders are placed, how long will it take to bring a system on stream? The reality is that it takes about a year. It takes about six months to build a room and to put things in place. The technical commissioning takes a further six months. Technicians undertake detailed and wonderful work to make the equipment work as well as possible.
Ownership has its own costs. The Minister will be aware that it costs about £30,000 a year to keep software up to date and to ensure that the various pieces of technology continue talking to one another if we are to make use of all the brilliant things that the machines can do. Cost of ownership is a factor.
The Minister might suggest that we could run longer hours at the Royal Surrey county hospital. That is something that I have explored. The cost of running longer hours is greater than that of buying more linear accelerators because of the additional costs involved. As the Government and the Minister for Health have regularly reminded the House, linear accelerators need radiographers. There must be that match. Radiographers are like hens' teeth.
It has been argued that if we closed the King Edward VII, a number of staff would be available elsewhere. The reality is that if we ran more linear accelerators to fill the gap, that would take a year, and the available staff would no longer be available. Secondly, available staff who are now at the King Edward VII would not come to Guildford. They live on the south coast and they cannot afford to live in Guildford. We would not get the radiographers or other technical teams.
Our concerns are not only the concerns that have been strongly expressed already. I urge the Government not to let the hospital close on Friday. It should be bought outright, but the Government should consider all the models and all the what-ifs. What will happen to health service provision as a whole in the south-east if the hospital is allowed to close? What will happen to patient care and the high quality of orthopaedic treatment? We are aware of the misery of people waiting for replacement hips, for example. What will happen to those waiting lists? Where will patients go? Where will they get the same high level of aftercare that patients get at the Royal Surrey county hospital when they are sent to Midhurst? When farming out surgery to other hospitals, physical proximity is so important, especially when there are complications.
I add my plea to the Minister to consider a buy-out. An interim rescue package should certainly he considered, until all the questions that we ask today can be answered satisfactorily within the localities that we represent.
10.2 am
Mr. Michael Mates: I, too, shall be brief. There has not been such an outcry in Hampshire about health since the Government closed Lord Mayor Treloar's hospital in Alton. That hospital was doing excellent work, but in their centralising zeal the
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Government decided that it was no longer needed. The hospital concentrated exclusively on elective orthopaedic surgery. That is one of the areas where waiting lists in my part of the world are longer than those for anything else.
As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), the King Edward VII hospital is doing a marvellous job. This is at a time when the Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth—one of the hospitals graded as failing—was almost coming to a halt on orthopaedic surgery. Disaster was nearly upon us when the situation was saved, to an extent, by the fact that the hospital at Haslar became available. That is where all the orthopaedic surgery is being undertaken now. That has taken place at great expense. As I have said, Lord Mayor Treloar's hospital was closed. It was then found that there was an orthopaedic disaster. That was solved in some nick-of-time way by transferring orthopaedic work to Haslar, at great cost. It seems that the national health service will go through exactly the same process again.
I do not want to talk about all the other excellent specialties because most of our constituents find that the shoe is pinching most when it comes to orthopaedics. They are waiting 15, 18 and 21 months for orthopaedic surgery. Now, we are to reduce capacity. The question is whether we give up capacity now to introduce the reorganisation that the Government say that they want. My argument—it is a simple one—is that we should get capacity right first, reduce waiting lists and ensure that people can get their orthopaedic surgery and cardiac surgery right. If the Minister wants then to reorganise the health service to make it more efficient, that is fine. However, at present it is stretched at every point. To reduce capacity now is nothing short of criminal.
10.4 am
Mr. Peter Viggers: We used to hear about joined-up government bringing Departments together. We do not hear so much about it now because I think that we are not getting it. We are debating matters where it is necessary to have joined-up government. The Minister cannot sit back and say that the issue is not directly her responsibility—that the hospital is not directly within the national health service because it is not controlled by the NHS. We need to take an overall approach.
In central southern England, we have serious health sector problems. For example, there are money problems. The Portsmouth hospital trust is running at a deficit, and the plan by which the chief executive has awarded a franchise to the hospital does not tackle where the money will come from to rectify the situation. We face a capacity problem. It is not possible to lose any facilities within the NHS or within allied health services without that leading to serious damage to local residents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) did not refer to the fact that he is supported this morning by 14 Members from the area that is concerned. Nearly all of those representing central southern England are present to express their profound concern that the Government have not so far taken action in joined-up government to rectify the possible loss of the superb facilities at the King Edward VII hospital.

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I shall quote from a constituent who wrote to me a couple of days ago. He has had surgery at the King Edward VII hospital on five occasions. He writes:
"It is beyond belief that this excellent hospital, which has served both NHS and private patients for many years, should be allowed to close. Meanwhile the Portsmouth area is saddled with a zero-rated establishment where ambulances have to wait for hours outside the hospital entrance because beds cannot be found for emergency cases."
The loss of any hospital facilities in our area will worsen a situation that I have already described as dire. I plead with the Minister to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester and respond to his requests.
10.6 am
Mr. Mike Hancock: I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) on initiating the debate. I support much of what he said and in particular, his five questions to the Minister. It is vital that those questions are answered. He invited the Minister to visit the King Edward VII hospital. If she sees the facilities that are there, there is a real possibility that even at this late stage she will be minded to do all that is in her power to keep the hospital open.
Hon. Members have talked about the King Edward VII as a local hospital. In fact, it goes way beyond that, as is made clear by the presence of so many hon. Members this morning. I believe that we are all speaking up for the people who would like to be present this morning. I refer to those who have been fortunate enough to be treated at the hospital and to consultants who have been prevented from taking part in the debate. One or two of them have been courageous enough to take on their bosses and to speak out on behalf of their patients, and how right they were to do so. I am sure that many other people have spoken to those present about their fears of what will happen.
The record speaks for itself. The hon. Member for Chichester spoke of being cautious about costings. Indeed, those bear close examination. They are far from the costings that have been reflected by some who have tried to do down the King Edward VII hospital on that basis. Costings must be balanced against the care that is provided, along with skill and treatment.
I have received about 20 or 30 letters in the past week or so from constituents who have been treated at the King Edward VII hospital. I shall mention two. Mr Damen lives in the heart of Portsmouth. He writes:
"I believe I have to complain to you about the proposed closure of the K. E. VII hospital. What on earth are they trying to do—bring the whole national health service to a standstill? I was treated there … a short time ago and found it to be a superb hospital with staff and nursing to match."
He writes that he went there
"because the Q.A. couldn't cope with the work load. Yesterday I had to take my wife—
this was to another hospital that was out of area—
"because Q.A." —
that is in Portsmouth—
"was full up".
Apparently it was unable to deal with her problems.
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I have a letter from another constituent, Mrs. Edwards, who knows the hospital well. She talks about the shameful way in which the issue has degenerated into the threat of imminent closure of a facility that so many have used.
The figures speak for themselves. Nearly 30,000 patients in the NHS have been treated at the hospital in the past 10 years. It has planned for what it can do in future. In the current year alone, more than 1,000 seriously ill patients have been offered care. I come from Portsmouth and I know the position only too well. We are facing a crisis because we failed as a hospital, despite the best efforts of the staff and management. Despite having had three chief executives in two years. we have a failing hospital. It is being held together now by the support of the Ministry of Defence staff who are working there. Many of them will leave, if they have not already done so, during the next few weeks. That is a serious problem and I have written to the Secretary of State about it. I have yet to receive assurances from the Secretaries of State for Health and for Defence about their proposals for filling the gaps.
It is unacceptable to wait 16 weeks for radiotherapy in any circumstances. To remove the facility will mean that my constituents and other people living in the Greater Portsmouth area will wait even longer. It is unacceptable that more has not been done. We should not be having the debate three days before closure. The hospital is far too important to the health service generally in the area. When the Minister replies, I hope that she will set out a well thought-out solution that will be a guarantee for my constituents and for many thousands of others who will not benefit if the hospital closes. If she is not to save the hospital, they will need to know where they will be treated. They will need to know also how long it will be before they are treated.
10.10 am
Mr. Howard Flight: I, too, congratulate my hon. friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) on securing the debate, albeit at the last hour. The representation in Westminster Hall makes it clear that the issue is important for the hundred of thousands of citizens that hon. Members present represent. It is also, I suggest, an important test for the Government. Candidly, are they in earnest and are they to be trusted in organising and working with the voluntary sector to make available the capacity that is necessary to reduce waiting lists and to deliver national health service care?
I greatly respect the Minister's competence and integrity. However, I urge her independently to examine the data. It is apparent to several of us that behind the scenes many in the NHS have seen the failure of the HCA International deal as being quite convenient in leading to the closure of the King Edward VII hospital, and in terms of longer-term plans and views about it. For example, we were told that it cost 38 per cent. more to have cardiac care at that hospital than at Southampton. The figures are matters of fact—£8,153 and £9,485. That is 16 per cent. more for the operation. The Minister will find how the spin was placed. The King Edward VII kept people in slightly longer, with the health authority's approval. That resulted in increased costs, which were presented as the cost of the treatment.

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I urge the Minister to look for herself and to test the data. This is something more than just a terrible thing that has suddenly happened. My hon. Friend told the story in pretty full detail but some points should be stressed. There is a capacity issue. There is major scope for primary care trusts to use the King Edward VII facilities to reduce waiting lists. The Minister knows—we have been in correspondence for the past year—that the waiting list for radiotherapy is serious. It is approaching 14 weeks. Southampton has a one-year wait for diagnostic cardiac catheter investigation. The waiting list for coronary artery bypass grafts is causing significant and unnecessary mortality. Brighton is at capacity. As the Minister will know, it has been sending patients to the King Edward VII because of that. There is generally about a three-week wait at Portsmouth. With the possibility of war in Iraq, the immediate situation will become serious in Hampshire.
The King Edward VII hospital could perform 400 to 500 open heart operations a year. It could undertake 600 to 700 anaplastics and 1,000 diagnostic cardiac catheters. It is not often pointed out that it is the centre of the crucial Macmillan unit, which looks after many older people and others who are suffering from cancer.
It is crucial to buy time to investigate how the hospital's future could be resolved. The Minister will be aware that various proposals have been presented in the past few days. It is clear that they cannot be assessed by the liquidator within three days. Local MPs, doctors, councillors and, indeed, the entire community, have pointed out to the powers in the NHS in the area that time can be bought. The work can be done. Waiting lists are long and, candidly, if those involved stood back, the stories told would be believed. We hear about intentions behind the scenes. The local community would not forgive the NHS for many years.
There is the power at least to buy time to ascertain whether arrangements can be made to save the hospital in the long term. Those arrangements may be radical. They may involve turning the existing building into a nursing home. We are drastically short of beds in that sector. A smaller purpose-built hospital could be constructed. It is clear that there is a need for the capacity that has been provided.
Again, I ask the Minister carefully to check the claims that have been made by the NHS in the area about the ability to make up capacity. The advice of those in the other hospitals is that the claims do not stand up to examination. As I outlined, waiting lists are already higher by far than in other parts of the country. The hospital treats 30,000 patients a year, 12,500 of whom are NHS patients. It is not only an NHS issue—if the facility is lost, many private patients are likely to put on the NHS. That will increase costs and usage, as many doctors in my part of the world have said.
The King Edward VII hospital has been a voluntary sector partnership, it has been almost a prototype for much of what the Government are thinking about. It worked extremely well until two years ago. There have been management problems and we are all aware of many issues, but the crucial issue to affect finances has been reduced NHS usage. I think that some of that was deliberate. There should have been negotiations on price and other matters.
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We are interested not in debating the past, but in getting the data right. We desperately urge the Minister to give the hospital sufficient time to work out a solution. If the hospital goes in three days' time, the Minister will not be forgiven.
10.17 am
Mr. Nick Gibb: I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) on securing the debate. This is likely to be the most important day in the 54-year history of King Edward VII hospital.
The hospital is in my hon. Friend's constituency, but its importance spreads way beyond the bounds of Midhurst and Chichester to all parts of West Sussex and parts of Hampshire and Surrey. It is a vital hospital for many of my constituents. Over the years, it has treated many thousands of people from the Bognor Regis area for cancer, heart problems, back complaints and orthopaedic surgery.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) said, about 12,500 national health service patients a year are treated at the hospital. It has always been an NHS provider. About half its patients come from the NHS. Hundred of my constituents who have written to me on the issue are astonished that at a time when the NHS is short of capacity, a hospital that has capacity in cardiac, cancer, orthopaedic and ophthalmic procedures could be closed.
National health service spokesmen say that the costs of the KE VII are too high. However, the hospital says that it will charge the prevailing NHS rates for any secure bulk contracts. NHS spokesmen hint at quality issues, but they provide no evidence other than citing the current NHS orthodoxy that only very large-scale hospitals provide the throughput of patients that is sufficient to provide quality. That is not the experience of my constituents who have been patients at Midhurst.
The very reason for the volume of anger at the proposed closure—it is an anger that has surprised many—is that the hospital provides a higher quality of medical care than that people have experienced at other NHS hospitals. It is not only the fact that it is tiny and intimate that elicits that response; it is the medical care itself that is the key factor behind many people's support for Midhurst.
On Friday, a friend of mine in Bognor Regis told me of her experience of the hospital. Ten years ago she found a lump, she went to her GP who said that because it was causing pain it could not possibly be malignant. She insisted on being referred to a consultant and because she had BUPA cover, she went to the King Edward VII. Tests there proved that the lump was malignant and she was treated straight away. Ten years later, another lump was discovered. She went back to her consultant at Midhurst, who took five biopsy samples—four from the lump itself and one from the area adjacent to it. Normal NHS procedure, I understand, is to take biopsies just from the lump. None of the four samples taken from the lump proved malignant, but the sample taken next to the lump was malignant and she was then treated. Had my friend not gone to the King Edward VII 10 years ago and again more recently, she would not be alive now.

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I have received a huge number of letters from constituents with similar stories to tell, pointing out that the quality of clinical care is higher at the King Edward VII than at other hospitals. When I hear intimations from NHS civil servants that there are quality issues at the King Edward VII, I do not believe them. When that is coupled with their claims about costs, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester successfully dealt, I come to the conclusion that I cannot trust anything that is said by the NHS on the issue. I urge the Minister to take the same approach.
Officials are far from being infallible. As a Minister, it is always tempting to take the advice of officials, particularly in such a technically difficult area as health care, but officials do get things wrong, especially with regard to the NHS. For example, the Tomlinson report published in 1992 called for a reduction in hospital capacity in London. The report concluded:
"There is likely to be a significant fall in the requirement for inpatient beds in the inner London hospitals … Closures and mergers will be necessary."
Last Monday, I went round the newly acquired London Heart hospital. I also toured the 20-storey new-build hospital in the Euston road, and a new hospital is being built at Barts. So NHS advice now is to increase capacity in London.
Advice has changed. When I put that to the director of policy and planning at the Department of Health, he said that the advice 10 years ago was probably wrong, but that civil servants have moved on. The NHS has its fads, which are in vogue and then go out of vogue again. The current fad in the NHS is "large is beautiful"—the belief that a certain minimum but large number of patients being treated at a particular hospital is needed for it to be regarded as being of a sufficient standard. There is obviously some truth in that. The experience gained by performing 1,000 bypass operations a year must be better than the experience from just five. But is the experience from 400 operations a year so much worse than the experience from 800? Surely there are diminishing returns to clinical excellence as the numbers increase to very high figures. Clearly, there is a balance to be struck.
The public believe that in addition to the large general hospitals, there should also be some smaller, friendlier hospitals that can give more tailored care and attention to patients. In a debate such as this, where the public view is clear, but contradicts the view of the health professionals, whose views should prevail in a democracy? I believe that in this case, the public view should prevail, particularly where the costs and comparisons are far from clear and there is no evidence of a diminution in quality as a result of the smaller scale.
I shall quote from a couple of letters from constituents, as other hon. Members have done. One constituent from Aldwick in Bognor Regis wrote:
"I did the Ambulance Car Service for approximately five years when I retired in the 80s and know only too well how the NHS patients travelling to King Edward VII for treatment felt about this particular hospital. Every one of them expressed views that they were in safe hands compared with other hospitals, and were consequently uplifted by this knowledge."
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Another constituent from Bognor wrote:
"Many, many people have had the facilities of this hospital made available to them … The Macmillan Unit has cared for many cancer patients, giving peace and constant 1st class service to the terminally ill patients".
Finally, a letter from a constituent in Shripney, Bognor Regis stated:
"Unfortunately, in June 1999, I was diagnosed as having acute prostate cancer. This entailed daily radiotherapy treatment for a period of seven weeks and it was carried out at the King Edward VII hospital. During this very traumatic time I received wonderful care and attention from the staff of a dedicated unit where emphasis was upon accuracy and careful attention to detail. Without any shadow of doubt I would not have been here to write to you today had it not been for the excellence and efficiency of the specialist doctors and radiography staff at the King Edward VII hospital."
I urge the Minister to read the letters that she is receiving on the matter, to take her own counsel, talk to the hospital administration, and not, like so many of her predecessors, to fall into the trap of following officials' advice at great political cost, only to find five years down the line that that advice has proved to be wrong.
10.25 am
Mr. Andrew Turner: I shall not detain the Chamber for long. Hon. Members can read for themselves comments I made in my Adjournment debate last week. I am sure that the Minister has done so. I welcome her to her place. I know that she is an honest and decent Minister, and she has helped me with constituency matters in the past. It was noticeable that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), was unable to complete his speech last week in the Adjournment debate. When I asked what he had intended to say, I was told by the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Salford (Ms Blears), in a written answer that she would reply to me as soon as possible.
The most dangerous aspect of the entire debate is the reasons given for the withdrawal of contracts from the King Edward VII hospital. Some have been withdrawn on costs grounds, and they have been dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight). Some have been withdrawn on throughput grounds, which have been described by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb). Some have been withdrawn on the basis of slithy imputations about quality issues, which hospital administrators are not willing to put on the record. If officials have something to say, let them say it in public, rather than make such imputations, which support the decisions that they have taken, but which they are not prepared to put on the record.
There has been a somersault in the Government's approach to the private sector over the past six years. I understand that. When the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) was Secretary of State for Health he had a different approach to the private sector from that which the Government now take, and I welcome their change on that. However, I must point out that the heart doctor in my constituency, who is an NHS professional, is clear that no problem would stop a doctor referring patients to the King Edward VII.
I have spoken to my strategic health authority chairman on the matter. He warned me that Ministers were taking a hard line: it is not up to the NHS to bail

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out a failing private hospital. That is the line that he has been given by the Department of Health. I do not know what idiot behind the scenes dreamed up that line, but it is a singularly inappropriate response to a hospital that has given 54 years of wonderful service to the national health service.
There are three areas with which the hospital deals: cardiac care, for which, I am pleased to say, some new arrangements are in place, but people have to wait more than six months to go to Brighton, which is causing bed blocking in my hospital, St. Mary's; radiography, for which there is no plan in place to deal with the relevant patients if the King Edward VII closes—one of my constituents had to wait 16 weeks for radiography at Southampton; and finally, orthopaedics, for which the local hospital thinks it can find the extra capacity, but it will be hit when 20 per cent. of the staff at Portsmouth go to war. The case is clear—the Minister must act, and act swiftly.
10.28 am
Virginia Bottomley: My constituents are devastated by the possible threat of the closure of the the King Edward VII. For almost 19 years, the most dedicated and committed staff at King Edward VII have provided a quality of care second to none. It is not just a matter of clinical issues; it is a matter of the values and ethos associated with the hospital, which are hard to replicate elsewhere. In an area where there is a shortage of staff, miraculously and wonderfully the King Edward VII recruits, retains and provides a resource for the national health service locally.
Local general practitioners are already under enormous pressure because the waiting times are some of the worst in the country. For far too long, we have had a huge proportion waiting more than a year. As the Minister knows well, we are caught in a pincer. The cost of living is so high, but because local people are healthy they are deemed not to be worthy of financial support for health care delivery. It is unacceptable that there should be so much public squalor amid private affluence. However, that is a separate debate, which the Minister and I have had on many occasions.
The King Edward VII has sought to follow the Government's agenda. It has tried to achieve a creative partnership. A much-loved, long-standing voluntary hospital has developed a partnership with HCA International in the commercial sector. It is not only local people who are devastated and deeply distressed and who are sending letters in a volume that I have not known for many years—the wider health community is watching. The Government said that they believed in partnerships, and that they had no hostility towards the independent and the commercial sector. If it emerges that it is impossible for an independent provider to form such a partnership—an innovative solution—many will take to heart that example and think that the additional effort and cost of arranging contracts with the NHS is too difficult. When push comes to shove, the whole relationship will implode.
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The last time the Minister came to my constituency, she did so to turn the sod for the much sought-after Farnham community hospital. I have every confidence that somehow the Minister will be the bearer of good news to us today. I very much hope so.
Mr. McWilliam (in the Chair): Order. Before I call the winding-up speeches, I congratulate all the. Members who have taken part in the debate this morning. I think it is some kind of record.
10.31 am
Dr. Evan Harris: All of us owe a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) for securing the debate and for the open, cross-party, cross-constituency and cross-county way in which he has pursued the issue. As has been said, he and the cause have been rewarded by the turnout today—14 right hon. and hon. Members from the area who are concerned about their hospital. That shows Adjournment debates and Westminster Hall at their best.
The Government have claimed that it is not part of the job of the NHS or the taxpayer through the NHS to subsidise, as they put it, a private or charitable or voluntary hospital by paying above the rate that can be obtained in the NHS, elsewhere in the private or voluntary sectors or abroad. In that narrow sense, on principle, the Government are correct, but I very much doubt that that is what pertains in the present case. If it does pertain, the Government must present evidence that it would effectively be a subsidy if non-value-for-money services for NHS contracts continued to be placed at the hospital.
It is very much the job of the NHS to safeguard capacity where it is needed. It is clear from what has been said and from all the evidence we see around us that capacity is needed in the NHS, and that such capacity is needed locally. If the hospital closes, the doctors and nurses will not necessarily transfer into NHS employment in the area, so it is unlikely that any capacity could be saved, despite the fact that there may be staff shortages that limit capacity in the area. There must be a fit. As my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) said, if there is no fit, people will simply leave the NHS or leave the area. That would be a disaster, especially given the threat of the loss of staff to troop deployment or war in the Iraq theatre.
It would be sensible for the NHS to find the means to acquire the hospital as an NHS hospital, with a view to using its entire capacity for NHS patients. Arguably, some private work could remain, equivalent to NHS pay beds, although there is a separate debate to be had about that. Given that capacity is so short in the NHS, that would seem a sensible investment to preserve capacity, even before one considers the need to preserve existing services. As the Minister knows, the NHS acquired the London Heart hospital in that way. Indeed, that was one of the early announcements that she made in her post. That was about 12 months ago, and the National Audit Office published a positive report on the finances, so the model exists.
The key question is whether the strategic health authority has the ability and the means to acquire the hospital, or whether it requires central Government

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approval. One hon. Member suggested that the Government could not interfere in the matter. It would be an historic moment for this Government if they did not seek to interfere in local issues, especially strategic issues.
I should like to see the hospital used to increase NHS capacity, which is a top priority. I have heard that the hospital may need extensive structural repair, mainly to its roof, but that would surely be cheaper than the cost of a new-build diagnostic and treatment centre. Such a "cold" hospital is exactly the sort of facility whose growth the Government want to promote. It is curious that the NHS has allegedly chosen not to make a long-term commitment to send work to the hospital. Such a commitment was said to be required by HCA International in seeking to buy it. The NHS decision may be due to a shortage of revenue, such that the commissioners cannot commit to buying capacity outside the NHS in the medium to long term. Unfortunately, in the pursuit of short-term targets, health economies in the NHS tend to look no further ahead than the next quarter. That is a problem when we are trying to create partnerships with the private sector.
If there is a quality problem—that seems unlikely, given the testimony that we have heard—the NHS should be open about those concerns, rather than allowing them to be raised by rumours, which are impossible to check out. If the problem is one of throughput, we need to think more widely than length of bed stay. It is known that the shorter the bed stay, the greater the possibility of readmission acutely, which would create pressures elsewhere. If local purchasers are buying capacity outside the area or even abroad, they might argue that the prices offered by the King Edward VII are not competitive. The Government have always claimed that treatment abroad compares favourably with private sector contract prices, although that says more about private sector prices for spot contacts than about the cost of overseas treatments.
If local purchasers are buying capacity elsewhere, the Government may be right to say that there should not be long-term subsidy for non-value-for-money prices, but I do not think that that is the case in this instance. I fear that, because of their fragmentation, the small purchasers involved in the modern NHS—primary care trusts—fail to see the strategic effect of withdrawing contracts. The strategic health authority and central Government have a role to play. The Government should start publishing the prices that are obtained by the NHS abroad and in the private sector, rather than hiding behind the cloak of commercial confidentiality; otherwise people will not understand why contracts are being placed where they are being placed.
Peter Bottomley: Hon. Members on all sides will welcome the hon. Gentleman's comments. Will he add that West Sussex and West Surrey—two of the three health authorities with the longest waiting times in the country—are not the place to start running an experiment?
Dr. Harris: Quite so. I entirely agree.
It has been alleged that the NHS has deliberately manoeuvred the hospital into non-viability by withholding a commitment to long-term contracts, even
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where they would be value for money, in order to place the NHS in a position to buy the hospital cheaply. That would be unfair practice, and if there is any evidence of that it needs to be provided and the Minister needs to give assurances. There is a case for the Audit Commission to investigate how the present situation has come about, as it may well happen elsewhere. We need action from the Government, but in the short term, and certainly before Friday, we need answers.
10.38 am
Tim Loughton: I shall be brief, in order to give the Minister time to respond to many of the points that have been made. First, we should put on record our congratulations and thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), not just for bringing the issue to the Chamber today and raising it in the House but for the active part that he has played in the campaign with the local community and the health professionals to make sure that the issue is decided at the highest level. I speak today wearing two hats—as a shadow Health Minister and as a West Sussex MP whose constituents will be greatly affected by the decision if the worst comes to the worst for the King Edward VII.
Many of my colleagues have made pertinent points, which I shall not repeat in detail. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester dispelled some of the myths about costing and quality issues at the King Edward VII. I hope that the Minister has taken them on board. The situation is dire, and the debate could not have been more timely. This time next week, the hospital may no longer be looking after patients—one of the largest independent charity hospitals in the country may have been closed.
We should think not only about the 70,000 in-patients the hospital has looked after in the past 10 years, and the 180,000 out-patients it has treated, half of whom were NHS patients, but about the 90,000 in-patients it could look after in the next 10 years, the 180,000 out-patients and the 2,000 radiotherapy patients per year it is capable, willing and eager to handle in the crucial years ahead. We should consider the 422 happy, dedicated and professional staff who work in the hospital, as I saw for myself when I visited the week before last.
More than 50 per cent. of the hospital's patients in most years have been NHS patients, whom it has treated in real partnership with no barriers. It is a model of the way in which private, not-for-profit and NHS providers can work together in harmony for the good of patients, which is the ultimate aim. All that will be lost in that hospital's centenary year, after the 100 years during which it provided an excellent service to the people of Sussex, Hampshire, Surrey and beyond.
I shall make four quick points. First, if it ain't bust, don't fix it. The hospital is not bust. We heard today that the quality of the care offered there is second to none. It is doing a good job. It is not a failing hospital. It is not an NHS hospital that has just been awarded zero-star status, which would be cause for concern. If it has not been doing a good job, why has the NHS awarded it so many contracts in the past and, by all accounts, received 100 per cent. satisfaction?
The King Edward VII is a not-for-profit hospital. It has not produced surpluses because it has reinvested all its money in state-of-the-art equipment so that it can

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continue to offer its patients the best treatment and service, which are not available in other parts of the country or the county. That equipment has been made available to NHS patients without any of the investment or depreciation costs that the NHS would have had to take into account if it were NHS equipment. That contrasts with other local hospitals, which have benefited from large increases in investment in the NHS, which we all know about. They have also benefited from a share of the £93 million from the new opportunities fund, which has paid for much of the cancer equipment in NHS hospitals. Obviously, that has not happened at the King Edward VII. The ParseNet scores for quality of care at the King Edward VII show that it is second to none.
Secondly, it would be against Government policy if the hospital went down the tubes. We need a multiplicity -of providers. The Government acknowledge that in their policy. We have serious problems with capacity. The Government have negotiated a concordat with the private sector. We wish that well; it is the way things will be in the future. There is a good example in Scotland, where the Scottish Assembly recently negotiated a £4 million initiative to clear the backlog of people waiting for hip and knee operations. All the spare orthopaedic capacity in the private sector has been booked over the next six months at discounted rates, and 500 patients who have been waiting up to a year will benefit from that arrangement. Why can we not make a similar arrangement with the King Edward VII and other hospitals?
My third point relates to patients being sent overseas. It is absurd and obscene that my constituents and those of many of my hon. Friends present today are sent off to Germany and France—and if anything goes wrong, the residual liability will come back to the UK, as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) pointed out—at a cost that we do not know, because our repeated requests have failed to produce the costings. The same patients could have been sent up the road to the King Edward VII and treated quickly.
The fourth point concerns the waiting list impact. Most people seem to think that there will not be an impact on other hospitals. Of course there will. There is no more depressing sight than cardiac equipment, angioplasty machines and linear machines lying idle for more than half the week, when our constituents queue for weeks, months and years to gain access to that treatment. King Edward VII radiotherapy referrals are usually seen within two weeks. That contrasts with the Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth, where the wait is currently 10 to 12 weeks, and we have heard from other sources about waits of 14 weeks. We know that there are problems with the machines at that hospital and waiting times will get worse in future. That is a zero-star hospital which was rated as under-achieving for two-week cancer waits, under-achieving on cancelled operations and under-achieving on financial management.
The Brighton hospital, at the other end of Sussex, has long waits for the radiotherapy department and 20 per cent. vacancies for radiographers. As my colleagues have argued, people will die if those desperately needed facilities are not available in a few weeks or months. In orthopaedics, which as we all know is especially crucial in Sussex because of the elderly population, at the
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Southampton, Portsmouth and Royal Surrey hospitals, there are typically 372-day waits—more then 12 months—for a hip replacement, and 443-day waits for knee replacements. Those patients could be seen within weeks at the King Edward VII.
Those hospitals are improving and they are doing a good job in difficult circumstances, but they need help, and they need it now. That help will not be there next week unless the Minister does something today. The impact on capacity elsewhere in the area will be immense. We are told that capacity will improve by 2005 with the extra investment in Southampton, but we need that capacity now. Is it not absurd to build new capacity at large cost, some years hence, which could be much more expensive than supporting the existing capacity? This really is an urgent case.
We are not looking for a handout. This is not about a handout or bailing out a private hospital. We are not even looking for investment. All that we want is for contracts to continue as they have done. All that the King Edward VII hospital wants to do is to continue to offer operations and conduct the business that it is there to do, for private and NHS patients. That is all it is asking for. If the recent offer that has just been placed on the table, which does not involve comparative costs with the NHS—in fact, those comparative costs are very similar in normal circumstances—involves doing the work at the NHS reference cost, there can be no question about cost, just as there is no question about the quality of the service offered.
In these final minutes of the eleventh hour, the Minister has the power to intervene. It is in her interests to do so, and it is also in the interests of the NHS, the King Edward VII hospital, all its staff and the patients it serves. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester said, this will be a win-win situation if she will just take the simple step of giving the hospital a breathing space so that it can continue for the benefit of its patients. This is basic common sense, and I hope that the Minister will continue to show today the characteristic common sense that she has shown in the past.
10.46 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears): The strength of feeling on this matter is illustrated by the number of hon. Members in the Chamber today, and they have made some interesting and passionate contributions to the debate. Clearly the hospital is held in great regard in the community, and I would like to thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) for securing the debate because it gives me a chance to put my response on the record and to answer most of the questions put by hon. Members. I shall certainly do my best to do so.
There has been a lot of misinformation and speculation in the media and the community over the last few weeks as a result of the events that have occurred at the hospital, and I want to try to give the community some reassurance about the future of its health services, because that, for me, is the important matter in this debate. Clearly, we need to ensure that high-quality services are available for NHS patients, wherever they live, and I am concerned that there is a great deal of wild speculation in the press at the moment. We must try to get this issue into perspective.

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The hon. Member for Chichester set out the history of the hospital. It is a charitable hospital—neither an NHS facility nor a private facility. It is in that third sector that the hon. Gentleman rightly suggests the Government want to promote and to work with to develop more interesting and innovative partnerships. It employs 420 staff and currently has 41 patients, although it has the capacity to treat 150. It is not owned by the NHS, but we should recognise that it has a long history of good partnership working with the NHS. NHS patients have traditionally made up about 30 per cent. of the hospital's income, not 50 per cent., as has been suggested. A substantial proportion of its patients are NHS patients, none the less.
Until fairly recently, the hospital has provided routine surgery, cardiology treatment, cardiothoracic surgery and radiotherapy and oncology care to a mix of private and NHS patients. The Macmillan centre at the hospital has been mentioned, and it has clearly been of great value in providing terminal and palliative care to patients. There are 10 primary care trusts in West Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and Surrey that regularly send patients to the hospital, spending a total of between £4.5million and just over £6 million at the hospital each year over the last five years.
I have had a look at the figures: in 2000–2001, those trusts spent £4.85 million: the year before that, they spent £5 million. This year, up to December, the hospital has received £3.35 million from the NHS, which—if the expenditure had carried on, and if we had not got into the difficulties that we have—would have been the equivalent to an annual figure of £4.5 million. That is comparable to the expenditure in 1999–2000 and in 2000–2001. There has not, therefore, been a huge slashing of NHS funding. I want to put it on the record that the NHS is perfectly prepared to continue with that level of funding to the hospital. Last year, there was a different order of funding—I think it was £6.3 million. One of the main reasons for that was that last year there was a much higher level of waiting list initiative projects right across the NHS—not just in that region—but, in terms of the underlying funding, there has been no huge slashing of NHS contracts. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) said that the NHS was closing this facility. The NHS is not closing this facility; it is not an NHS facility. We are perfectly prepared to carry on with the current level of funding and we are actively engaged in discussions with the hospital almost as I speak.
Mr. Tyrie: I suggested to the Minister that it might be advisable for her not to quote figures that she had been given by her officials without having checked them extremely carefully. It is not correct to say that NHS contract levels are broadly similar, in cash terms, to the levels of previous years. I have the figures in front of me. As early as 1998–99, the hospital had contracts to the value of almost £6.3 million. If we look at the run of the last five years, health cost inflation must of course be taken into account. Any reasonable assessment of the contracts over the last five years before the current year would show a fall of about one third in the level of
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contracts going to this hospital, resulting directly in the shortfall of cash that it has at its disposal. That is also the conclusion of the provisional liquidator.
Ms Blears: The hon. Gentleman and I can trade figures—he has the figures for the last five years, as do I—but the point I want to make is that there has been a variation in funding for this hospital over the last five years. In the year following the year that he has just cited, the funding was down to £4.85 million. So, we can trade those figures, but it is important to recognise that in April last year the management team at the hospital advised the Isle of Wight PCT that costs were to rise by about 20 per cent. That was a significant event, and, on that basis, the Isle of Wight PCT reviewed its cardiac requirements and decided to cancel its contract with the hospital because the costs were going up by that amount. It decided to commission those services from an alternative service provider.
All Members will recognise that it is the responsibility of the NHS, through the primary care trusts and the strategic health authority, to ensure that we get best value from the investment of public money. In April last year, the King Edward VII hospital told one of its main purchasers that it was going to put up its costs by 20 per cent. A decision was therefore made by that purchaser. We are trying to devolve power to the local communities that have the information on the ground, and this one decided that it could purchase care for its NHS patients from an alternative service provider. That is how we have arrived at the situation we are in today.
For the last three years, the hospital's expenditure has exceeded its income, and that remains the position, so this is not simply a matter of what has happened in relation to the NHS contracts. This has been a long-standing issue. All hon. Members will know that the hospital recently held discussions with HCA International, a large American health care provider, but they did not produce a positive outcome. Nevertheless, NHS officials at strategic health authority level and the director of health and social care of the southern region are now engaged in discussions with the liquidator, to see what steps can be taken to secure provision for NHS patients. Clearly, those negotiations are commercially sensitive. I understand that, as late as last night, the hospital put forward new proposals, and they will be considered extremely seriously by the NHS because we are determined to ensure that we can provide good continuity of care and increased capacity.
I am on record as saying many times that the NHS is facing not a financial difficulty but a capacity difficulty, and that is quite true. We are increasing capacity, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) acknowledged when he went on a visit with the Public Accounts Committee to look at the heart hospital and the other new hospitals being built in London. We are undertaking the biggest hospital building programme ever seen in this country and making the biggest investment in the NHS since 1950. Most primary care trusts are getting a real-terms increase of 30 per cent. over the next three years, so capacity is increasing and we are determined to have those negotiations and to ensure that we do not lose out on capacity. That must be balanced, however, with getting a good financial deal for the public investment that we are making.

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I referred a moment ago to the heart hospital. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) said that the National Audit Office had said that project represented a good deal in terms of spending public money. We are getting a good facility and increasing capacity. At every stage, I am committed to our spending public money in a way that will get a good return for the patients whom we all represent.
Mr. Oaten: The Minister has confirmed that negotiations were taking place up until last night. Given the short time scales involved, will she give a commitment today that the NHS will put in place a package of temporary funding, so that the King Edward VII hospital does not have to close next week and there can be more time for those discussions to continue, rather than working to the time scale that means that the hospital will close next week?
Ms Blears: Officials and the Department are actively engaged in those discussions, but we are not able to give the simple guarantee that was requested of us at the meeting just before Christmas, which was that we should pick up the bill, whatever the cost. We are not in a position to do that, and I do not think that any responsible Members would expect us to do it. I can, however, give the hon. Gentleman the reassurance that we are actively engaged in those discussions.
I want briefly to respond to the points made by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight). I was a little surprised by his contribution. He raised concerns about the figures. He knows how important it is to get value for money, but he is on record as saying that he thinks we could cut NHS expenditure by 20 per cent. That is an important point to make, and I am very surprised that the hon. Gentleman made the comments that he did. I think that he would acknowledge that it is important to get the very best value out of public expenditure.
Tim Loughton: I want to put the record straight. At no point has my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs commented to any extent on any cuts in NHS spending, so let us get that clear. If the Minister is so concerned about value for money—a subject on which we all agree—and if there are no quality issues involved, what possible justification can there be, when the hospital has yesterday made this winter sale offer of a large quantity of much-needed contracts at the NHS reference price, for the Minister's turning it down? For whose benefit would she do that?
Ms Blears: As I have just said, I think that the offer was put on the table last night. The Department of Health and the strategic health authority have been in discussions with the hospital since before Christmas.
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The offer will obviously need to be examined properly. Hon. Members have urged me not to take figures at face value, and to drill down and find out exactly what they will mean for the NHS. That is exactly what we will do, to ensure that we get best value.
The right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Virginia Bottomley) talked about the dreadful waiting times in her constituency, and I acknowledge that they are still far too long. I have to say, however, that they were much longer under her stewardship, when, in many cases, people were waiting up to 30 months for heart care.
Virginia Bottomley: Will the Minister give way?
Ms Blears: No, I have only two minutes left.
The right hon. Lady also made the point about funding this area on the basis of need. We have had discussions about trying to tackle health inequality and ensuring that the formulae are accurate. I understand the stresses and strains that exist in the south of the country, in terms of high living costs, wages and the need to recruit and retain staff. That is a significant issue for us, but we must balance it with targeting our funds towards the areas of greatest need, where health inequalities still scar the country and are of great concern to the Government. The right hon. Lady made a better point about partnership, and, as I have said, the Government are anxious to pursue that issue, both with the independent sector and the not-for-profit sector, which the King Edward VII hospital is in.
Mr. Tyrie: The Minister has descended into making spurious and, in some respects, cheap party political points. Will she, in the final few seconds available to her, address the question whether, if the hospital is able to offer a deal at the marker prices—the reference prices—that the NHS itself thinks are correct and good value for money, and if there are no quality issues at stake, there should, in principle, be a deal to be struck?
Ms Blears: I have tried to emphasise that the Government are committed to increasing capacity and to providing good services for NHS patients. We will examine with rigour whatever proposals are put forward to us, to ensure that we get the best deal for the people who fund the NHS—the taxpayers—and the people who use it. It is this Government who will provide good stewardship of the NHS and who have decided to put in massive investment to ensure that the services can grow and that we get capacity into the system. We are absolutely determined not to let down the people of these communities who rely on these important services, but it is also right that we should take a rigorous approach to ensuring that we get the very best value from the investment that we make.

Del Monte Factory, Methwold
11 am
Mrs. Gillian Shephard: I am extremely grateful to have the chance to raise in the Chamber the matter of 316 job losses at the Del Monte factory in Methwold, a village in my constituency of some 800 people. I am also very grateful to the Minister for the trouble he has already taken to understand the issues, and their impact on a highly rural area. The facts are as follows: last June to July, following the receivership of Albert Fisher Foods at King's Lynn, the food processing plant at Methwold was acquired, along with its fellow plants in Wisbech and York, by Del Monte. These plants had formerly been part of the Albert Fisher chilled food division. The Methwold plant produces prepared salads for supermarkets.
As hon. Members can imagine, there had been enormous anxiety about the future of the plant during the uncertainty surrounding the Albert Fisher receivership. It is a huge employer in an area of very small businesses with very small employment patterns. With 555 people employed there, the plant was clearly of great importance to employees and suppliers alike. The whole community breathed a collective sigh of relief when Del Monte—on taking over the three plants, including the one at Methwold—made optimistic statements about the plant's future, the excellence of the work force, and the prospects for the plant.
I should make it clear that I and everyone else in a community whose prosperity depends on the fortunes of the agriculture sector understand that it is impossible for any company to give cast-iron guarantees about its future. Competition is intense in this sector, and retailers are ruthless in their demands, in the interests of their customers. This is the world in which we now live. Despite those harsh realities, which everyone concerned understands, it was a shattering blow to the local community when, on 16 December—one week before Christmas—the work force at Methwold were told by the management that there were likely to be some 300 redundancies. According to a letter sent to each employee, dated 16 December, the situation had arisen because
"the company has lost the Sainsbury's business and this has depleted demand on the plant by 60%. As a result, the company is operating at a significant loss, which is jeopardising the entire operation. Action is therefore being taken to address this matter and rebalance the number of employees to meet current demand".
I ask hon. Members to imagine for a moment the effect of that news on the 555 people concerned, just one week before Christmas. It is true that some of the employees are agency workers, but many are local, and some come from families in which two, three or even more members work at the plant. Many of the employees are women, a lot of the work involves shift work, and there are a number of part-timers. I know that the Minister will be aware of the employment patterns that are usual in the food processing sector.
The impact of the announcement on people who, by any definition, are neither powerful nor prosperous was immense, and the timing, just before Christmas, was incredible. Indeed, it was all the more incredible because, the next day, 17 December, I contacted the chief executive of Sainsbury, Sir Peter Davis, who told
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me that in June and July 2002, when Del Monte purchased the plant, it had been made aware that doubts already hung over the contract, and that Sainsbury had finally told Del Monte that it had lost the contract on 2 October 2002. When the Del Monte management became aware that I had contacted Sainsbury directly, they sent me a fax—I have to say that their communication with me has been, shall we say, economical—which stated:
"I would like you to be fully aware that the decision to reduce our workforce in Methwold is not one for which J Sainsbury can be held accountable."
That is by interesting contrast with the letter to the work force just two days previously. There is also the question concerning the delay in informing the work force, which I shall come to later in my speech.
I immediately contacted the Thetford citizens advice bureau, warning it to expect a large number of queries about redundancy rights, job prospects and so on. On the same day, I also rang the East of England Development Agency to ask for immediate help with job search and other appropriate action. The Minister may wish to describe to hon. Members what the development agency was able to do at that stage, and what it might be able to continue to do.
During the Christmas period, I was contacted by a large number of constituents, including some who worked at the plant, some who were members of the local community who were very concerned about the situation, and others who expressed their amazement at the timing and general handling of the redundancies. Sadly, but very significantly, several people pointed out that they had been forbidden to speak to the media, and asked that, if I intended to pursue the matter, as I am doing today, I respect their anonymity. I intend to quote people without giving their identities, but will hand in the original letters with my notes. Hon. Members might like to reflect on the fact that we are in the 21st, not the 19th, century.
One correspondent, a former human resources manager at the plant, wrote on 20 December:
"On acquisition, the workforce were told by the receivers that Del Monte were not in the habit of buying out businesses followed by redundancies and they were not to worry."
He added:
"At no time since the acquisition have Del Monte assembled the workforce to advise them of the new company strategy, structure, future plans or indeed anything at all."
Another wrote on 21 December:
"I am one of the many employees at Del Monte … who this week has found himself getting well and truly shafted."
That may be unparliamentary language, Mr. McWilliam, but never mind—it is a quote. That person went on to say that he had kept a diary of events following the hammer blow of the announcement of the redundancies on 16 December. He had been in the plant and had decided to document what was going on. He said that some employees had been aware that job losses might occur, and went on:
"What many of us find curious is the timing. You did not need to be too bright to figure out that something was amiss when I saw a member of personnel removing the company rules on redundancy from the main notice board several weeks in advance … We all thought that when Del Monte bought the site that at last there would be sweeping changes and improvements to the place … We waited and waited but the situation grew worse by

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the month … With all that has happened this week there is a growing feeling that nothing changed because they knew something we did not. Why change the system if nobody is going to be here to implement the system?"
The entry in that constituent's diary for 18 December reads:
"A number of people here are in tears. This is not good. Why string us along like this? Everyone seems to have a story to tell about the lack of communication. I myself am being told conflicting answers to the same question. You just don't know what to believe. For example, there are now rumours that the transport drivers will be starting their redundancy packages on the day that they leave whilst we are not. We just don't know. Our manager cannot help because he is being given the runaround whenever he does try."
The rest of his letter catalogues a series of broken promises, lost opportunities for dialogue, and what he considers to be unfairnesses. He concludes:
"Even if I could meet their terms I would not want to work for a company that has shown such disrespect for the welfare of their staff. I would have no loyalty, drive, or commitment for a company that treats dedicated staff in this manner."
I also received an e-mail from a woman who stated that no fewer than five members of her family worked at the plant. She wrote:
"We were informed of this news on 16/12, we were then told to expect to hear of some news about who would lose their jobs by 19/12, and when they could expect to receive their pay. It is now 30/12, and we are still none the wiser. We were told we would hear by 23/12, and then it grew to 4/01, and now it is 6/01 … We had a black cloud hanging over Christmas and now it appears it is never going to end."
I repeat: we are now in the 21st century.
The Chamber would be entitled to ask what contacts I have had with the company itself. I have had two communications from it. One, dated 18 December, from the managing director, Mr. Peter Miller, was brief in the extreme, and gave no indication of the HR work planned to help so many people facing redundancies. The other, giving me the background to two specific cases that I had raised, arrived on 20 January.
It is only fair to say that the company disputes some of the evidence that I have just given to the Chamber. It maintains that when it learned that it had lost the Sainsbury contract on 2 October, staff were made aware of that fact. All I can say is that that is not the impression I have been given by people who worked at the plant. It is possible, of course, that staff were given some indication, but in such guarded terms that they had no idea of the implications for them and for their jobs.
What is not in doubt is the impact on staff, which I have already described, when they received a full account on 16 December. The company maintains that efforts were made to help redundant staff, and it is true that on 8 January jobcentre staff and representatives of local employers were present in the plant to give advice and counselling.
Mr. Henry Bellingham: I am sorry that I could not be here for the start of my right hon. Friend's speech. Is she aware that many of the staff affected live in King's Lynn, in my constituency? Obviously they are dismayed by what has happened, but they are also very grateful for the effort and the work that my right hon. Friend is putting in on their behalf.
Mrs. Shephard: I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. We discussed this matter when there
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redundancies were announced, because, as in the case of Albert Fisher Foods, the rural nature of the constituencies that we represent means that our constituents have to travel a long way to work, and transport arrangements have to be in place especially for work such as food processing. Perforce, a blow such as this affects people over a wide area. As my hon. Friend says, redundancies on that scale are a hammer blow to the whole of west Norfolk.
The managers of Del Monte pointed out that many of those made redundant had already found new jobs. We are fortunate in Norfolk in that, as the Minister will be aware, we have very low unemployment at the moment. It is also true that jobs of that sort can be filled by people working for agencies—the agencies that, as my hon. Friend will be aware, used to be called gangs. Some of the people who work for the agencies these days come from overseas, and companies that impose many redundancies still have the flexibility that the agency network affords them to cope with the highs and lows of demand.
At my meeting with him, the managing director of Del Monte said that he wished to correct the bad press that the company had had over the issue. I believe that he intends to put some of that right today, which is a good month indeed, five weeks—since the trouble arose. He admitted that mistakes had been made, that he might not have been aware of all the problems perceived by employees during the redundancy period, as he is not on site, and that improvements had to be made.
As the Minister knows, I fully recognise that the Government's role in such matters is limited. We all live in the real world, which is one of difficult decisions and harsh competition. When such decisions have to be made, there is not always time to do everything perfectly. However, in the case of the Del Monte employees, it seems to me that the procedures were rushed, unclear to the people most affected, and uncaring. The work force did not deserve such treatment. The effect of 316 redundancies out of a total work force of 555, in an area of very small communities, where families often contain two or three members of the same work force, can be imagined by those in the Chamber—and the timing of the announcement defies description.
As I have already said, I am grateful to the Minister for the great interest that he has shown in this case. I hope that he will now give the Chamber the benefit of his views on what I have said, and that he will also tell us what the Government, through their agencies, have been and will be able to do to help my constituents.
11.16 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Nigel Griffiths): This debate is on one of the gravest subjects that we ever consider—the loss of jobs and livelihoods on a large scale, affecting whole families, and generations within those families, in a rural area where incomes are not high and opportunities for other employment are hard to find. The right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) has set out the issues in the case with great clarity, and I know from my discussions this morning with both the chief executive of the East of England Development Agency and the manager of the local jobcentre the veracity of her words.

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Redundancies are, of course, sad, but they are an inevitable part of commercial life. Some companies handle them well, treating their work force with dignity and compassion, working with employees and their trade unions to save jobs wherever possible, and where jobs cannot be saved, working with local agencies to help secure employment or training with others. Sadly, in this case Del Monte has not been one of those companies. That illustrates the need for an information and consultation directive to provide a real opportunity for better employee involvement in larger companies, and to help to steer employers round the potholes, rather than leaving them to be lifted out.
I recognise that Del Monte employs a large number of people, and I have no wish to damage its reputation further, but rather to give it some words of counsel. However, I must say that I am taken aback, if not astonished, by Del Monte's attitude to one of our most distinguished and experienced Members, who has Cabinet experience and is highly regarded on both sides of the House. Its failure to listen to the right hon. Lady and treat her with the respect that the House expects from companies dealing with Members, especially senior Members, is a grave disappointment, to say the least. I know that the company will feel that its apparent disregard for the feelings of its employees and their relatives is a matter of shame, and that it will want to go a long way to restore its reputation. In a moment I shall ask the right hon. Lady to help them to do that.
As the right hon. Lady said, although Del Monte was aware that it had lost a major contract on 2 October, it apparently made no contact with either the East of England Development Agency or the jobcentre—or, as far as I can see, with any agency that could have helped the company and its workers. It formally notified the Department of Trade and Industry redundancy payments office in Birmingham on 13 December that there would be large-scale redundancies—news that it communicated to its work force on 16 December.
It is not true to say that the company did nothing; that would have been illegal. It fulfilled its absolute minimum legal duties by informing the Secretary of State through the redundancy payments office. It also held some consultation with the representatives of its employees, as it had to do at least 90 days in advance of the first dismissals taking effect if, as was the case, there would be more than 100 redundancies. That was the company's legal obligation under section 181 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. It appears to have done nothing else.
Fortunately, the right hon. Lady, with her finger on every pulse in her constituency, and her formidable experience and drive, had already contacted the East of England Development Agency and the rapid response service. The chief executive of the development agency, Bill Samuel, told me this morning how grateful he was for that, and also highlighted a data protection anomaly that may interest the Chamber. EEDA and all the other development agencies are not automatically informed when form HR1 is received by the RPO, until the employer gives permission under the Data Protection Act 1998. The data protection registrar might look into that as a process that hinders rather than helps possible victims of redundancy.
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The jobcentre, the learning and skills council and the Government office for the east of England were all made aware of the situation. The right hon. Lady has asked me for an account of the action that they took, and I know that the Chamber will want to have those details. I have to confirm the impression, and the facts, that she gave us earlier, which show very poor co-operation by the employer in this case. Phone calls from both the jobcentre and the development agency were unreturned, and constant pestering—perhaps "pestering" is the wrong word, but certainly constant chasing up—by those agencies, offering the sort of help that I shall describe in a moment, was rejected.
I do not know whether companies in that situation get caught in the headlights and are paralysed with fear about how to deal with redundancies and about whether the bad publicity might have an impact on their share price, or some such factors, but I can tell companies that it is much better to be frank with their work forces and explain that there are no certainties and there might be further redundancies, than to leave them living in a climate of fear, without information.
This is not an American phenomenon. My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) came to see me with trade union representatives from Corning in his constituency. Because they were coming to the Department of Trade and Industry, officers from the company flew from America to meet me and talk frankly through with the work force why the redundancies and closures were necessary. They said that similar redundancies were taking place both in their home town in America and in Germany. That information was not fresh to the unions, but it was shared with the work force, and it was very useful. Why Del Monte has taken a different approach I do not know.
The manager of the jobcentre eventually managed to set up a meeting with the company's work force on 6 January, but that meeting was a shambles. It was held in a different building so people had to leave the factory and go up the road, very few employees attended, and the human resources people from the company were 20 minutes late. There was a general impression of a lack of co-ordination, for reasons that Del Monte management must explain and justify, both to themselves and to their work force.
The jobcentre manager contacted the company yesterday to say that she would organise a jobs fair for the employees, as she had managed to extract from the company the information that some of the employees had finished before Christmas—some were due to be released on 20 December and some about 27 December—but that the bulk would go on 15 March. She was told that there were only another 30 people who were to go still left in the company. Almost all had gone already, so she has not been able to organise the jobs fair, the offer of which could have been available from day one of this sorry episode. She has not been able to do what, if the employers had co-operated, she would normally have done—
Mrs. Shephard: Is the Minister saying that, if the company had bothered to return the phone calls from the jobcentre and the East of England Development Agency before Christmas, a huge percentage of the 30

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people now left would have benefited from the advice that was available then—and that sadly, those 30 people cannot now benefit from that advice?
Nigel Griffiths: I am saying precisely that. The jobcentre manager was in contact with other employees, with the Inland Revenue, with the Department for Work and Pensions and the social security offices, and with the training agencies. Indeed, she had even contacted the town hall to book it tentatively for a jobs fair. More than that—it is important that the right hon. Lady and her constituents know this—on day 1 she immediately applied for day 1 eligibility for those who wanted to apply for workplace learning. That scheme is normally for people who have been out of work for six months or more, but when there are large-scale redundancies an application can be made for day 1 eligibility. That means that training can be provided in the workplace of the new employer while the person is working, without taking them into a training room—almost on the production line.
The jobcentre manager gave me an example of how one employee, who had applied under their own steam, had been helped—and that help is still in place now. The manager has a full programme, with a host of ways of helping individual employees who come to the jobcentre, but she has to operate it without the tremendous help that the company could have given by notifying all its employees about that programme. They are helped with interview skills and with how to find agencies and update their CVs, and can use free postal and telephone services, and many other facilities that can be so helpful.
Indeed, the jobcentre could have helped the company to cut down the bureaucracy and red tape—that red tape that I am always banging on about, which is a common cause of complaint on both sides of the House. There is a facility by which the company, by liaising with the
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redundancy payments office, can have all the employees notified. The RPO is duty-bound to write to all 300-plus employees individually via the company. I understand that the office asked the company—if the request did not get through, that was the company's fault—to supply it with a list of all the employees, which would have absolved people of the need to open more than 300 envelopes and process the contents. That is the sort of co-operation we expect; it is common among employers, but sadly it did not happen here.
I have described the help that could have been available. Indeed, that very same jobcentre in the hon. Lady's constituency is already giving such help to others. It helped Fenmarc last year when it closed its unit in Southery. The Jobcentre Plus staff went to the factory, interviewed all the staff and gave them information about payments, working families tax credit and current vacancies. They also gave other help such as I have already described. The King's Lynn jobcentre is working with staff at Snap-on Tools, where there are now approximately 125 redundancies, and that company is co-operating. The regional development agency worked hard on the Luton Vauxhall partnership. I shall be happy to send Del Monte the examples.
I have asked the right hon. Lady, and she has kindly agreed, to chair a meeting with the regional development agency, the jobcentre, the training agency—the learning and skills council—the rapid response team, and, I hope, Mr. Miller, the plant manager and representatives of the work force. I think that we could learn some lessons that would be beneficial both to the company, in restoring its reputation, which I am keen to do, and also to the workforce and to others who find themselves in the same position.
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

National Service Framework for Long-Term Conditions
2 pm
Mr. Mark Todd: First, I shall set out the reasons why I asked for this debate. The proposal is to adopt a national service framework for long-term conditions. That will add to a series of NSFs, the purpose of which is to remove the lottery of care that currently applies to many conditions and circumstances in medical and care planning. I strongly approve of the principle behind the establishment of the NSFs. I am delighted that the Government have chosen this approach, and I am pleased with the initial steps that have been taken. For example, the implementation of the NSF for diabetes has recently begun, and this approach has been taken to the care of older people.
The NSFs are a key part of ensuring that our national health service addresses the needs of all its potential users. They permit a localised response, but clear national standards are established, and any citizen facing a particular circumstance or condition can expect them to be met. The principle behind the NSFs is absolutely right. They are also a mechanism for establishing whether best practice is shared, and for setting out ways in which it can be more widely adopted.
The methodology of NSFs commands partnership. Many of the aspects of care that they address rely not only on the NHS but on the activities of social services, the voluntary sector, carers and the patients themselves. What we are looking for from any NSF is the bringing together of the various parties involved in an individual's care to achieve the best possible outcome.
I particularly welcome this proposal. By their very nature, long-term conditions require complex co-working between different agencies, carers and the patient. That often continues over a long period, as one would expect from the definition of a national service framework. During that time, the care of the patient will need to be changed. The protocols for defining how that change is most efficiently brought about are crucial, and involve the wishes of the patient and the carer. I understand why this NSF has been proposed, and I welcome it.
It is worth recalling the principles behind the establishment of NSFs. In politics—and in health politics—a lot of worthy and substantial documents are produced that add greatly to our knowledge but do not necessarily prompt action. That is not the purpose of NSFs. They are supposed to provide a framework for progress towards set goals within an agreed time scale.
The expectation is that this NSF will be activated in 2005, and that there will be a time scale of 10 years. A key part of the process is that goals are set and achieved within a time scale and with a particular methodology proposed in the NSF. The goals are not wish lists: such an approach should not be part of this NSF.
When the Secretary of State announced the scope of the NSF for long-term conditions, he said:
"The NSF will have a particular focus on the needs of people with epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, motor neurone disease and other similar conditions."
I commend that approach. There is much common ground between many of those conditions, and I shall dwell on the common aspects that should concern us all when we respond to the needs of people with these conditions.
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Since the announcement, the approach to be taken has been refined. The focus is on people of working age, on facilitating their continued working, if that is possible, and on implications for people who suffer from several of the conditions listed in the Secretary of State's initial speech. I do not want to cover that now.
One could describe the approach that has been taken as measured. We have not raced away with the establishment of a body of people who will prepare the NSF. That is not a criticism, because it is important to assemble the right people to do the task. An expert external reference group has been put together, and I know of several people on the group. They seem to be well chosen, and it is a good model because it contains clinical specialists, managers from the NHS and other agencies, participants in the voluntary sector and representatives of service users. The group does not contain anyone with an individual disease-specific perspective. That is understandable, because it would be difficult to accommodate all such people who could contribute to the exercise. I assume that part of the group's work will be to ensure that people with a perspective on each disease have input on the preparation of the NSF through the external reference group.
Several generic points about the identified conditions should worry us. Most are neurological conditions. There is a massive resource gap. I would be amazed if most Members of Parliament did not have a constituent who had encountered difficulties getting referred to a neurologist in their local NHS trust. There is an acute difficulty, and there is certainly a painful shortage of people in South Derbyshire with the appropriate skills to diagnose people who suffer from many of the conditions.
The United Kingdom has six neurologists per million head of population. Germany has 12 per million, the Netherlands has 33 per million, Italy has 71 per million and Denmark has 100 per million. One could argue that those statistics are not necessarily precise reflections of skill levels, but they give a clear indication of the shortfall. All our observations as constituency MPs would confirm the shortfall in the first level of skill, which is correctly to diagnose the condition that a person is suffering from.
The second generic point is the identification of a person's need for therapy and the delivery of that care. It is also clear that there is a desperate shortage of physiotherapists in this country, and the welcome attempts by the Government to recruit and train additional physiotherapists have, to date, drawn relatively small yields. I emphasise the need for the Government to deal urgently with that requirement.
A third problem, and one that I would be surprised if hon. Members had not encountered, is the difficulty in finding an occupational therapist to advise on adaptations of living circumstances for many people with such conditions.
Miss Anne Begg: With many conditions, the problem is not only finding someone to assess the need for adaptations and aids but the speed at which such demands can be delivered. By the time some of my constituents have received the aids for which they

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have been assessed, their condition has already progressed. Six months' delay is no use if a person has a neurological condition and has only one year's life left.
Mr. Todd: My hon. Friend has made an important point. I was about to deal with that matter, but I am glad that she has raised it. I have referred to the assessment of appropriate adaptations. I imagine that, at present, there are significant waiting lists in many areas for people to be assessed for adaptation of their living circumstances to a level that they can live with in the future. As my hon. Friend rightly said, there is massive difficulty in the delivery of solutions to such problems. That brings to mind the co-ordination of various elements of care support for people with such conditions. There are often huge delays in obtaining adaptations that are necessary for a person's home. As she said, speed is of the essence in some cases. If a response is not rapid, it will be irrelevant. It will be too late to improve the quality of the individual's life. That is clearly a problem that most of us encounter with our constituents, and I am glad to receive my hon. Friend's support.
I am chair of the all-party parliamentary motor neurone disease group. The disease affects about 5,000 people at any one time. It is a progressive, and sometimes rapidly progressive, disease. There is no cure for it. It is fatal. The mechanisms that we put in place to respond to people with neurological conditions face their sharpest test when responding to motor neurone disease. If we can devise approaches that respond effectively to the needs of someone with MND, it is likely that we will achieve a quality of service that is more than acceptable for people with a less progressive condition.
The unique features of motor neurone disease are its rapid progression, which, incidentally, highlights the desperate need for early diagnosis. The early symptoms of the disease are easily confused with several other conditions, but if it is not spotted early, some of the steps that can be taken to improve the quality of the person's life and slow down the progression of the disease cannot be taken. At present, diagnosis can take 17 months, and some people with motor neurone disease could be dead within 12 months of diagnosis. That is a huge part of that person's potential life span in which no effective response can be made by either the national health service or caring agencies.
I have already touched on generic issues. I suggest that the focus should be on early diagnosis and the co-ordination of services to enable a flexible response to progression. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) rightly said that we must be able to respond to a moving process. We cannot simply say, "We have seen this person and will devise something that will be delivered in three months", because it may not work any longer. We must have a protocol that drives a more urgent response than is currently available.
We must identify particular clinical interventions that work best and promote their wider adoption within the NHS. If there is doubt about whether the approach is the right one, referral should be made to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to establish whether the best technology is being used to respond to the condition.
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Carers should have support frameworks. In my view, the voluntary sector is well established, partly through the crisis of need faced by an individual with a particular condition. I am a strong believer in the voluntary sector co-working with state agencies whenever possible. In any protocol, we should devise a way of making best use of the unique skills, commitment and knowledge of particular diseases gained by people working in the voluntary sector.
We must also recognise that with some diseases the role of the expert patient is critical. I would be surprised if hon. Members had not encountered people in their constituencies who fit this bill. Expert patients gather information from the internet and develop a genuine knowledge of their diseases. Such patients want to contribute to the quality of their care, suggest outcomes and be listened to. We must devise systems in which that can happen. Such systems are less relevant in cases involving rapidly progressing diseases such as MND, but arguably more important for sufferers of Parkinson's disease, which has a longer life cycle.
I understand the relatively recent aversion to targets in the NHS. I have long argued—privately and publicly—for fewer targets that are more focused on critical outcomes in the NHS. I am glad that the Government have adopted that approach. However, I would not want the NSF to become a NICE shelf document in which people share valuable good practice but do not necessarily make solid commitments about how it can be shared and adopted throughout the country. Targets for early diagnosis and mechanisms for establishing quality social services—with a clear model of what is meant by such services locally—should be defined in the document for particular diseases.
It is right that each of the diseases originally listed by the Secretary of State when the NSF was announced should have clear reference in the framework. I would be disappointed if it became a generic document and people said that, somehow or other, all the responses were relevant to all the conditions, because they vary substantially. The document should attempt to highlight the particular needs created by individual conditions, and should seek a clear goal for each of them. I need not dwell on that at considerable length, but there should be clear reference points back to the fact that these diseases were identified at the start.
Some of the more recent statements require a little more reflection. The Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), made a speech that emphasised the importance of people of working age who suffer from long-term conditions. No one would wish to minimise the importance of that issue. Again. most constituency Members will encounter people who long to have more time to work, even though they suffer from a long-term condition. However, we must accept that the onset of some of these diseases tends to be towards the end, or at the end, of someone's working life. It would therefore be wrong if we set aside the importance of the quality of life of people aged, say, 55 and over, on the basis that they had ceased to be part of the active work force.
I ask the Government to consider that statement further, and to reassure us that it does not suggest that people who are beyond working age should not regard the document as particularly relevant to their concerns. There has been concern that that is suggested.

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Most people who suffer from a long-term condition are dependent on benefits. Indeed, I became involved with the Motor Neurone Disease Association as a result of a visit from a person who told me about the extraordinary processes that someone who suffered from MND had to go through to get the disability living allowance. We need clear co-working with the Benefits Agency to meet the expectations about its response to the changing circumstances of people with long-term conditions.
It would be wrong if the document focused purely on the care aspect. The anxiety and stress that is produced by relationships with the Benefits Agency for some of the people who live with these diseases is substantial, so it is important that we get that protocol straight. I recognise that that is a demanding task for the authors of the document. No one in the reference group has that particular brief, but I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider carefully how we can bring that element into the NSF.
This is a great opportunity to spread good practice, and there is good practice.
Miss Begg: I am sorry that I cannot stay much longer, for this is a very important debate, but I have to attend a Select Committee. My hon. Friend is talking about good practice. He may be interested to know what Sue Ryder Care is doing in my constituency for people with Huntington's disease. It involves a new model of care for people who are end stage. Currently, most young chronically sick people end their lives on geriatric wards in hospitals or in nursing homes, but Sue Ryder Care is developing a new model whereby they can live with all the necessary care, but in a home environment—in small houses within a bigger complex.
I hope that other people and charities working with those suffering from diseases such as motor neurone disease and Parkinson's disease will consider the model that Sue Ryder Care has developed in Aberdeen and Kincorth, which may be a model for the future. It is expensive, so my hon. Friend's comments on the benefits system have an important part to play in that regard.
Mr. Todd: I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. I agree that that is certainly one model of care. The key concept that I always emphasise is choice. That is a working framework for many people; others choose different models. We should try to ensure that there is a flexible response.
As I said, this is a great opportunity to improve the quality of care for people who are suffering from some of the most terrible and, sadly, intractable diseases. We should not miss that opportunity. The purpose of calling the debate was to prompt the Government to think all the harder, having taken the welcome step of setting up the NSF, about the quality outcome that we seek from it.
2.24 pm
Mr. Paul Burstow: I congratulate the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on securing the debate, not least because when it is read
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alongside the debate on head injuries that took place in this Chamber yesterday, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), we may begin to get a picture of the progress that the Government are or are not making in developing neurological services.
I come to the debate wearing several hats, or with several interests. I am a vice-chair of the all-party disability group and a vice-chair of the all-party multiple sclerosis group. Recently, I was invited to act as a patron of CMT UK, which is a small charity that deals with a neurological condition known as Charcot-Marie-Tooth. CMT is an inherited neuromuscular condition with a range of symptoms that include pain and gastrointestinal, hearing and eyesight problems. In most cases, it has a genetic basis. The charity has raised several issues, some of which pick up on themes in the opening remarks made by the hon. Member for South Derbyshire.
I want to address three issues. The first concerns the capacity of the work force, because I believe that that is fundamental to delivering a national service framework of a standard that we all want, in a time frame that will make a difference to the lives of people today. Secondly, I shall briefly return to the focus of the national service framework and discuss whether the statements that have been made so far address all the issues on which we need to concentrate. Finally, I shall deal with implementation of the national service framework, which is absolutely crucial.
Neurological conditions account for 17 per cent. of visits to general practitioners and almost one in five acute hospital admissions. Studies suggest that 3 million people have a neurological condition of one kind or another. What is interesting about the figures is that the studies on which they are based are often ancient, because we do not have a robust mechanism for gathering data about prevalence. I raised that issue yesterday but did not receive a reply.
In 2001, the British Medical Association proposed to the Government that a health and injury surveillance system should be set up to capture such information so that the Government would be able to plan and commission services on the basis of need. It would be helpful if the Minister would say whether the Government are minded to do that.
One in four of the people who have neurological conditions need daily help with living tasks to remain in their own homes. Among the range of conditions with which the national health service grapples, only heart disease and cancer affect more people.
On work force planning, I understand that the average length of training for a neurologist is six years. On the basis of the numbers in training, there will be fewer than 90 extra trained neurologists by 2006. At present, there are 358 neurology consultants, which is one to 177,000 people. As we have just heard, that is the lowest number of neurologists per head of population anywhere in the western world and way below what the Association of British Neurologists says we need to provide a good-quality neurology service. Indeed, the ABN puts the required figure nearer 950. With just 30 new neurologists coming on stream each year, and given retirements, there will on current trends be 550 more neurologists by 2010. With no retirements, it would take

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until at least 2020 to hit the ABN's target, which is outside the planning horizons of the national service framework. The figures raise some questions that I hope the Minister will be able to address.
Similar concerns apply for therapy staff and specialist nurses. There has been an increase in the numbers entering training in allied professions, and that is welcome. However, the initial increase in places has been disappointing. For example, the figures show a 1 per cent. increase in the intake of physiotherapist trainees between 2000 and 2001. How is the target of a 59 per cent. increase in NHS physiotherapists to be achieved within the planning period encompassed in the national service framework?
The hon. Member for South Derbyshire referred to the patchiness of provision. I was struck by some recent work undertaken by the Parkinson's Disease Society to garner information about understanding, awareness and expertise of that disease among geriatricians and neurologists. In London, there is apparently one gerontologist, or neurologist with any expertise in Parkinson's disease for every 465,000 people. I suspect that for some of the more rare neurological conditions, that figure would be even worse. That raises concern about how we can ensure that the pathways not just to care but to initial diagnosis can be established robustly and clearly.
I hope that the Government will tell us that they are aware of the problem. Although they are doing much that is to be applauded in recruiting extra staff, it is clear from the figures that I have given that we are well adrift of what is needed to deliver a meaningful national service framework. That takes me on to the questions about the focus of the framework.
Many patients' organisations and neurological research charities share a concern about the statements made so far concerning the intention to focus the national service framework on people of working age and on getting people back to work. Given that neurological conditions tend to be more prevalent among the older population, we need to ensure that the framework addresses their needs, not least because the national service framework for older people addresses only dementia and fails to address any other neurological conditions that impact on older people.
Given that the forthcoming national service framework on children's services also does not address neurological conditions, will the Minister assure us that the framework under discussion will address the needs of children with neurological conditions?
Mrs. Patsy Calton: Should ME, which particularly affects young people, and autism be considered as two of the long-term conditions?
Mr. Burstow: I am of the view that the key to success with the national service framework is to build its foundations on generic issues. Having said that, and as the hon. Member for South Derbyshire rightly said, one can from that point identify and deal with the unique aspects of a particular condition. Many ME sufferers feel in limbo when it comes to how the NHS deals with their needs. Many are affronted at being sent down the mental health route rather than the neurological route. There is a case to be made for their needs to be addressed in that way, but others may have a different opinion.
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The focus of the national service framework should be on promoting independence and quality of life and on supporting carers. Will the Minister clarify whether the framework will cover all ages? If not, will those who have needs but are outside the working population be picked up? How will joined-up services be achieved if the transition points between paediatric and adult services, and adult and geriatric services, are not addressed in the national service framework?
My third and final area of concern is implementation, which has been touched on, but which is important to the success of the national service framework and all such frameworks to come. How will the Department ensure that implementation is achieved in the context of the new devolution? What role will strategic health authorities have in monitoring implementation? Will there be clear targets and milestones, and what feedback mechanisms will be in place between the Department and the strategic health authorities? We need a picture of how the process will work. The early national service frameworks had very clear, robust milestones and targets, and were monitored by the Department. It appears now that some monitoring mechanisms have gone and data are not being collected. Will data be collected under the new system, or are we now talking about guidance?
On a number of occasions I have raised with Ministers—not the Under-Secretary, but others in previous debates—concerns about the national service framework process blighting existing planning and work in the Department and the NHS. I would like to touch on two examples. In 1999, during a debate that I secured on MS, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), told me that the Department was working on a compendium of good practice for general practitioners and primary care groups in commissioning neurological services. Furthermore, that was regularly trotted out in written answers as evidence that the Government were acting to improve the situation. That was back in 1999. I suspect that the work had been commissioned even before then.
Will the Minister explain why that compendium has never been published? Why does it appear to have been dropped altogether? Surely it would have been a valuable tool for primary care trusts, which as we heard just yesterday will pick up the specialist commissioning role from April 2004. Was any work done on that compendium? Why was it not put into the public domain? Why do we have to wait for the national service framework process to result in that work coming into the public domain and benefiting people with neurological conditions?
The second example concerns assessment of neurology specialist nurses, which is being reviewed by the Department. Numerous written answers have referred to the work that the Department has been doing. Again, it dates back three or four years but has never seen the light of day. Why not? Again, the patchiness of specialist nurse provision is a real issue.
I shall conclude on a number of core issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders), who chairs the all-party group on diabetes, is concerned that there is no ring-fencing for funding to deliver national service frameworks. I hope that the Minister will take that point on board. The first core issue is speed of

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diagnosis. People must be diagnosed quickly and their health and care needs must be assessed too. Rehabilitation services need to be strengthened. Symptom management is crucial and pain management should be part of it. Patients need to be seen as co-producers of their care. We need to ensure that carers are part of the national service framework. All that rests on a foundation of multi-agency working. Unless the agencies share information, and plan and deliver services together, the experience of the patient will be poorer.
Only if these services are founded on strong common ground will we deliver services that are tailored to the individual's unique circumstances and condition. Neurology has been a Cinderella service for far too long—undervalued, under-resourced and unrecognised. As a result many thousands of people do not get the support they need to enjoy a quality of life that the rest of us expect and have. I hope that the Minister can give some positive responses.
2.36 pm
Phil Hope: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on securing this important debate and on his excellent analysis of the issues of concern. My focus will be on primary headache disorders as another aspect of neurological conditions that could be covered by a national service framework. Primary headache disorders have been misunderstood and under-recognised for far too long. They are often incorrectly diagnosed and inappropriately treated. To put it bluntly, it is time that headache sufferers got taken seriously in this country.
I have to declare an interest. I am a migraine sufferer. I do not have them too frequently, but in creating the all-party group for primary headache disorders I discovered that a great many Members of both Houses are migraine sufferers. Some of them suffer from cluster headaches, which is a particularly severe condition. This newly created group will press hard to move the issue much higher up the health agenda. I am delighted to say that the Migraine Action Association has its headquarters in my constituency. Its chief executive, Ann Turner, has been helpful, along with the Migraine Trust and others, in supporting the all-party group. It has a good website—Migraine.org.uk—and it runs a helpline for those who need support.
Some 60,000 people are members of the Migraine Action Association and the Migraine Trust. They have joined a voluntary organisation because they suffer severe headaches and migraines. That is the extent of the condition. We have heard of the prevalence of other conditions, but that is a huge proportion of the population. Headache UK is an alliance of people who work on headache and who have come together to promote this agenda. I thank them for their support. I welcome the new national service framework for long-term conditions, most of which, as my hon. Friend said, are neurological. The scope of the external reference group's activities has not been finally determined, and there is anxiety about the fact that migraines and severe headaches have not yet been included in the national service framework. I ask the Minister and his colleagues
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in the Department seriously to consider whether such headaches should be included in the national service framework.
I share hon. Members' concerns that the frameworks should be not just about guidelines and suggestions but about targets and goals, which should be monitored so that we can find out what is being developed. I understand from a meeting held earlier today that it might take five years to create the national service framework, and that it might not be published until 2007. I hope that I am wrong about that. However difficult the task may be, I hope that we can get on with it a lot quicker than that.
I shall explain why I am pressing my case so hard. The facts about headache astonish me, as does the fact that the issue has not been at the top of the agenda. The World Health Organisation has already classified headache as a major health disorder, and 75 per cent. of the UK population suffer from headaches each year. I do not think that there is any other condition that is experienced by 75 per cent. of the population. Migraine, the most common cause of severe headache, has a prevalence of 15 per cent. Roughly one in six people in this country suffer from migraines.
The difference between a headache and a migraine headache is profound. Someone who has never had a migraine headache will not know what migraine sufferers are talking about. Migraine completely wipes people out. They suffer from appalling pain, have trouble with vision, and can do nothing—they cannot go to work or look after their children. They just have to lie down in a darkened room, take whatever works for them, and live with the migraine until it goes away. That is happening to one in six or one in seven people in this country, which means that some 187,000 people on any given day are going through the appalling experience that I have described. About 10 per cent. of schoolchildren get migraines. It does not take much to work out how that affects their studies and their performance at school. Some 60,000 people suffer from cluster headaches. That is a much rarer, but very severe disorder.
Those suffering from migraines cannot go to work or look after their family, or may be absent from school. Up to 3.8 million people feel that they are not in control of their condition. They have migraine, but do not know what to do about it. They have tried treatments, but none of them have worked. Many feel that the treatment on offer is unsatisfactory.
There is also the economic cost of not dealing with headache. It is under the surface, but affects so many people daily. It is estimated that some 270 work days a year per thousand people are lost due to migraines, and an estimated 820 work days a year per thousand people are lost due to tension headaches. That is the huge economic impact of our failure to get to grips with the condition. If we take into account the regular medication needed, the cost of child care, loss of earnings, and the fact that people cannot function properly, the cost to the economy is some £1.5 billion. That is a big sum. It amazes me that people with migraines wake up and get on with their lives. They just cope, yet our country is failing to recognise their plight and the consequences for the economy.

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The difficulty within the NHS is that headache remains a low priority. There is limited understanding of headache diagnosis or effective management by health care professionals. There are guidelines and protocols, but they are not very well applied. Up to 30 per cent. of neurology referrals are for headaches. In a Migraine Action Association survey conducted by the organisation in my constituency, 70 per cent. of migraine patients said that they wanted better treatment. Some 31 per cent. of general practitioners—one third—felt that they did not understand their patients' migraine illness, and 45 per cent. of migraine patients needed up to five visits to the doctor before their condition was understood. Some 20 per cent. needed 10 visits to the doctor, until the doctor suddenly understood what the problem was. Those figures are staggering. Clearly, there is an urgent need for better guidelines for treatment and referral.
The NHS Modernisation Board has accepted that neurological conditions are neglected and poorly understood. The National Headache Alliance feels that headache is the most neglected of all the neurological conditions, despite being the one that people get the most. It seems to us that the physical, emotional, social and economic burden of headache is poorly acknowledged compared with other less prevalent neurological conditions. Some 75 per cent. of GPs in this country—three quarters—say that they do not know how to treat migraine, or find treating sufferers difficult. Incorrect treatment and interventions lead to 60 per cent. of referrals going to secondary care headache clinics for chronic headache. That represents 20 per cent. of all referrals to consultant neurologists—so those 20 per cent. of referrals are because the doctor did not know what to do and said, "Oh well, we'd better send you off to the consultant." That is a crazy use of resources, and it should not happen in today's NHS.
People can be knocked out by migraines and left not knowing what they will be like the following day. However, they get other symptoms too, especially depression. If a person gets migraines regularly, it is so appalling that there is nothing more likely to make them feel like giving up.
We do not know the quality of headache services because no one has measured them. The response to demand is pretty ad hoc. We know that services are inadequate and are not cost effective. There are no national or local targets for dealing with migraine, and very little research or auditing has been undertaken. We cannot seem to generate much interest among GPs or neurologists in focusing on and dealing with headache.
Current spending on headache is inadequate, unevenly distributed and poorly managed. That is a damning indictment, and it is time that we did something about it. There is a way forward. Professionals in the field have considered this issue and produced some detailed proposals. The first is inclusion in the national service framework. That would certainly ensure more equality in the delivery of care and in access to the best treatments that are currently available for headache sufferers. I am pleased to be able to draw to the Minister's attention the new guidelines for the management of migraine in primary care that have just been published by a group of professionals—the migraine in primary care advisers group. Those guidelines are going out to everyone in primary care.
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Those professionals have also produced a shorter guide for the use of clinicians. Hon. Members may be interested in seeing it. A patient guide will also be produced. Those guides are comprehensive and thorough, and show how migraine might be better managed in primary care. I hope that the Minister will give the guides his endorsement. A larger group, the National Headache Alliance, has also produced a summary of how it would like headache services to develop and improve.
I will briefly summarise the key points that have to be addressed. First, we must have better patient education and information, along with support for groups such as the Migraine Trust, the Migraine Action Association and others. As hon. Members have suggested, patients with information can control their care much better. If they do not know what it means to have their condition, how can they control their care?
Secondly, we have to take a multi-disciplinary approach, as hon. Members have said. We need to use the skills of a range of people—GPs, therapists, nurses and pharmacists. Thirdly, it has been suggested that, working to accepted guidelines, each GP should have available a first-line headache service, based on best practice—we need to spread best practice round the country—and evidence-based medicine, so that they can enable individual patients to manage their needs.
To achieve Government targets, we will need to develop specialist headache centres within primary care—either in GP clinics or in primary care trusts. Primary care trusts may have a specialist headache clinic or centre staffed by GPs with a thorough knowledge of particular headache problems. Some might ask, "A clinic just for headaches?" However, when 75 per cent. of the population experience headaches and 60,000 people experience migraines that are so debilitating that they become members of a migraine association trust, having specialist headache centres in every primary healthcare trust is not unrealistic.
In secondary care, there could be headache centres in every region, so that consultants with a specialist interest in headaches in every regional neurology centre could support the primary care centres. People could visit a GP, a specialist headache clinic and a consultant at the end, so their needs could be met where those services are required. At the moment, if a person has migraines they go to the doctor and the result is either a painkiller or a brain tumour—there is nothing in between. That is something of a caricature, but we must provide a range of services for people who experience headaches.
I hope that the debate will mark the start of a step change, whereby the policy makers and the professionals in the NHS—the health care providers, managers and the Department—give significant and proper recognition to the problems presented by migraines and other, sometimes severe, headaches. That issue must go higher up the agenda. Will the Minister ask his colleague the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), who is responsible for such matters, to receive a delegation from the all-party group on primary headache disorders? We could put our proposals to the Government, we could go through all the issues and concerns and get headaches firmly on the agenda, then

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the three quarters of the population who have a problem would be convinced that the Government are taking their needs seriously.
2.51 pm
Mr. Alan Campbell: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope). As a former headache sufferer, I recognise the frustrating picture that he so clearly painted for us. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on securing the debate and on his introduction to it.
I want to raise some issues regarding neurological conditions that are pertinent to the NSF, and some of the concerns of consultant neurosurgeons at the Newcastle upon Tyne neurosurgical unit, which is the regional centre. I have already drawn some of those concerns to the attention of the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), to which she has already kindly responded. I would like to take this opportunity to place those concerns on record. Before I do that, I declare a personal interest, having undergone surgery at the Newcastle unit some two and a half years ago. I want to place on record my thanks for the vital work that it did for me and for my family, and to thank it on behalf of the thousands of people across the region whom it helps every year.
The consultant neurosurgeons in Newcastle welcome the principle of the NFS, but they have some concerns and they want to ensure, as we all do, that it achieves what it is intended to achieve. Those consultants are concerned that the framework, as it stands, focuses rather narrowly on services for people with the chronic neurological diseases and long-term impairments that follow a brain or spinal injury. They would also like to draw attention to the importance of the acute services. The initial treatment may involve an operation, and there may be long-term consequences. They cite head injuries, vascular disease, brain tumours, or, as in my case, a tumour on the spinal cord. In such situations, timely and effective neurosurgical services are crucial in preventing long-term neurological disabilities. They are concerned that, if there is no proper provision of acute neurological services, that will frustrate the aims of the NHS framework in seeking to reduce the long-term burden of neurological disease. I am sure that the bureaucrats in the Department and the Treasury will be keen to note the fact that, if we provide first-class acute neurological services, we could reduce the need for support and help later on. That would represent good value for money.
The consultants asked for the framework to incorporate the requirements of neurosurgery as a whole, including acute neurosurgery. Will the Minister tell us when we should expect the appointment of the external reference group? Will he ensure that the Society of British Neurological Surgeons is involved at every stage of the development of the framework? Will he also ensure that the needs of people with neurological conditions are met at all stages of their illness, including the acute stage?
I want the NSFs to succeed. National standards and investment are the two most important aspects of NHS modernisation. Long-term conditions such as
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neurological illness often show the NHS at its best, not least in its aspirations for people in its care. Such conditions also underline the importance of ensuring continuing investment through collective funding via the public purse. If that investment is reduced by some arbitrary figure, such as 20 per cent., some of the most vulnerable people will be put at further risk.
I recognise that long-term conditions, such as those we have discussed today, make a nonsense of the idea of a health care system that is largely or wholly based on private insurance. If insured people develop neurological conditions, they struggle to have their insurance policies renewed. If people have such a condition and seek insurance, they can forget it, because they will not be able to get insurance. We need proper investment and national standards, and I believe that we are now getting them. However, we must get our actions right.
2.56 pm
Dr. Evan Harris: We should express our gratitude to the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) for introducing this debate. He has been very active in the past week with the food supplement directive and the traditional herbal medicines directive. He has followed his interest in other matters in the House as well as preparing for today's debate. He is certainly earning his wage this week. I am sure that his staff are also working frenetically.
I shall raise some general concerns about the national service framework in order to paint a picture, and I shall question the Minister about his approach to NSFs and that already taken by the Government. I shall highlight concerns about the process, and shall ask the Minister for solutions. I shall also respond to issues raised in the debate so far.
The Liberal Democrats believe that national service frameworks are doubly worthwhile. They are worthwhile in their own right, because they identify good practice, standards, treatment mechanisms and approaches, but also because the standards in the NSFs, in so far as they are targets, are so much more evidence-based, rational and clinically-focused than some of the other targets in the NHS.
Indeed, some of the targets that the Government have imposed on the NHS give the setting of minimum standards and progress benchmarks a bad name. In many cases—almost invariably outside the NSF—there is no evidence that achieving targets actually improves patient outcomes in the long term. They are not necessarily rational, nor do they solve the problem of the distortion of resource allocation without good purpose and clinical priority, when the target is treated rather than the patient.
It is much harder to make those complaints about the standards set in NSFs. Some of the standards in the coronary heart disease programme have proved to be useful in levering up performance, because they involve prevention and primary care. However, they also involve the levering-up of expenditure on drug budgets.
The NSF approach is welcome, but the Government must recognise that hon. Members from all parties are aware of problems that have arisen as a consequence of the NSF programme. The Government owe it to the House to ensure that they recognise the problems and

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ameliorate the situation. The first problem is the blight that is almost inevitable when waiting for the publication of a national service framework. It is well known that primary care trusts and health authority commissioners were loth to commission and develop new services when an NSF was in the offing, because they thought that they may be taking the wrong action. Competing priorities gave them an excuse to wait. We experience such blight with the appraisal of drugs by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence and in the development of NSFs.
The timetable and the speed at which NICE makes its determinations is somewhat swifter—probably because of necessity—than that for the NSFs, which are a bigger piece of work. Nevertheless, the Government must recognise that the speed at which NSFs are established has big implications for the services that are blighted because people are waiting for the outcome of the NSF. An NSF was announced in February 2001, but the chair of the external reference group—which, to the outside world, is a sign of work being done—ppointed only in October 2002. As the hon. Member for Corby (Phil Hope) said, the time scale is already long, and people worry that it may be even longer. The treatment of conditions such as motor neurone disease, which were first thought to be included in the NSF or in its recommendations, is likely to suffer as a result of this blight. It will be doubly disappointing if it is not included in the NSF.
The second problem is the tyranny of the appraised. That is inevitable to a certain extent, but it is a real problem. A national service framework has standards against which commissioners and providers are measured, and resources are applied to the area. When resources are limited or the increase in expenditure to meet standards is greater than the share of the growth money that that area of expenditure would receive, resources are pulled from elsewhere, such as areas that do not yet have an NSF—often it is not even in sight. That has been a worry. The priority given to mental health, coronary heart disease, services for older people and diabetes is at the expense of clinical investment in long-term medical conditions, for which resources are limited. The Government must recognise that. Support is needed for those people working in increasingly tight financial circumstances, even though there have now been reasonably generous increases in overall health expenditure.
The third problem is that target setting, even within NSFs, is an inexact science. There is a risk that unrealistic targets are set, which creates doom and gloom, and heavy pressure is put on expenditure to try to meet them. Some obvious targets merely go with the flow and follow long-term trends. They do not represent a challenge to people, so services are not improved. In a given area, targets will be met without the service necessarily being improved when it needs to be.
The fourth problem that surrounds NSFs is the need to ensure that there is adequate user input. The NSF provides an opportunity for user input. Obviously, that is easier for some conditions than for others, but for long-term medical conditions the opportunity to use the expertise of a patient group that has experience of the illness and knows how it affects people is significant. Expectations of user input into the NSF are raised, but are sometimes not met. Many of our constituents come to us with such concerns.
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I shall now deal with the question whether there is a rational programme of NSFs or whether goal posts are shifted at inappropriate times. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) said that the working age focus of a particular NSF was announced some time after the publication of the NSF for older people, so there was no opportunity to pick up the slack in fields that might not get as much attention as it was once thought they would. Such problems are significant for NSFs generally, and I would be grateful if the Minister accepted that they exist. I realise that some of those problems are an inevitable part of the process, but I hope that we can agree that the situation needs to be ameliorated.
My hon. Friend mentioned important work force issues. If, as we expect, this NSF raises standards, as other NSFs have, additional staff will be needed. Staff take a long time to train. Responsibility for the shortage of consultants in this field clearly cannot be laid at the door of the current Government, because of the length of time it takes to train consultants. I have always made it clear that there was a failure many years before the 1997 general election to put in the pipeline the number of home-grown staff who would be needed. None the less, career decisions are still being made based on that pipeline, and unless consultant expansion in certain fields continues apace, people will not choose to train in those fields.
People following medical careers are not concerned only with where the glory is. The Government must consider forming a policy on consultant expansion, and not merely leave it be. There are targets, thresholds and limits at every stage of a medical career, from students and house officers to senior house officers and specialist registrars. Only at the end stage do the Government say that that is not their business but a matter for local providers. Without planning, we get inadequate consultant expansion. That can cause oversupply, so that people have nowhere to go at the end of their training, or undersupply.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam and the hon. Member for South Derbyshire referred to the problems of physiotherapy. The hon. Gentleman made various points that are worth stressing, including the importance of early diagnosis. As many long-term conditions are often, although not invariably, insidious, there can be a period of morbidity before presentation, let alone before diagnosis. It is therefore very important that a swift diagnosis is made.
The hon. Member for Corby gave the excellent example of headaches. People think that they just have a headache, without realising that something more serious might be going on. Neurology is considered by the medical profession to be a hard subject—take it from me that it is. General practitioners are less likely to have a specialist interest in neurology than in other fields, and GP specialist clinics are an excellent idea. That is a major problem.
The same applies to acute medicine in hospital. The neurological side is not the highest priority for the on-take medical team. That works both ways. Someone very close to me had headaches and failed to be diagnosed with a tumour. That person was over-diagnosed with migraine in primary care, and the tumour was not even picked up in hospital. There is a real gap in knowledge, and I plead guilty to such gaps in

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my own medical career. The hon. Member for South Derbyshire mentioned the importance of the voluntary sector. That is not unique to this clinical field, but it is significant, and ensuring that we preserve the value of the voluntary sector is important.
We have had a useful debate, and valuable contributions have been made. I hope that the Minister, in praising the Government's NSF programme and their investments, will recognise that there is still a long way to go.
3.9 pm
Mr. John Baron: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on securing this important debate and on his thoughtful speech. Contributions to the debate generally have been of very high quality. As chairman of the all-party group on motor neurone disease, the hon. Gentleman has a substantial interest in such illnesses, and during his opening speech, he showed a substantial knowledge of motor neurone disease, which is one of the many illnesses that are collectively termed long-term medical conditions. As we know, that term covers a vast array of illnesses that can be defined as:
"a condition of prolonged duration that may affect any aspect of the person's life".
Symptoms may come and go, and usually there is no cure for the condition, although things can be done to maintain and improve quality of life.
It is estimated that one in three people generally and two in three people aged 75 or over are currently living with a long-term medical condition, so I welcome the Government's February 2001 announcement about establishing a national service framework for such conditions. Few would disagree with the aspirations cited by the Secretary of Sate, who said that the framework should overcome the lottery in care and ensure that health and social services work together in all parts of the country. The Government now have a duty to ensure that those aspirations are delivered. The debate is an opportunity for the Minister to provide us with more details of how that will happen.
I am concerned about the adverse impact that Government targets can have, particularly on illnesses such as long-term medical conditions, which are not targeted. I suggest that the Government are so fixated by the 300 or so NHS plan targets that services that are not on their hit list are suffering. Recent figures for neurology, pain management and ophthalmology, for example, all show that an increasing proportion of patients are forced to wait longer for out-patient appointments following a GP referral. The worry is that long-term medical conditions are not headline-grabbing conditions. As one doctor from John Radcliffe hospital recently put it:
"if you don't have a vote winning illness, then sod you."
Medical professionals must determine clinical priorities and politicians must stop interfering. Recent figures show that although spending on the NHS has risen by more than 21 per cent. during the past two years, hospital treatments have increased by only 1.6 per cent., hospital admissions have fallen by 0.5 per cent. and the
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number of bureaucrats and administrators has increased by 13 per cent. That is partly due to the meddling of politicians.
Too often the needs of those with long-term medical conditions have been overlooked in favour of more headline-grabbing conditions, such as coronary heart disease and cancer. The Long-Term Medical Conditions Alliance has pointed out that the NHS focuses on acute and emergency care, rather than on the needs of those living with long-term health conditions. We fail as a nation if we provide for one and not the other. I therefore ask the Minister to assure us that that will not be the case.
As for the timetable and content of the framework, we know that it will be published in 2004 for implementation in 2005, with a timetable of something like 10 years. Certain bodies, including the Neurological Alliance, believe that to be a very challenging timetable, as other hon. Members have mentioned. Bearing in mind the fact that the external reference group did not hold its introductory meeting until the end of last year and has not met again since, the timetable does indeed appear to be very tight. That is particularly true given that many experts in the field who need to be consulted work within the charity and voluntary sector and will need more time.
Can the Minister assure us that when the framework is published, it will be published in full? That is preferable to publishing only the principles, with the implementation plan following up to a year later, as was the case with the framework on diabetes. Can the Minister confirm that it is the Government's intention to ensure that the national service framework will be as inclusive as possible and will cover the full range of medical conditions?
A press release issued on 12 June last year explained that the framework will focus in particular on services and support for people of working age. Several hon. Members have picked up that point. That focus would exclude so many in our society, yet surely the mark of a civilised society is the extent to which it cares for the vulnerable and less able. Can the Minister explain why the framework discriminates as it appears to? Certainly the Neurological Alliance questions the focus on work and how that sits with previous statements from the Minister that the framework should be about the needs of users.
The Department of Health has confirmed the need for the national service framework to have a joined-up approach to people's social, educational and employment needs. Can the Minister confirm what role the Department for Transport, the Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions have had in helping to formulate the framework?
Looking forward, a precondition for any national service framework to work is that a sufficient number of medical professionals are in place, but we are all aware of the problems of staff shortages in general

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practice. The British Medical Association recently highlighted that GP vacancy rates have increased dramatically, and an article in The Independent last year stated:
"the shortage of consultant Neurologists is so acute that most patients admitted to hospital with brain disorders including stroke, epilepsy and meningitis, never see one—they have to be treated by specialists in other disciplines".
That point was made by the hon. Member for South Derbyshire. The Neurological Alliance believes that because of a problem with recruitment and retention, we will still be 400 specialists short by 2010. It should also be noted that there is currently a shortage of specialist nurses. What progress is being made to correct those acute staff shortages, with emphasis on the training programmes required to do so?
I have asked a series of questions because the success of national service frameworks cannot be guaranteed by good intention alone. The Government's track record on national service frameworks has been patchy at best—an example is the national service framework on coronary heart disease. The Minister will know that the target was that by April 2002 three quarters of all suitable patients should have received clot-busting drugs within 30 minutes of arriving at a hospital. However, research by the Royal College of Physicians found that fewer than one in three hospitals met that door-to-needle target, and more than 50 per cent. of hospitals were 25 per cent. outside the target.
Conservative Members will keep a close eye on development of the framework. Stating intentions is a worthy start, but the Government must be judged by the improvements felt by those who use and deliver the services. I pay tribute, as other hon. Members have done, to those who work with people suffering long-term medical conditions, not only the medical professionals but the army of carers who support people who are less able than themselves, and those in the voluntary and charitable sectors who dedicate so much of their time promoting the needs of those with long-term medical conditions. Many are unsung heroes in our communities and I am sure that we all want to congratulate them on their work and ensure that they are properly supported.
Outside this place, many people with long-term medical conditions are anxiously waiting for a real improvement in the way in which they are treated. It has been two years since the Secretary of State's announcement on the framework. I hope that the Minister will now provide us with more details by answering my questions fully.
3.18 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. David Lammy): I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on securing this debate on the national service framework for long-term conditions and on raising the issue in the measured and assured way that we have come to expect. I am afraid that it is extremely unlikely in the 12 minutes left to me that I shall be able to answer all the questions asked in the debate, but I shall endeavour to write to my hon. Friend if I do not reach some of his points.
This has been an excellent debate with some excellent contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg), the hon. Member for
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Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), my hon. Friends the Members for Corby (Phil Hope) and for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell), and the hon. Members for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) and for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton).
Many people in the country, from all backgrounds, have a wide range of neurological and long-term conditions. More than 300.000 people have epilepsy, 120,000 have Parkinson's disease, and 100,000 have brain injury. Fewer people have other, rarer, conditions, such as the 4,000 with motor neurone disease. In a primary care trust covering 250,000 people, about 1,500 adults will have a physical disability that affects their quality of life and means that they require help with their daily activities.
Co-ordination between hospital and community services and health and social care services could be better. Professionals are sometimes not aware of the wider impact of long-term conditions on people's lives, and service users could be more involved in the management of their conditions. We want to improve services and the experience of people with long-term conditions by addressing some of the issues, such as ensuring that people receive the right kind of integrated health and social care assessment and support, including access to community commitment, providing good-quality information and support for carers and families when they need it, and developing the concept of the expert patient so that people can take an active role in managing their condition if they want to.
Previous national service frameworks, such as the national cancer care plan and the coronary heart disease framework, have made real improvements in their services, and I am sorry that the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) felt that he had to make political points in that respect. There is no doubt that there has been tremendous improvement across the board in those fields, and I am particularly proud to have announced the NSF for diabetes a few weeks ago. The long-term conditions NSF will build on the successes and will be developed and implemented in a world in which there are fewer national targets but more scope for flexibility in local implementation.
Mr. Baron: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Lammy: No. I want to make progress.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire shares the concern felt by some that the NSF will have fewer teeth than its predecessors. However, it is a fine balancing act. We cannot talk about targets in the wider NHS while wanting targets for every condition or NSF that we choose to introduce. As I have seen in examining the NSF for diabetes during the past months, we are working in a context in which primary care trusts have funds over three years to examine closely what is happening locally. We put that in place. Alongside PCTs, there are national bodies such as the Commission for Health Improvement—we will introduce legislation soon to firm up the inspectorate for that—patient advisory and liaison services in hospitals and the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health. All those bodies ensure that NSFs and the standards, rather than the targets, that lie within them are delivered. They report back to both the PCT and the

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centre, so in the next two years, hon. Members will be able to hear what the inspectorate or patient forums in local communities say about whether the local communities are delivering the standards. That is the context in which we now operate, together with the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
The NSF for long-term conditions is a good opportunity to put right some of the problems that my hon. Friends have identified. We want a wide range of people to benefit, but we need to be realistic about the service improvements that we can deliver. The long-term conditions NSF will focus on neurological conditions and brain and spinal injuries. It will cover the whole patient pathway, examine the common issues that affect this group of people, and set standards that can be more widely applied. The NSF will acknowledge that people often have neurological conditions that will deteriorate and lead to long-term disabilities. It will focus on working-age adults, but it will also address important transitional issues between children's and older people's services. I want to emphasise that in the light of hon. Members' comments.
My hon. Friend the Member for Corby made an impassioned speech about headaches and migraine. The Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), who has responsibility in this area, will closely look at Hansard to see what he said, and will consider his invitation to meet her.
Some people will be disappointed that more conditions are not included in the NSF, but we have a wide range of other mechanisms—
Mr. Burstow: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Lammy: I will not give way because we have had a rich debate and I want to make progress.
Some people will be disappointed that more conditions are not included in the NSF, but we have a range of other mechanisms such as the NICE programme, existing NSFs, Action On programmes and modernisation service-redesign programmes to tackle all of those other areas.
Although people with neurological conditions share many common issues and problems, there are specific issues that are relevant to particular conditions, so, where necessary, the NSF will address those issues that
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are relevant specifically to people with, for example, epilepsy, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, or brain injury and spinal injury. It will also consider conditions such as headache.
Motor neurone disease is a rapidly progressive condition, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire is right to bring to our attention the importance of people getting an early diagnosis. That takes an average of 14 months, as there is no quick and easy way to diagnose the disease—to some degree, it is a process of elimination. Following diagnosis, people immediately need a wide range of support from health and social care professionals to help them to live independently at home for as long as possible. That support includes fast-track access to welfare benefits. That rapid response can be a great challenge for local services, but it can be made to work. In Warrington in April 1998, a motor neurone disease service was set up, funded jointly by health and social services. It aims to co-ordinate care for people with motor neurone disease and to avoid delays and interruption to services for people who cannot wait for boundary disputes or arguments about who pays the bill to be settled.
People with motor neurone disease need access to clinical interventions, such as tubes being fed into the stomach and special equipment to help them breathe through the night. Those services must be available throughout the country, and professionals need to be aware of them. NICE has already issued guidance on the use of relevant drugs to help to control the progression of the disease. The Government support research into motor neurone disease through the Medical Research Council and the Department of Health. In 1999 to 2000, we spent approximately £1.6 million on research.
We are aware of many of the problems that were mentioned and we are addressing them by taking forward the NSF. We have set up the external reference group to advise us on what a modern neurological service should look like and how we can put things into practice: its members are drawn from a wide range of fields. I say to the hon. Member for Billericay that Ministers do not in isolation in Whitehall set the targets that improve the quality of people's lives; we set them in conjunction with the royal colleges, the professionals and others. We work together to improve services across the board.
We plan to publish the NSF in 2004, and to start the 10-year implementation programme in 2005. We know how important it is to listen to representatives from across the board of stakeholders, and we hope to do that in the months, weeks and years ahead.

Obesity in Children
3.30 pm
Dr. Howard Stoate: I am delighted to have secured the debate on obesity in children, the importance of which we are only beginning to understand. Had we had this debate a few years ago, we might have categorised childhood obesity as a cosmetic problem and talked about image, self-esteem, peer pressure and bullying. However, as I hope to show, the problem of obesity is far more serious than that. If not tackled effectively, it could become as serious a public health issue as smoking. Obese youngsters have already brought lawsuits against McDonald's in the US.
The impetus for this debate comes from my research assistant, Brian Jones; he and I wrote a report on public health in children that was published by the Fabian Society under the title "All's Well that Starts Well". The facts are stark. According to Andrew Prentice, professor of international hygiene at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, seriously obese children are losing up to nine years on average to diseases that were not as common in their parents. The number of obese children in the UK has doubled in the past 10 years: about 10 per cent. of children are now officially obese and are therefore at serious risk of developing any number of potentially life-threatening conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
The Harvard growth study assessed mortality and morbidity in 508 lean or overweight adolescents after 55 years of follow-up. The relative risk of death almost doubled for obese adolescent boys. Obese teenagers are now being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a condition that is closely linked to obesity and usually found only in those over 40. Those who develop type 2 diabetes in their teens run a high risk of visual impairment, leg amputations, renal failure requiring dialysis or transplantation, or premature death from heart disease. Obese people are 27 times more likely to develop diabetes than people of normal weight. It is estimated that at least 5 per cent. of all cancers can be attributed to obesity. There is also a class dimension to obesity: the UK 1958 birth cohort shows that only 18 per cent. of obese seven-year-old boys from non-manual backgrounds remained obese at 23, compared with 31 per cent. of boys from manual backgrounds.
Exercise is vital. Compared with 20 years ago, our diet now contains much more fat and high-energy foods, whereas we burn about 700 calories a day less. According to the British Heart Foundation, one in three children between the ages of two and seven do not do even the minimum recommended amount of exercise a week, and by the age of 15, two thirds of girls fall into the physically inactive category. In the past five years, the time spent by primary school children in physical education has more or less halved. Only about a third of secondary school children receive two or more hours of physical education a week, compared to half in the mid-90s. That is particularly alarming given that, as the report by Fairclough and Stratton shows, school sport provides the only form of regular exercise for 30 per cent. of secondary school pupils. The National Playing Fields Association also points to a huge drop in the number of school playing fields in the past few decades.
Fear, too, has become a factor. According to the Children's Society, 15 per cent. of parents refuse to let their children play outdoors because they are worried
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that their children might be approached by strangers. Less than 5 per cent. of children now walk or cycle to school, compared with more than 80 per cent. 20 years ago. Nurseries rarely let their young children play outdoors for fear of accidents and due to lack of supervision. Children become accustomed to staying indoors and become unused to exercise. Faced with such disincentives, children are simply abandoning exercise in favour of other pursuits. Who needs a playground when you have a PlayStation? Studies in the USA suggested that television viewing may be one of the most important determinants of childhood and adolescent obesity. One study showed a 2 per cent. increase in the prevalence of obesity for each additional weekly hour of television viewing.
There is considerable epidemiological and metabolic evidence that dietary fat plays an important role in the aetiology of obesity. The proportion of fat in the UK diet has increased dramatically since the second world war, from about 20 per cent. to nearly 40 per cent. of total energy consumed. There is evidence that obese people tend to have diets that are far higher in fat than the average. National surveys show that the typical diet in the UK contains 11 per cent. of its energy as protein, 37 per cent. as fat and 48 per cent. as carbohydrate. The report of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy—COMA—indicates that we should keep our dietary proportion of calories from fat to less than 30 per cent.
High sugar intake is also an issue. Twenty-one per cent. of seven to 10-year-olds in the UK drink almost 10 cans of fizzy drink per week. The US Department of Agriculture, however, recommends consuming no more than 40 g of refined sugar per day—the equivalent of one can of fizzy drink, which can contain up to 11 teaspoons of sugar. Only 12 per cent. of UK children choose to drink water. In addition, a Government study of the diets of more than 2,000 children aged four to 18 over a week in 1997 suggested that, on average, British young people were eating fewer than half the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day, and one in five children ate no fruit that week. Seventy per cent. of parents with young children who were interviewed in a recent survey admitted that they do not know enough about food and nutrition to feed their children healthily. Many parents use sweets, biscuits and fizzy drinks to buy good behaviour from their children.
What can we do to prevent that? First, it is vital to instil the habit of exercising in children when they are young if they are to carry on taking exercise when they are adults. Traffic, fear of crime and intimidation, dirty and poorly maintained facilities, and a lack of time have, as we have seen, led to a decline in children using public parks and playgrounds. To make those amenities more appealing to parents and children, we must invest in equipment and facilities to ensure they are safe to use, and as attractive and child-friendly as possible. We must make it easier for children and parents to walk or cycle from home to community facilities. That means creating safer road crossings, dedicated cycle lanes and, where necessary, better lighting. Wherever possible, road planners should give priority to pedestrians and cyclists, especially in heavily built-up areas. We need more home zones and quiet lanes.
We must deal with the fear of crime. The public want
to see a greater uniformed presence—be—it police officers, park wardens or street wardens—on our streets

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and in public places. Visible patrols may not add much to the crime-fighting capability of the police and other law enforcement agencies, but they have the effect of reassuring anxious parents.
We must ensure that young people are consulted when new play spaces and amenities are being designed. There is no point in investing money in facilities that will not be used. Better use must be made of the 100,000 voluntary sport and leisure clubs across the country. By creating links with local clubs and municipal leisure centres, and by encouraging them to provide coaching sessions for schoolchildren, schools could make extra-curricular sport much more accessible. That would also ensure that children are introduced to a much wider range of sports and leisure activities than the schools themselves can provide. If they are to let children use their facilities without charge, most clubs will require extra funds from somewhere to meet their additional running costs. The Government would have to consider making grants available to any club that participates in such a scheme.
The Government White Paper "Schools achieving success" gave a commitment that all children will be entitled to two hours of physical exercise and sport every week, within and outside the curriculum. However, much work must be done before that pledge can be realised. The new opportunities fund, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the Department for Education and Skills are making substantial funds available to enhance and refurbish existing physical education and sports facilities, especially in deprived areas, but that is only the start.
We need better teaching. Primary teacher training puts little emphasis on sport and PE, and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority does not offer primary teachers who teach PE much guidance. Much PE teaching is stereotyped, with most children being exposed to the major sports only. Schools need to broaden the range of sports that they offer. Given the choice, many teenagers would prefer to use a treadmill or weights than play hockey or football. If young people would prefer disco-dancing or roller-blading, why not let them do that? If every secondary school could buy fitness machines or at least come to an arrangement with a local fitness centre, it could significantly boost physical activity rates among teenagers. We must also improve access to school facilities. The key to sustaining children's interest in sport is to ensure that they have access to school facilities and equipment after school, at weekends and during school holidays. Schools should keep their sports halls and fields open all year round, although pupils would have to be properly supervised. We need to look into how that could be funded.
The responsibility for school and community sport should be transferred from DCMS to the Department of Health. To give that Department the responsibility for promoting sport would highlight—in the most public way possible—the link between sport and exercise, and good health. It would show that we consider sport to be more than simply entertainment.
How can we set about modifying young people's diets? We must broaden their food horizons. If they get into the habit of eating fruit and vegetables from an early enough age, they will continue to do so throughout
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life. An obvious place to start to teach good nutritional habits is at school, but an outright ban in schools on sweets, chocolate, burgers, crisps and the like is not the answer; children will simply react against any such coercion. It is perfectly reasonable to serve burgers in school canteens once or twice a week, as long as plenty of healthy alternatives are on offer. The challenge is to ensure that healthy alternatives are appetising and affordable. We need high-quality produce and imaginative catering staff. We must also ensure that schools have the required resources at their disposal. Earmarked funds may be necessary to ensure an annual healthy meals grant that would go directly to the head teacher.
We need to make fresh water freely available to all children; for example, there should be a water cooler in classrooms. Children are often forced to drink fizzy drinks simply because there is no alternative. In 50 per cent. of schools, drinking water fountains in the toilets are the only source of fresh water, and in 10 per cent. of schools, there are no facilities at all. Children should not be prevented from buying fizzy drinks, but they should be encouraged towards better alternatives, providing fresh water is available.
We should make nutrition and food education a compulsory part of the primary and secondary curricula. Food education has become increasingly marginalised in recent years because of pressure from core curriculum subjects, a lack of specialist equipment and kitchen space in schools, and a shortage of properly qualified staff. There is a statutory obligation on primary but not secondary schools to offer food technology lessons. The Government strongly recommend that schools offer students the opportunity to study food technology, but 10 per cent. of schools offer nothing at all, and many others offer only a limited introduction to the subject. Unless children are given a grounding in cooking and have some understanding of what they are eating and the effect that it will have on them, they will not learn the skills that they will need to eat properly when they leave school. We need a food education syllabus that is focused specifically on cooking and nutrition. At present, there is not enough emphasis on food in food technology lessons. Pupils are more likely to spend time designing biscuit packaging than baking biscuits. Schools would have to be given extra capital grants to invest in facilities, but I believe that it would be money well spent.
I will now tackle the controversial area of food advertising. Sustain recently carried out a survey of television food advertising to children. It found that between 95 and 99 per cent. of the advertisements are for products that are high in sugar, salt or fat. Sustain points out that there are twice as many advertisements for such products during Saturday morning children's television than after the 9 o'clock watershed. That shows that food companies are deliberately targeting children. Food companies are also allowed to sponsor children's programmes. Although broadcasting rules prevent them from displaying their products on screen, they remain entitled to put their logo on the screen whenever there is an advertising break. For example, McDonald's sponsored GMT V's early morning show "Diggit".
Persuading children of the dangers of over-consumption of food that is high in sugar, salt or fat and of the need for a balanced diet is difficult when they are

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confronted every day by a barrage of food industry advertising that promotes processed foods. The adverts are designed to show that the regular consumption of sweets, crisps, chocolate and so on is perfectly natural and consistent with a healthy lifestyle. Backed up by celebrity endorsements, special offers and plenty of glitz and glamour, it is not surprising that young children, who are the most credulous and impressionable section of the viewing public, find the products attractive.
Obesity is a killer. Its consequences can be just as devastating as smoking or alcoholism, yet as a society we are prepared to allow the processed food industry to target its products at children. The Government should consider a comprehensive ban on food advertising to children. Doing so would not be without precedent in Europe. The Swedes, who have some of the best health outcomes in Europe, have had a blanket ban in place on all advertising to under-12s for some years. Not only has it stood up to legal scrutiny but it is highly popular with the Swedish public.
Far from restricting consumer freedoms, a total ban would enable young people when they reach adulthood to make a more informed choice as consumers about the food that they eat, having had the opportunity as children to learn about food in an environment free from undue external influences. The purpose of a ban would not be to prevent children from eating chocolate, crisps and so on but to help them be more discriminating as to when and in what quantities they eat such foods. A ban would help children to see such products more as the occasional luxuries that they once were than the staple foods that they threaten to become.
What about food labelling? According to the Food and Drink Federation, more than 80 per cent. of manufactured products in the UK carry nutrition labelling. However, there is considerable doubt as to whether consumers understand or even read the labels: for example, a recent survey carried out by Safeway revealed that only one in five people know what RDA stands for. Consumers have complained about the sheer number of different messages that appear on labels and have said that they find it difficult to gauge the value or relative importance of each of them. Messages such as low fat, percentage fat free, low in saturated fat, and others in the same vein leave consumers confused and no better informed.
Shona McIsaac: On the point about fat content in food and so-called lower fat products, is it not the case that some of the advertising is completely false? Manufacturers bulk out the product with water and then sell it at a premium as lower fat food. In fact, the way in which they work out the figures is wrong and misleading and can lead to people eating higher quantities of so-called lower fat foods, which cause obesity.
Dr. Stoate: I thank my hon. Friend, who has considerable expertise in this field. I have discussed this issue with her on a number of occasions and I share her concern that food labelling is very misleading, often deliberately so. Consumers want manufacturers to employ simpler, standardised and above all spin-free language on their packaging. Instead of labels that say that a produce is low fat or that it is a certain percentage fat free, they want to be told how much fat is in the
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product that they are buying. The Food Standards Agency should draw up a universal nutritional code that incorporates a handful of readily recognisable symbols and a set vocabulary that is as transparent as possible. Nutritional labels should also follow a set form.
Not since the British standard diet in world war two have the public had access to a definitive, or supposedly definitive, guide to precisely what, when and how much they should eat each day. It should be possible for the Department of Health to produce a set of broad nutritional guidelines that incorporate advice on recommended daily allowances for the average man, woman and child, what foods contain and even some suggested daily menus. If the Government decided to send an officially sanctioned national nutritional guide to every home in Britain, it would transform the profile of public health in the United Kingdom and allow us to hammer home the importance of healthy eating.
We must focus on public health. In our society, as in every other advanced market economy, we perceive health as something that inevitably worsens with age, but it can be restored quickly and efficiently through the intervention of trained professionals. Many seem to believe that the test of a good health service lies in its ability to manage disease, not prevent it. Perhaps that is because effective disease management is much easier to measure than effective disease prevention. Statistics relating to bed numbers, MRI scans, waiting times and successful operations can be easily compared, whereas successful disease prevention is less easily quantified. It is hardly surprising that the media and Parliament focus to such an extent on acute services, but that debate inhibits our ability to create a healthier society. After all, it is by influencing lifestyle choices, not by pouring billions into high-tech medicine, that we will make the biggest difference to the nation's health.
The Wanless report states that effective public health measures could save the national health service about £30 billion—20 per cent. of its budget—by 2022. By investing in prevention now, we could in the long term save the NHS billions in terms of expensive interventions of possibly limited effectiveness and treatment for long-term, chronic conditions. The human and financial costs of obesity are astronomical. In 1998, the cost to the NHS of treating obesity-related conditions was already close to £500 million, while the loss to the economy through 18 million sick days and 40 million days lost through premature death was nearly £2 billion. Obesity places an enormous financial burden on the individual through lost earnings and increased insurance premiums. According to figures given to me by Diabetes UK, the annual cost of treating diabetes is nearly £5.2 billion, or 9 per cent. of the NHS budget in 2000. By the time that this short debate is over, the NHS will have spent nearly £250,000 on treating diabetes. Given that there are at least 1 million undiagnosed diabetics in the UK, that figure will surely rise considerably.
There is no magic pill for obesity. Its effects—heart disease and diabetes—are almost irreversible. The wrong lifestyle choices during childhood and adolescence can prove devastating in later life. Until that is widely understood by parents and families, we will not be able to tackle obesity effectively. Refocusing the health debate on disease prevention is therefore

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essential. Unless we do that, we will not be able to persuade people of the importance of taking responsibility for their own health and living healthily.
The Government must take the lead. They must spell out the dangers of obesity to the public and make it clear that, although they can make it possible for families to live healthily by investing in schools and local amenities, the primary responsibility for preventing obesity in children lies with families.
3.48 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. David Lammy): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) for raising the very important and serious issue of obesity in children. He is extremely active in the House on health issues.
UK researchers have predicted that the increase in obesity threatens to reverse gains in longevity made during the past 100 years and could in some cases result in parents outliving their children. A National Audit Office report highlighted the fact that obesity is responsible for more than 9,000 premature deaths each year in England, and that it reduces life expectancy on average by nine years. My hon. Friend will agree that we need to work hard to combat this disease. I was particularly alarmed when recently I visited an accident and emergency department in one of the most deprived communities in London, and a consultant told me that just a few months previously a four-year-old had died from obesity in the department.
Obesity is not simply a health matter. It requires cross-Government action, which is why the issue is at the heart of many of the Government's priorities. My hon. Friend is right to say that the percentage of obese adults in England has trebled since 1980. Figures from the latest health survey for England, which was published this week, show that 21 per cent. of all adult males and 23.5 per cent. of all adult females—more than a fifth of all adults—are now obese. Although the majority of obese and overweight adults were not obese children, we know that children's weight tends to track from childhood to adulthood. Obesity in childhood is an important risk factor for adult obesity.
The increase in the number of people who are overweight or obese is too rapid to be explained by genetic factors alone. It is most likely to have been caused by changes in lifestyle—diet and physical activity habits. The majority of children and adults in the UK do not meet recommendations on diet and physical activity. Increased snacking, increased consumption of carbonated drinks, and diets that are high in saturated fat may all contribute to increasing obesity rates. Few children eat the recommended five a day portions of fruit and vegetables. Four in 10 boys and six in 10 girls do not take the recommended hour of physical activity a day.
The World Health Organisation recently highlighted prevention as the key to lowering the global burden of heart disease and strokes. More than half of all deaths and disabilities caused by heart disease could be prevented by national and individual action to reduce major risk factors, which include obesity. The
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prevention and management of obesity are highlighted in the NHS plan and national service frameworks. Promoting health will be a key component of the children's national service framework, and the prevention of obesity in children will form an important element in that.
As my hon. Friend mentioned, obesity is linked to diseases such as diabetes. I am proud to have recently published the diabetes national service framework. The key elements of the delivery strategy include systematic plans to achieve NSF standards by 2013. They include plans for every primary care trust to provide eye-screening services, regular check-ups and appropriate medical treatment for every person who either has diabetes or is at risk of developing the disease. Further plans include setting up local diabetes networks and giving appropriate advice on diet, physical activity and smoking.
We are working with a range of national, regional and local partners on programmes to tackle obesity, improve diet and increase levels of physical activity. Government action on obesity takes a life-course approach. The prevention of obesity starts at birth. Breast-fed babies are less likely to become obese later in life than formula-fed babies. Breast-feeding may also help mums to return to their pre-pregnancy weight. The infant feeding initiative, which was launched in 1999, aims to increase the incidence and duration of breast-feeding. We are moving ahead with the NHS plan commitment to reform the welfare food scheme. Our healthy start proposals will ensure that pregnant women, mothers and young children in low income groups have more access to a healthy diet, in addition to increased support for breast-feeding and parenting.
The fruit and vegetable intake of both children and adults remains low. We know that increased consumption of fruit and vegetables can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and cancer, but increased consumption might help the maintenance of a healthy weight and the achievement of other dietary goals, such as a reduced fat intake. We are bringing fruit into nurseries and infant classes throughout the country through the national school fruit scheme, which is backed by £42 million from the new opportunities fund. The scheme will provide every four to six-year-old in school or nursery education with a piece of fruit a day. Much more needs to be done to ensure that both children and adults have all the information that they need to choose a healthy lifestyle. We have developed a simple "5 A DAY" brand to help people to recognise the five-a-day message and to give the message consistency in all settings. Children and young adults were involved in the development of the brand logo, and they decreed it to be trendy, cool and so on. The message is reinforced by the food in schools programme, which aims to improve children's health by encouraging a healthy diet at school and promoting clear and consistent messages on diet and nutrition within the school environment. Initiatives being set up as part of that scheme, such as the assessment of water provision in schools and the inclusion of healthier options in vending machines in schools, are part of the ongoing programme of promoting healthy diets in school. which includes nutritional school lunches.

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My hon. Friends the Members for Dartford and for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) both raised the issue of labelling. We are keen to engage with the food industry to ensure that the levels of fat and sugar in their products contribute to a healthy diet. Clear and explicit food labelling is vital if people are to make healthy life choices. My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford, in his recent paper for the Fabian Society, drew attention to the fact that fat-free claims are often confusing. The Food Standards Agency is working to improve food labelling as well to provide clear, practical advice for consumers on what constitutes a healthy diet.
Shona Mclsaac: Is my hon. Friend aware that although we can purchase sandwiches from the Members' Tea Room that are advertised as being healthier, the percentage of calories that come from fat in those products is higher than in normal sandwiches? It is happening even in the House. It is essential that we tackle the problem of calories from fat, and food labelling should show the information clearly. A measure that gives the real content of fat in food should be used, instead of the figures constructed by the industry.
Mr. Lammy: My hon. Friend will recall that I was with her a few days ago when she made that point in the Tea Room. I do not wish to cast aspersions, but it is a serious issue and I would encourage my hon. Friend to talk further about the subject with the Refreshment Department.
Poor diet is only one side of the problem. A low level of physical activity among children also contributes to a rising level of obesity. We are putting in place a major programme of work to provide opportunities for children to be more physically active. My Department is working with the Departments for Transport and for Education and Skills to help children to develop travel plans and to put in place measures to make it safer and easier for children to walk and cycle rather than be driven to school. More than 1,000 schools have a travel plan in place, and a further 2,100 schools plan to have
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one during the next two years. Success stories include a school in Suffolk where 60 per cent. of pupils now go to school by bicycle. That is a result of a series of changes, including the introduction of traffic-free cycle routes that link nearby housing estates and neighbourhoods—[Interruption.]
Mr. John McWilliam (in the Chair): Order. Will hon. Members wishing to take part in the next debate please not interrupt this one?
Mr. Lammy: Thank you, Mr. McWilliam. Those routes, which link nearby housing estates, enable pupils to cycle to school from up to five miles away without having to go along main roads.
The Departments for Education and Skills and for Culture, Media and Sport are developing schemes aimed at increasing the take-up of sporting opportunities among five to 16- year-olds. They aim to increase the percentage of children who spend at least two hours each week on high-quality PE and school sport. Significant investment is also being put into transforming physical education, school sport and club links over the next three years. For example, we are spending £224 million to expand the school sports co-ordinated programme; £60 million on club capital to help sports clubs to develop good-quality junior programmes and to make links with schools; and £10 million on supporting playgrounds. Those programmes are not only about sport in the traditional sense; they include other forms of physical activity such as dance, and walking and cycling to school.
The early identification of overweight and obese children is vital so that they can be given appropriate guidance and support. The Department supports the development of recently published guidance from professionals in primary care on the weight management of children. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford will recognise that we are doing much in this area, and will be encouraged to work with us to take the agenda forward.

Dolphins
4 pm
Matthew Taylor: I appreciate the opportunity to raise the extremely important issue of dolphin deaths, especially in and around Cornwall.
Last month, 31 dolphins and other cetaceans were washed up on the beaches of Devon and Cornwall. I understand that this month the figure is 70 in Cornwall and 24 in Devon. Between January and March last year, 120 dolphins and porpoises were found washed up and the scale of the problem is substantially greater even than these horrific figures suggest. Some 800 dead dolphins and porpoises were washed up on French beaches over the same period—30 times more than would normally be expected at that time of year.
The cetaceans that wash up represent a small fraction of those that are killed, as most carcases sink at sea. Although this year's winter storms have probably washed up more than usual, we know that the problem has been going on for some years and has rapidly escalated. I shall speak in a moment about a new form of fishing, pair trawling for bass, which has only been established in the last six or seven years, with which it has been linked.
There has been huge and widely expressed public concern. The Western Morning News has run an extraordinarily effective series of articles outlining the scale of the problem. As a result, large numbers of members of the public from around the country as well as from my constituency have contacted my office. That concern will increase as the number of deaths increases It reflects not just a sympathy for the dolphins, which sustain horrific injuries as a result of being caught up in fishing gear, but also the more fundamental concern that we risk wiping out our local dolphin and porpoise populations.
The best research information available from the Institute of Zoology is that the common dolphin could be extinct in the area within a decade. The small, but well-established, bottle-nosed dolphin population, closer inshore, is at risk of extinction within the next two years. That is at threat from a different type of fishery—gill netting—for which a solution is at hand. However, the Government have failed to implement any action, despite an EU agreement.
The estimated impact of pair netting is substantial. Post mortems conducted by the Institute of Zoology at London zoo established that many of the deaths have been the result of by-catch. From 1995 to 1999, more than half the dolphins for which a cause of death has been established by post mortem were killed as a result of by-catch. It is estimated that approximately one dolphin is caught in every two hauls. The International Council for the Exploration of the Seas has repeatedly identified by-catch as the biggest single threat to cetacean populations in the seas.
To gauge the scale of what is happening, an Irish study of the trial pair trawl fishery for tuna observed 30 dolphins being caught in a single haul, with 145 caught by just four pairs of trawlers in one season. During 2001 observers on UK pair trawlers, targeting the winter sea bass fishery, recorded a catch of 53 dolphins in 116 hauls. It is important to emphasise that the fishery
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involved in this is not a traditional fishery. It has been established only in recent years. I have written to Ministers on several occasions to express my concern that it entails severe overfishing of the bass stocks in any case, and poses a threat to the traditional local fishery, with long-lining, and the sports fishery. Increasingly the problem for cetaceans presents an even more immediate risk.
The fleet is, incidentally—although this need not be the prime motivation for the Minister in tackling the problem—almost entirely composed of French and Dutch vessels. Perhaps eight Scottish vessels take part for part of the year, fishing out of Plymouth, but they are a very small proportion of the vessels in the fishery.
Tackling the problem is ultimately a matter for European Union action. There must be European Union agreement if the problem is to be tackled overall. The good news is that the fact that there is a problem has been clearly acknowledged. Parties to the agreement on the conservation of small cetaceans of the Baltic and North seas have acknowledged the threat posed by by-catch and are committed to taking steps to reduce unacceptable by-catch.
The EU Commissioner has said that action must be taken without further delay, but there are caveats. In his letter of 28 October to the Minister, Commissioner Fischler said:
"If we want to succeed better than in the case of driftnets … we need to build a strong case on the basis of the best scientific and technical information … we need more specific details both on the areas in which and times for which closures of certain fisheries would be desirable and on other technical specifications for the remedial measures proposed. As soon as the scientific information becomes more complete, we intend to take swift action"—
the problem being, of course, that there is some contradiction. Swift action does not happen, because the information is not complete. Commissioner Fischler is also pressing for
"a co-ordinated observer programme in all fisheries where by-catch is suspected a problem."
The Commissioner has thus given a pledge to take action, but only where evidence has been assembled, whether that relates to closures or fishing techniques.
Andrew George: My hon. Friend raises some important issues and I know that even this past weekend Looe and Polperro fishermen went out and witnessed considerable numbers of dolphins and pilot whales floating dead on the surface. Their injuries were clearly consistent with pair trawling. We know that there is a small, insignificant catch in the gill net fishery, but does my hon. Friend agree that it is not good enough to play for more time for research, when it is clear where the problem is, and that action is needed, particularly in France where most of the pair trawlers are based?
Matthew Taylor: I strongly agree with my hon. Friend, which is why I sought the debate. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge what we say, because he has several times expressed concern about the issue. He is aware of it, and has pressed the Commissioner on it. All of that is welcome, but the simple fact is that both at European Union and United Kingdom level there is pressure for delay. Not enough speedy work is being done.

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In addition, in some cases a concerted effort is being made to refuse to act, on grounds of lack of evidence, when people actually engaged in the business—certainly the Cornish fishermen who get blame from some people who have not looked into the matter, but who are innocent in this case—want action in a hurry. They do not believe that there is any question about what is happening. Some countries are blocking the observer programme. Only Denmark, the United Kingdom and Spain have any monitoring programmes at all. In particular, as my hon. Friend said, France has no monitoring programme at all, despite its having the largest number of such trawlers. Some member states have simply refused to accept that there is a problem.
Mr. Adrian Sanders: I would not like my hon. Friend to give the impression that the fault is all that of the European Commission. In direct discussion, Commissioner Fischler quite openly said to me that there is a desire to do something, but the Council of Fisheries Ministers has not given the permission to do so. The delay is in getting the issue on the Council of Fisheries Ministers, not so much the lack of scientific evidence to support the case that my hon. Friend makes.
Matthew Taylor: I share that concern and would go a little further. There is more that the Government could do to provide the evidence. The UK has a unique ability to answer those who would resist action on the grounds of lack of evidence. There are things that the Minister could do. He needs to act more quickly and firmly, and I have no doubt about his desire to do so.
The Department promised conservationists a by-catch response strategy as far back as June 1999. It has been four years and we still do not have that strategy. The Minister needs to explain what is happening on that and why it has been so long delayed. However, a debate about history is not terribly relevant to saving dolphins, and we cannot put off action on a wider strategy, particularly in relation to the pair trawlers.
I would like to see observers on the Scottish boats. The UK has the role of ensuring that that takes place now. There are no plans for observers until February. I would like some reassurance that the observers will be placed at the earliest date, and an explanation of why they are not there now. Without those formal data, it will more difficult to persuade other EU countries of the need for immediate action, however much we believe we know the answer.
The Department is in the middle of trials of adapted nets. Those trials have been dogged with problems. Last March, the camera fell off the adapted nets and no dolphins were recorded escaping. The trials planned for December were put back again after the adapted vessel that was hired for the trials was rammed, and it is now, I understand, in dry dock. Could the Minister explain why it is not possible to find another vessel for that work? Trials have been put back to at least March and might in practice be put back to next year, given that the fishery ended at that stage last year.
In any case, the Minister should not pin all his hopes on trials that are, frankly, highly unlikely to deliver. That fact is unfortunate, and I wish it were not so. Similar trials in New Zealand left sea lions with lethal injuries sustained while escaping the nets. They are
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smaller and less liable to damage than the dolphins, and I am therefore not over-optimistic. Pair trawling is a threat not only to dolphins but to bass stocks, and is not a sustainable technique compared to traditional fishing, which sustains a viable economy for the local communities that have traditionally used techniques such as long-lining, not to mention the high value of the sports fishery. Given that the Government have invested huge amounts of time, effort and money in preserving the spawning stock and the estuarial stock, it seems extraordinary to then allow such stock to be scooped up mid-water on its way to and from the spawning grounds, effectively wiping all the effort out.
I therefore put it to the Minister that he should seriously discuss with colleagues—perhaps he could tell us whether he has already done so—whether it would be more appropriate to close the fishery, at least pending the development of techniques that will avoid the problem of the dolphin by-catch and deal more clearly with the issue of bass stocks. The Cornish Fish Producers Organisation supports that option. Indeed, it makes the point that driftnets were banned for similar reasons, arguably on the basis of less evidence of their impact on dolphins than is available in relation to pair trawlers.
I want to mention a couple of other techniques about which I am concerned. First, I hope that the Minister will agree that research should be carried out by observers on industrial trawlers, which also fish midwater areas, albeit that horse mackerel do not attract dolphin to the same extent. However, dolphins are present in those waters and no research has been done into whether the trawlers pose a threat. Secondly, the European Union agreed last year that pingers should be fitted to gillnets because there is evidence to suggest that that is effective. There is a highly vulnerable bottlenose dolphin population around Cornwall, but there is not time to wait for the introduction of that change, to which the United Kingdom is committed.
Mrs. Annette L. Brooke: I should like to point out that although we are largely talking about Cornwall, the problem also affects the Dorset coast. All the conservation bodies are 'working well together. There is enormous public awareness of the issue, especially among young children. Only last week, I delivered dozens of postcards, showing pictures of dolphins caught in nets, to Tony Blair, so it is the Government's duty to respond in the way suggested by my hon. Friend.
Mr. John McWilliam (in the Chair): Order. The correct mode of address is the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) or the Prime Minister.
Matthew Taylor: There is no doubt about the degree of public concern, which is shared by local fishing communities, and it is the duty of the Government to act. Even more attractive to the Minister might be the fact that he would receive enormous public support for action. We cannot rely on technology to solve the problem and we cannot wait for technology. We need to take action now. Research may continue, but we need the Minister to save the dolphins before there are none left to save.

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The Minister's Department is in some financial difficulty and is having to make cuts as a result of differences of opinion between the Treasury and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs over staffing levels. We have heard that large numbers of staff are likely to be departing from the Department. I trust that this issue will not be caught up in that. In particular, I hope that the dedicated team at Bristol, whose members have expertise in the area, will be retained, so that work to protect dolphins can continue.
4.18 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr. Elliot Morley): I congratulate the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Matthew Taylor) on obtaining the debate and addressing this serious issue. As the hon. Gentleman said, I have been aware of the problem for some time and have not been idle in terms of addressing it.
Three years ago, no one in any sector of the fishing industry, including our own, would admit that there was a problem. The observer programme implemented and paid for by DEFRA identified the problem in the winter bass fishery. I understand the concerns of non-governmental organisations and acknowledge and pay tribute to campaigns, such as the one run by the Western Morning News. That effective campaign has been helpful to me because I have shown it to Commissioners and representatives from member states to demonstrate the level of public concern, as well as the alarming number of dolphins that have been found washed up on not only our coastline but the French coastline. That is the crux of the issue. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has committed funding to the sea mammal research unit, which is doing most of the study's work on identifying where the problem is and how we can best tackle it.
On the observer programme, there have been observers of every type of fishery, including pelagic, mackerel and sprats fisheries, on UK vessels. The only fishery involved in a by-catch problem was the winter bass fishery, although that is not to say that other fisheries are not causing problems, too. UK vessels have very little involvement with the winter bass fishery; it is other—and, in particular, French—vessels that are active in that fishery.
The hon. Gentleman should be aware that there is not much activity in the winter bass fishery at the moment; it tends to build up to a peak at the end of February and beginning of March. Yet large numbers of dolphins have been washing up. Many of the French pair trawlers are away in the south, in the bay of Biscay, at the moment. They tend to work their way north at this time of year. UK pair trawlers are operating offshore in the pelagic fishery. It is quite possible that other fisheries are causing the mortality rates, and it would be wrong to think that this is simply a pair trawling issue. It is about the kind of gear used, where and how it is used, how and in what fishery it is fixed, and in what conditions.
It is a mistake to think that if pair trawling were banned, the problem would be solved. It is clear that pair trawling in the bass fishery is implicated; we know
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that because we have some information. However, it is quite likely that the issue goes further than that. Often, comments about pair trawling are made by people who do not like pair trawling, do not do it themselves and would like the practice to end. We need a better and sounder scientific argument than that, and that means collecting information and looking for solutions.
Ms Candy Atherton: There is genuine concern in Cornwall and the wider west country on this issue. I understand that there is a marine mammal project that a London zoo vet, Paul Jepson, has co-ordinated. He said recently that two dolphins have had post-mortems, but we have not had the results. Could the Minister enlighten us as to the findings, in light of his request for more science?
Mr. Morley: I do not know of that particular case, but I know that there have been a great number of post-mortems. They suggest that the animals have died as a result of fishing activities, and were part of the fisheries' by-catch. I know my hon. Friend's concerns about the matter, as she has raised the issue with me a number of times.
I have raised the issue with the Commission, and with the Council of Minisers. It is not quite accurate to say that the Commissioner has to wait for the Council of Ministers to act. The Commissioner can take action under both the habitats directive and the cetacean by-catch strategy, which we have agreed in Council as part of a common fisheries policy review, and which calls for observer programmes of all member states. That strategy is agreed, so it is now a matter of the Commission pressing member states to ensure that that information is collected. To be fair to Franz Fischler, the Commissioner, he has been quite strong on the subject. He has been very supportive in response to the letters that I have sent to him. However, support is one thing; action is another, and I agree that it is needed.
In relation to the action plan and strategy on by-catch, I assure the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell that we will put that in place in the near future. Much work has been done on that strategy, both in relation to the agreement on the conservation of small cetaceans in the Baltic and North seas, and by other Departments and the devolved Administrations. The strategy is in its final stages, and we will be launching and implementing that soon. We will of course be pressing ahead on our work on acoustic devices.
Matthew Taylor: Obviously, the strategy is welcome, if indeed it is to be imminent. Can the Minister give me any idea of what "imminent" might be interpreted to mean?
Mr. Morley: I cannot at this stage, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are talking weeks.
Acoustic devices on gill nets is a United Kingdom issue.
Andrew George: I should be grateful if the Minister would clarify a matter. He said that French pair trawlers had not been fishing in the western approaches, yet the Cornwall sea fisheries committee has confirmed to me that pair trawlers have been operating offshore from the

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ornish coast where a large number of dolphins and pilot whales have been found floating dead on the surface and a few might have floated to the coast. Can he confirm that now or could he write to me and my colleagues and confirm that no French pair trawlers have been operating in that area recently?
Mr. Morley: I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman more information. Pair trawlers may be operating, but not in the bass fishery. They may be operating, in other fisheries and some may be French. Those that are generally involved in the winter bass fishery are not in the area. It is wrong to think only of pair trawling. There are, for example, Dutch horse mackerel fisheries and industrial fisheries. We need observers on all those vessels and fisheries to see exactly what the implications are.
We have pioneered acoustic devices and we should not be slow to acknowledge that, on many of those issues, the United Kingdom leads the rest of Europe. We were the first to treat the issue of dolphin by-catch seriously and the first to identify where the problem fisheries are. We were the first to trial solutions in relation to the separator trawl and we were the first to begin to develop acoustic devices. The earlier ones had reliability problems, but the later ones are much better and will feature in our action plan.
We have had some setbacks in the trials of separator gear and no one is more frustrated with that than I am. We cannot simply use another vessel because the vessel we engaged for the experiment has had some rather expensive gear fitted, including winches and equipment for cameras and nets. It is expensive to remove those and refit them and by the time that it has been done, the vessel will be ready again. However, I have some positive news. The vessel has been repaired and is operating again, but we have chartered it for the period of the bass fishery and it has now gone to the pelagic fishery on the west of Ireland. It will be back in Cornish waters at the end of February and we hope to have the net up and running at the end of February or beginning of March, which is the peak of the winter bass fishery. That will be helpful in ascertaining whether the net works.
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I know that reservations have been expressed, but some of them seem to have been motivated by people who just do not like pair trawling and believe that it is the reason for everything. I do not believe that. Pair trawling may be a problem, but we must research it carefully. The comments on the website of the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell suggest that the net does not work. The hon. Gentleman is an able Member of Parliament, but he is not psychic and we should give the net a chance to see whether it works. I know that it caused some injuries to sea lions in the New Zealand fishery, but I have spoken to the New Zealand Minister for the Environment and she told me that although there were some problems in the early stages, adjustments and changes to the net had eliminated injuries to sea lions. Sea lions are very different from dolphins.
I am not saying that the net may be the magic solution, but I certainly believe that we should try it out and see whether it works. We shall not know until it has been used in a fishery where dolphins are going into nets. We know that when it was used last year, a tope, which is a species of shark, went into the net and was ejected successfully from the escape hatch. We also know that the net catches fish, which is important if we are to persuade fishermen to use it. Some people were saying not only that the net would damage dolphins but that it would not catch a single fish. We know that that is not true, so let us see how effective it is for dolphins.
If it is not effective, I do not rule out further action and arguing for closures and restrictions. That may be necessary, but it is important first to obtain the evidence, ensure that other member states are doing their bit in collecting evidence—we need more help from other member states—and to see how we can tackle it and where it is. I assure hon. Members that I am fully committed to that. I share their frustration about what is sometimes seen as slow progress, but we are committed to dealing with the problem, to making progress and to ensuring that there is progress throughout the EU as well as the UK.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Coffee Producers
  Mr. Blizzard
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps she will take to address the difficulties faced by poor people in coffee growing countries. [92209]

  Clare Short
  The UK is committed to reducing global poverty as measured by progress towards achieving the MDGs. The Department for International Development has bilateral programmes in a number of coffee producing developing countries where poor people's livelihoods are significantly dependent on coffee production. These include Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda; and Guatemala and Nicaragua. The UK supports countries in the development and implementation of their poverty reduction strategies, including nationally owned agricultural diversification plans to deal with commodity dependency. In Uganda, DFID is supporting a feasibility analysis for coffee certification to help poor producers realise better prices for their production. DFID also supports research in several coffee producing countries aimed at improving the competitiveness of smallholder production.

  ESCAP
  Tony Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on the outcome of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific meeting in Bangkok in December 2002. [92211]

  Ms Keeble
  We are pleased with the outcome of the Fifth Asia and Pacific Population (ESCAP) Conference. The plan of action adopted at Bangkok represents a balanced, comprehensive and constructive framework for addressing reproductive health and poverty in the Asia/Pacific region and fully reaffirms the principles agreed at the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development. It will help the region to make progress on the millennium development goals especially maternal and infant mortality and tackling HIV/AIDS.

  West Africa
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what her Department's priorities are for aid to west Africa in 2003. [92212]
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  Clare Short
  My priorities in West Africa are:

  To help consolidate peace and security in Sierra Leone:

  To support Ghana's poverty reduction strategy;

  To encourage Nigeria to pursue effective reforms in order to reduce poverty; and

  To support poverty reduction strategies elsewhere in the region, particularly in the Gambia and Cameroon.

  An immediate priority for the region is to resolve the crisis in Cote d'lvoire. We are fully supporting the regional and international communities' efforts to assist.

  Ethiopia
  Mrs. Ellman
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on her policy towards cancellation of Ethiopia's foreign debt. [92213]

  Clare Short
  HMG supports debt relief for Ethiopia within the framework of the internationally agreed Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. Ethiopia qualified for interim debt relief from international creditors under HIPC at Decision Point in November 2001. This temporarily reduces the debt service payments Ethiopia has to pay. Ethiopia will qualify for irrevocable debt relief when it reaches Completion Point in the next year or two. Total HIPC debt relief over time will amount to $1.9 billion. These resources will be freed up for Government of Ethiopia to use for poverty reduction.

  Ethiopia owes the UK £15.4 million, but is already receiving full debt relief on this under the UK Government's policy, which provides 100 per cent. relief on debt service payments due, starting at Decision Point, and writes off formally the entire debt after Completion Point. The UK is also concerned that Ethiopia may finish the HIPC process with debts above the HIPC thresholds and we will seek to ensure that additional relief is provided as necessary to prevent this.

  We will continue to monitor the impact of external debt on the pace of poverty reduction in Ethiopia and work with the international community to address problems that may be identified.

  Mr. David
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what is being done to bring about greater international debt relief for Ethiopia. [92216]

  Clare Short
  HMG supports debt relief for Ethiopia within the framework of the internationally agreed Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. Ethiopia qualified for interim debt relief from international creditors under HIPC at Decision Point in November 2001. This temporarily reduces the debt service payments Ethiopia has to pay. Ethiopia will qualify for irrevocable debt relief when it reaches Completion Point in the next year or two. Total HIPC debt relief over time will amount to $1.9 billion. These resources will be freed up for the Government of Ethiopia to use for poverty reduction.

  Ethiopia owes the UK £15.4 million, but is already receiving full debt relief on this under the UK Government's policy, which provides 100 per cent. relief on debt service payments due, starting at Decision

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  Point, and writes off formally the entire debt after Completion Point. The UK is also concerned that Ethiopia may finish the HIPC process with debts above the HIPC thresholds, and we will seek to ensure that additional relief is provided as necessary to prevent this.

  We will continue to monitor the impact of external debt on the pace of poverty reduction in Ethiopia and work with the international community to address problems that may be identified.

  European Aid Budget
  Mr. Tynan
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will take steps to reform the European aid budget so that it focuses on the needs of poor people. [92214]

  Clare Short
  I have been working to expose the inefficiency of the EC aid budget and mobilise a commitment to reform since 1997.

  My Department published a revised strategy for improving the poor performance of the European Community development programme in August 2001. I welcome the positive steps that the reform process has taken, including establishment for the first time of an EC development policy which secured poverty reduction as the central objective. We continue to work for agreement that a much greater share of EC aid should be allocated to low income countries where it will have the greatest impact on poverty reduction. In 2000, only 38 per cent. of EC aid was spent in low income countries compared to 70 per cent. in 1990. Indications are that the 2001 figure shows an improvement. Our objective remains to reverse this decline in order to improve the focus and effectiveness of EC aid.

  Bangladesh
  James Purnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on her Department's efforts to relieve poverty in Bangladesh. [92215]

  Clare Short
  My Department finances a large programme in Bangladesh aimed at poverty reduction. We support health and education programmes with both Government and NGOs. We are working with a range of Government Departments to improve their capacity to plan and implement poverty programmes including improving the planning and management of public finances. We finance direct poverty programmes with NGO's and are strengthening the capacity of civil society organisations to increase the responsiveness of Government to poor people's needs. We are preparing a new Country Assistance Plan which will be published in April.

  Iraq
  Mr. Swire
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the potential humanitarian consequences of a war in Iraq. [92217]

  Clare Short
  My Department is considering a wide range of contingencies, which take into account the present humanitarian situation in Iraq.

  Fair Trade
  Claire Ward
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent action her Department has taken to promote fair trade products; and if she will make a statement. [92218]

  Clare Short
  My Department has provided financial support to the media campaigns of the Fairtrade Foundation designed specifically to raise both supermarket and consumer awareness of products carrying the Fairtrade Mark. In particular DFID has provided £120,000 to the Fairtrade Foundation over three years (2001–03) in support of its efforts to target new groups through its annual Fairtrade Fortnight campaigns.

  In addition, last year DFID approved a project (at a total cost of £300,000) designed to address a recognised bottleneck within Fair Trade—namely the limited number of products for which international Fair Trade standards exist. The project aims to develop new Fair Trade product standards, secure the registration of new producer groups and help bring additional Fair Trade products to supermarket shelves over the next two years. The target is to increase the retail value of Fair Trade sales in the UK to over £100 million per annum by 2004 and by so doing extend the benefits of Fair Trade to a greater number of producers in developing countries. By expanding the scale of Fair Trade activities, the project also aims to secure a sustainable future for the Fairtrade Foundation, so that its core operational costs (including the cost of subsequent promotional activities) can be fully funded from the income it receives from licensees.

  Although a niche market, Fair Trade can play a catalytic role. In the UK and Europe, the activities of the Fair Trade movement have raised awareness of the positive impact our buying decisions can have on poverty. These activities have in turn contributed to the growing demand for ethical trading standards to be employed by multinational companies in their dealings with developing country suppliers.

  Angola
  Mr Connarty
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what support her Department will pledge to the Angolan Government at the forthcoming Donor's Conference in Angola. [91678]

  Clare Short
  We have not so far been advised of arrangements for a donor conference on Angola, although I understand that the Angolan Government would like one to take place in Brussels within the next few months. Rather than a pledging conference, we and other donor countries see this as a timely opportunity for discussion between the donor community and the Government on their plans for economic and social reform and development, building on the base of last year's peace agreement, and on the status of their discussions with the international financial institutions. We hope to continue to provide support to Angola in economic and social reform, effective governance, demobilisation and reconciliation, and the development and implementation of a national poverty reduction strategy. We will also continue to respond to Angola'surgent humanitarian needs for as long as this is required.
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  Mr. Lyons
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assistance the Government is giving to Angola in the clearance of landmines. [91819]

  Clare Short
  My Department has allocated £300,000 to UNDP for a project aimed at improving the effectiveness of mine action through strengthened co-ordination at the provincial level. DFID has also contributed US$ 50,000 in support of a mine action database. The United Kingdom contributed 19.7 per cent. of the 6 million euros which the EC has made available for mine action in Angola. This included 5 million euros to a variety of mine clearance agencies.

  The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently contributed US$460,000 from its Emergency Response Fund for Angola (ERF) to clear the mines from some of the main transport arteries used to deliver emergency supplies. The United Kingdom was one of the main donors to this fund in 2002, contributing £1.5 million.

  Centre for International Briefing
  Virginia Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what discussions she has held with the Centre for International Briefing, Farnham; and what plans she has to visit the centre. [92041]

  Clare Short
  I have had no discussions with the Centre for International Briefing, Farnham and have no plans to visit the centre.

  Chad/Cameroon
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what discussions her Department has had with the Governments of(a) Chad and (b) Cameroon on World Bank funds for the Chad-Cameroon pipeline; and if she will make a statement on the social and environmental objectives of the pipeline. [91454]

  Clare Short
  My Department has not had any direct discussions with the Governments of Chad and Cameroon about World Bank support to the Chad-Cameroon petroleum development and pipeline project because our support is provided through multilateral channels.

  We recognise that this project raises a number of potential social and environmental concerns. My original approval to the World Bank contributing towards the project was based on the view that it had the potential significantly to reduce poverty in Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world. I also believe the project will take much fuller account of social and environmental considerations with World Bank involvement than without. Project approval followed extensive improvements to the design to ensure that the project met the bank's environmental and social safeguards, and the introduction of mechanisms to monitor such impacts and ensure that oil revenues would serve to finance mainly poverty expenditures. Significant changes were made to the proposed route of the pipeline to reduce the impact on the natural and human environments. Since the project was approved, the bank, and International Finance Corporation, have allocated exceptional resources to monitor and support
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  its implementation. Where problems have been identified, World bank management have drawn up proposals to address them which are discussed by the Board of Executive Directors, of which the UK is a member. We will continue to monitor progress on the project and take up issues as necessary with the bank so that the full benefits of this investment for the poor can be realised.

  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps her Department is taking to tackle corruption in(a) Chad and (b) Cameroon. [91455]

  Clare Short
  Our assistance to Chad is channelled through multilateral channels. The World Bank and the European Commission are helping tackle corruption in particular through the monitoring of the revenues from the Chad-Cameroon petroleum development and pipeline project to ensure they are mainly used for poverty reduction. An international advisory committee has been established aimed at ensuring transparency and good governance in implementation of this project.

  In Cameroon, we are actively engaged in the preparation of a Forest and Environment Sector programme, which will include measures aimed at combating corruption in the forestry sector. We also currently fund an independent monitor of illegal logging. More generally my Department has supported the inclusion of benchmarks on good governance, as part of the assessment of Cameroon's eligibility for debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, and will encourage full implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many civil servants have been employed by(a) her Department and (b) each of its agencies and non-departmental bodies in each year from 1994–95 to 2002–03; and if she will make a statement. [92403]

  Claire Short
  The Scotland Office was established in its present form on 1 July 1999. Since that date, the department has not sold any assets.

  Debt Relief
  Mr. Lazarowicz
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make it her policy to support the establishment of criteria for debt cancellation which are based on the resources needed by a country to meet the Millennium Development Goals. [92355]

  Clare Short
  Debt relief alone cannot deliver the resources needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and significant new resources will be required. Developing countries generally, not just heavily indebted poor countries face a financing gap in meeting the MDGs. Further debt relief to HIPCs would not be an effective way of generating additional resources. Most bilateral creditors, like the UK, have already written off all or nearly all of the debts from HIPCs, so further relief would have to come almost
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  entirely from existing resources provided by the multilaterals, such as the World bank. This would mean skewing money away from other equally poor non-HIPC countries, which might have better policy environments than some HIPCs. This is why we have focused on debt relief as a means of ensuring debt sustainability, and why additional donor resources will inevitably be needed to meet the MDGs.

  John Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what action she is taking to encourage multi-national companies to co-operate with heavily indebted poor countries. [92513]

  Clare Short
  The UK is concerned about the issue of creditor participation in the HIPC Initiative. Debt relief from commercial creditors accounts for only 4.4 per cent. of HIPC relief, but the potential costs to HIPC countries in terms of administrative and legal costs are much higher. We have raised this with the World Bank and the IMF, and at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis in June 2002. Bank and fund staffs are increasing the pressure on non-participating creditors. We welcome the decision last September to publish details of creditor participation—something we had pressed for—and we hope that it will increase international pressure on all creditors to deliver their share of relief. We have also asked the World Bank and the IMF to come forward with more proposals to promote creditor participation, such as a donor-funded technical assistance facility to provide legal advice to HIPC countries facing litigation. Staff are currently preparing a paper.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many full-time equivalent staff are employed in(a) the Department and (b) each of the agencies it sponsors; and what the figures were for 1997. [90671]

  Clare Short
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him by the Minister of State, Cabinet Office on 16 January 2003,Official Report, column 697W).

  Development Aid (Palestine)
  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much development aid was paid to Palestinians in 2002; and which projects were funded. [91001]

  Clare Short
  DFID provided £68 million to the Palestinians in 2002. This figure comprises:

  Bilateral programme: £15 million

  UNRWA: £22 million

  UK Share of EC funding: £31 million

  Our bilateral development programme in the West Bank and Gaza Strip focuses on support for the Middle East peace process; capacity building and institutional development; improvements to basic services, and a range of emergency programmes arising from the current conflict.

  Ethiopia and Eritrea
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what contribution her 312W
  Department has made to the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea on the demarcation of the border between the two countries; and what estimate she has made of the impact which the projected funding shortfall of the Mission will have on the progress towards demarcation. [91163]

  Clare Short
  We have contributed £750,000 of support to the UN Trust Fund for the Delimitation and Demarcation of the Ethiopia/Eritrea border.

  We will keep the situation under review in order to help the international community play its full part in ensuring that UNMEE is able to carry out its mandate.

  Flooding (Malawi/Mozambique)
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment she has made of the recent floods in(a) Malawi and (b) Mozambique. [91456]

  Clare Short
  In Malawi the Humanitarian Working Group of the National Food Security Task Force is now assessing the overall extent and impact of the recent floods. My Department is working with partners in this working group to develop an appropriate response.

  In Mozambique, damage caused by tropical cyclone Delfina in Zambezia and Nampula provinces is not thought to be as severe as initially anticipated. However more information is required as there is currently a lack of comprehensive data. Damage to the Nacala railway will impact on the Malawi food pipeline.

  Heavily Indebted Poor Countries
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what action she is taking to assist countries which have passed their completion point under the HIPC initiative with unsustainable debt. [91161]

  Clare Short
  The Government has been working to win greater international concern for the problems of debt sustainability facing some Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) as a result of falling commodity prices and I have raised these concerns at the Development Committee of the World Bank repeatedly over recent years. In Ottawa in November 2001, we asked Bank and Fund staff to revisit the debt sustainability analyses of all commodity dependent low-income countries, including HIPCs. The HIPC Initiative now has the flexibility to provide, when appropriate, additional debt relief at Completion Point, so called 'lopping up', to ensure that countries exit the HIPC process with sustainable levels of debt. However, this is not enough and the UK is pressing the World Bank and the IMF to widen their approach to topping up, so that any HIPC country facing unsustainable debts, that has demonstrated its commitment to poverty reduction and economic reform, should qualify for this additional relief. In April 2002, Burkina Faso became the first country to qualify for topping up. Debt relief alone, however, cannot guarantee future sustainability. This requires sound macroeconomic policies, strong growth and export bases, including access to markets of developed countries, access to adequate financing on highly concessional loan and grant terms, and prudent policies on new borrowing. The UK is co-financing a
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  debt strategy project aimed at helping HIPC governments to strengthen their debt management capacity. The UK is also providing substantial aid to Bolivia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda—countries that have passed their HIPC Completion Point.

  Heritage Assets
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what sales of heritage assets and antique assets have been made by her Department since May 1997; if she will list other assets; and if she will estimate the total sales proceeds. [92405]

  Claire Short
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given today by my hon. Friend, the Minister of State, Cabinet Office.

  HIPC Initiative
  John Barrett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what consideration is given to the costs associated with(a) the millennium development goals and (b) combating HIV/AIDS in the construction of poverty reduction strategy papers for countries wishing to enter the HIPC initiative. [91162]

  Clare Short
  I have been asked to reply.

  In line with the principle of ownership and country-led processes which the UK has championed, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) set national development targets which, in most cases, closely overlap with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The costings section of PRSPs provides an estimate of the cost of reaching these national development targets and how HIPC debit relief is to be allocated accordingly.

  For many HIPC countries, HIV/AIDS is an important factor in the analysis of poverty trends for PRSPs and usually costed within the health sector plans. HIV/AIDS is a multi-sector issue, and we are working with developing country partners to strengthen the quality of these plans and costings.

  Mozambique
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on the impact of the failure of the Government of Mozambique to declare a national emergency on international efforts to assist in providing for the needs of people unable to meet their food needs up to the next harvest period in March 2003. [92607]

  Clare Short
  The current situation in Mozambique should be seen in the context of the country's increased ability to meet its food needs and respond to such a crisis and the Government's legitimate caution about undermining coping strategies or risking donor fatigue.

  Food production has recovered since the end of the long war in Mozambique, from 80 per cent. dependency on food aid in 1992 to now only importing about 20 per cent. of its food. The Government of Mozambique have been able to respond early to the threat of the current drought. For example the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development provided seeds
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  and other agricultural inputs to drought-affected families, and has begun to rehabilitate small dams and irrigation schemes. The Government are conscious of the risks of large handouts of food aid contributing to weakening local self-help initiatives as people abandon traditional coping mechanisms.

  Mozambique is subject to recurrent natural disasters and has frequently been forced to declare national emergencies, most recently in the floods of 2000–01 and 2001–02. The current drought affects about 3 per cent. of the population, nearly all of them in sparsely populated, semi-arid areas of the country. In this context, the Government have not declared an emergency due to legitimate concerns about donor fatigue and a perception that the current crisis forms part of a long-term trend to increased vulnerability in the drought areas, which cannot be solved with short-term aid alone.

  The lack of a formal declaration of emergency has made it difficult for some donors to mobilise emergency funds, and Mozambique has not been able to form part of the Consolidated Appeal Process or the regional appeal of the Federation of the Red Cross. UN efforts in providing co-ordination services to humanitarian stakeholders have been hampered and there has been limited mapping of humanitarian programmes, leading to poor information about gaps in the delivery of assistance and difficulties with the identification of sensible projects.

  However, although the Government have not made a formal joint appeal, they have requested help from individual UN agencies, eg WFP (food aid), UNICEF (supplementary feeding) and FAO (seeds and other agricultural interventions). DFID has contributed to supporting these.

  Paper Supplies
  Sue Doughty
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development who the suppliers are of her Department's(a) paper and (h) paper products. [91903]

  Clare Short
  The relevant suppliers are as follows:

  London
  Paper: David John Papers, Slough, Berkshire.
  Envelopes and other stationery: Banner Business Supplies Ltd., Norwich, and Guilbert UK Ltd., Northampton.
  Labels: Avery Denison, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
  Paper towels and toilet tissue: Executive Cleaning Services, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

  East Kilbride
  Paper and Card: Glenmore Business Paper, Rosyth, Fife.
  File covers: Astron, Livingston.
  Paper towels and toilet tissue: PHS/AC Henderson, East Kilbride.
  Envelopes: Banner Business Supplies Ltd., Norwich.

  Poverty Linkages
  Mrs. Helen Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development when her Department's study of the linkages between wildlife and poverty will be available(a) to the Department and (b) for wider consultation. [91416]
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  Clare Short
  The final version of the Wildlife and Poverty paper is available on the DFID website. It will be published in the near future and a copy placed in the House of Commons Library.

  Press Releases
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many press releases have been issued by her Department in each(a) year and (b) quarter from 1995–96 to 2002–03; and if she will make a statement. [92479]

  Clare Short
  The information is as follows:

  (a) Number of press releases issued from 1995–2003 are outlined as follows:

  Issued by ODA

  Number

  1995

  71

  1996

  50

  To May 1997

  16

  Issued by DFID

  Number

  From May 1997

  47

  1998

  74

  1999

  82

  2000

  29

  2001

  38

  2002

  38

  20031

  1

  1Until 21 January

  (b) Number of press releases issued from 1995–96 to 2002–03 are outlined as follows:

  January–March

  April–June

  July–September

  October–December

  1995

  25

  14

  15

  17

  1996

  15

  11

  11

  13

  1997

  16

  13

  8

  26

  1998

  29

  15

  9

  21

  1999

  18

  17

  23

  24

  2000

  11

  7

  4

  7

  2001

  18

  6

  5

  9

  2002

  8

  6

  8

  16

  20031

  1

  —

  —

  —

  1Until 21 January

  With our press releases we are focusing on trying to promote coverage which raises awareness and understanding of development issues.

  Sickness Absence
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many days were lost due to sickness absence in the Department in 2002. [90551]

  Clare Short
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) earlier today.
  316W
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many working days have been lost due to illness in her Department in(a) 2002 and (b) each of the preceding five years. [90970]

  Clare Short
  My Department will announce the number of sick absences recorded in 2002 in due course.

  The number of sick absences recorded in my Department from 1997 to 2001 is:

  Year

  Number of absences

  Average number of days per staff year

  1997

  9,250

  8.1

  1998

  8,643

  7.3

  1999

  9,263

  7.3

  2000

  8,426

  6.2

  2001

  11,545

  8.3

  Staff numbers on which these are based have risen from 1,142 in 1997 to 1,391 in 2001.

  Sudan
  Mr. Connarty
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps her Department is taking to promote good governance and respect for human rights in Sudan. [91684]

  Clare Short
  The only long-term answer to improving human rights situation in Sudan is a peace settlement. We believe the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) peace process offers the best chance to bring an end to the civil war through a negotiated settlement between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM/A. In 2002, the talks produced breakthroughs on the key issues of state and religion and self-determination for the south and a Memorandum of Understanding on a cessation of hostilities and unimpeded humanitarian access and agreement on aspects of power and wealth-sharing, as well as human rights.

  The war in Sudan has prevented many donors, including the UK, from carrying out a development programme in Sudan over the past decade. Over $500 million of development funding will become available from the international community when there is peace: this is an important incentive for the warring parties to reach a comprehensive agreement. We are coordinating closely with other donor countries on all matters, including assessing support for good governance. Until there is a peace agreement, we will continue to support life-saving humanitarian work and peacebuilding activities such as personnel to monitor the ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains, support for antislavery work and for the IGAD secretariat.

  Zimbabwe
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development when she last met representatives of opposition parties in Zimbabwe. [91447]

  Clare Short
  I have not met representatives of Zimbabwe's opposition parties in recent months. My officials maintain dialogue on the humanitarian situation with a wide representation of civil society.
  317W
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development when she last met representatives of the Government of South Africa to discuss the political situation in Zimbabwe. [91448]

  Clare Short
  I have had no such discussions. The British High Commission in Pretoria is in regular contact with the Government of South Africa on the situation in Zimbabwe.

  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development whether the World Bank continues to fund government programmes in Zimbabwe. [91449]

  Clare Short
  The World bank has not disbursed funds in Zimbabwe since 2000, after the Government of Zimbabwe ceased making payments on previous loans. Zimbabwe's arrears to the World Bank totalled US$107.4 million as at 6 December 2002. The World bank cannot resume lending until the arrears are repaid in full.

PRIME MINISTER

  Chancellor Schroeder
  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his recent meeting with the German Chancellor Schroeder. [92159]

  The Prime Minister
  My wife and I visited Hanover on 11 January for a dinner with Chancellor Schroeder and his wife. We discussed policy issues of mutual interest.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Prime Minister how many civil servants have been employed by(a) his Department and (b) each of its agencies and non-departmental bodies in each year from 1994–95 to 2002–03; and if he will make a statement. [92415]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office today.

  Convention on the Future of Europe
  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on UK policy towards the agreement reached between President Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder for the Convention on the Future of Europe; and what measures he will take to enhance British influence in the EU. [92123]

  The Prime Minister
  I welcome the Franco-German contribution to the debate on Europe's future. Strong French and German engagement is essential to take the debate on the future of the EU forward towards a more democratic, accountable and effective European Union. The paper is good for the UK. It contains important proposals which the UK has advocated, such as a full-time Chair of the European Council. The UK will continue to engage with confidence in the debate on the future of Europe.

  E-mail
  Mr. Watson
  To ask the Prime Minister when his e-mail address will be established for members of the public to contact him online. [92987]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) on 6 November 2002,Official Report, column 399W.

  Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
  Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister when he last discussed United States compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with the President of the United States. [91965]

  The Prime Minister
  I remain in close touch with President Bush about a range of international matters.

  Referendums
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Prime Minister pursuant to his answer of 18 December 2002,Official Report, column 811W, on referendums if he will make a statement on the Government's criteria for determining on which subjects it is appropriate for referendums to be held. [92655]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to my previous reply on 9 January 2003,Official Report, column 306W, where I indicated that there are no criteria, set out in either the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act or elsewhere, for determining on which subjects it is appropriate for referendums to be held.

  Dedicated primary legislation is required for any particular Referendum and the Government would of course, explain its reasons for deciding that the issue in question was suitable for a referendum.

  Weapons of Mass Destruction
  Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister when the United Kingdom first provided UNMOVIC and the International Atomic Energy Agency with intelligence material on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. [92306]

  The Prime Minister
  The United Kingdom has been providing information of various kinds to UN weapons inspectors since they first started inspections in Iraq in 1991.

TRANSPORT

  A3
  Virginia Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the timetable is for commencement of work on the A3 tunnel at Hindhead. [92042]

  Mr. Spellar
  I have asked the Chief Executive of the Highways Agency, Tim Matthews to write to the right hon. Member.
  319W
  Letter from T. Matthews to Virginia Bottomley, dated 22 January 2003:
  The Minister for Transport, John Spellar, has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the timetable for commencement of work on the A3 tunnel at Hindhead.
  The programme for the scheme remains as we previously advised your office in December. Subject to the satisfactory completion of the statutory procedures, we aim to start construction in 2005 and take about 4 years to build the project, opening it to traffic in 2009. The next major stage will be the publication of draft Orders under the Highways Act together with an Environmental Statement. This remains on target for publication this Autumn.
  Current work is centred on further ground investigation involving the sinking of additional boreholes at both Hindhead Common and Tyndalls Wood. This work is being carried out to
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  build up a more detailed picture of the geology to inform the tunnel design.
  If you require any information please contact Paul Arnold the Project Team Leader in Dorking office (01306 878475).

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many full-time equivalent staff are employed in(a) the Department and (b) each of the agencies it sponsors; and what the figures were for 1997. [90664]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, on 16 January 2003,Official Report, column 697W.

DEFENCE

  Biological Agents
  Mr Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what medical advice is given to personnel in advance of their inoculation against biological agents [91040]

  Dr. Moonie
  Independent, expert medical advice confirms that immunisation against anthrax is safe and effective. United Kingdom Armed Forces personnel included in the voluntary immunisation programme against anthrax are encouraged to take advantage of the additional protection it provides. All personnel included in the programme are comprehensively briefed on the disease and on the vaccine, and given time to consider whether to accept it. The briefing includes an information leaflet, a video, a briefing from a commanding officer and an opportunity to speak to a doctor. All the briefing materials were drawn up with the assistance of expert medical advice. There is also a help-line, and copies of all the printed materials are available from the MOD web-site [www.mod.uk] along with links to additional information and answers to frequently asked questions.

  We have announced our intention to vaccinate a small cohort of medical and NBC specialists against smallpox; I refer the hon. Member to my written ministerial statement of 2 December 2002 (Official Report, column 60WS). This small number of personnel receive detailed specialist briefing on the vaccine and on the disease.

  Blood Stocks
  Adam Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what contingency measures have been put in place to ensure there are sufficient stocks of blood and plasma available to the armed forces in the event of military action in Iraq. [91885]

  Dr. Moonie
  The provision of blood and blood products to the armed forces in the event of military action in Iraq is the responsibility of the Defence Medical Supplies Agency who obtain all necessary requirements from the National Blood Service in England. Arrangements are in place to ensure that all anticipated requirements will be met. In extremis, the Defence Medical Services have a limited capability to take blood in theatre.

  Defence Logistics Organisation
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the outcome of the McKinsey report into the operations of the Defence Logistics Organisation; and what plans he has to reduce staff numbers at the Defence Logistics Organisation. [91045]

  Mr. Ingram
  The McKinsey report confirmed that the rationale for a fully integrated Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO) remains as persuasive now as it was at the time of the strategic defence review in 1998. The DLO has made real, demonstrable progress towards its strategic objectives, while continuing to provide a high level of support to operations and exercises. The McKinsey report identifies the key principles that will underpin the long-term strategy for 322W
  logistics support, and proposes improvements in the three core logistics processes (procurement, engineering and asset management, and materiel flow), many of which build on existing good practice within the DLO. The key principles and performance targets are embedded in the new DLO strategic plan, and work to deliver against these objectives is being taken forward in the DLO change programme. McKinsey also identified a need for wider end-to-end review of the logistics processes in the land and air environments, and this is now the subject of a separate follow up study that will report in the summer.

  Staff numbers in the DLO are reducing as a result of a number of initiatives and rationalisation measures already implemented, such as the warship support modernisation initiative. The McKinsey report suggested that more significant reductions in DLO staff numbers could be achieved. More study and testing will be required before any firm conclusions can be drawn. Any reduction in staff numbers will be as a consequence of changes to modernise logistic processes and any decisions to change how the DLO's current provider functions should be undertaken in the future.

  Departmental Expenditure (Newsprint)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total expenditure of his Department was on newspapers, magazines and periodicals in 2002. [90528]

  Dr. Moonie
  Expenditure on commercial and HMSO publications, including newspapers and periodicals, by the Ministry of Defence in financial year 2001–02 was £8,070,439.67.

  Departmental Fraud Investigations
  Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many staff have been suspended pending fraud investigation in his Department in each of the last five years. [91527]

  Dr. Moonie
  Reported cases of suspected fraud are recorded centrally on a summary basis only, and detailed information on the number of staff under suspension pending fraud investigation in each of the last five years could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many people have been found guilty of fraud offences in his Department in each of the last five years.[91528]

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

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the distribution of his Department's whole-time equivalent staff was, including the staff in agencies and other bodies reporting to him, in each Government office region and nation of the UK(a) in 1996 and (b) at the most recent available period. [90479]

  Dr. Moonie
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to him on 15 January 2003,Official Report, column 609W, by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office.

  Diversification Agency
  Mr. Kevan Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which north east companies have had negotiations with the Defence Diversification Agency in each year since its inception. [91082]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Defence Diversification Agency has had dealings with some 417 companies through its office in the north east since it was set up in April 2001. Of these, deeper discussions have taken place with 59 companies and a listing of these companies follows:

  Name

  Company

  Stephen Taylor

  Pyramid Design Associates

  Lesley Sharp

  NRS UK Ltd.

  Bodycote Materials Testing

  Phil Kite

  William Cook Defence

  R. Nassor

  Stargate Precision Engineering

  Tony Wilkinson

  Royston Engineering Group

  Jeff Sylph

  North British Tapes

  Owen Craggs

  Neptune Engineering

  Malcoln Thomson

  MM Thomson

  Johnathan Marks

  Hunter Gears Ltd.

  Jim Broadway

  EMAT

  Steven Knaggs

  Agronautics

  David Poole

  AEI Cables Ltd.

  Mick Callan

  Welwyn Components Ltd.

  John lianas

  Synthesys

  Jim Wallace

  Seaward Electronics

  John Morrison

  Sapphire Technologies Ltd.

  Harry Barnshaw

  Teledyne Electronic Technologies

  John Johnson

  PDQ Engineering Ltd.

  Geoff Edwards

  Oxley

  Brian Johnson

  Northern Precision Engineering Ltd.

  Terry Williamson

  Rolls Royce

  Steve Grainger

  Enigma

  Judith Knights

  Nicholsons

  Tony Brown

  Metrology Software Products Ltd

  Nizam Balkhi

  Electronics Design

  Ian Moore

  Treepax

  Ken Rowntree

  Broady Naval Flow Control

  Peter McGowan

  Mercurl Urval

  Raymund Kelly

  TRISK

  Andrew Robson

  Premier Engineering

  Tom Trusty

  Sycopel International Ltd.

  Geoff Brumfield

  AIK Crossley & Bradley

  Glen Callender

  Bibby

  Michael Stoker

  Carmichael Associates

  Avril Leach

  People 4 U

  Steven Brown

  NEBCC

  Paul Mitchell

  Orbitel Marketing

  Richard Smith

  Oxford Chemicals Ltd.

  Paul Newman

  2Touch

  David Bowles

  NDI Ltd.

  Barry Stoddart

  Procter & Gamble

  Arthur Chadwick

  South Tyneside College

  John Autherson

  EPICC

  Bob Marris

  ETRUST

  Dr. John Casci

  Synetlx

  Geoff Race

  Northern Offshore Federation

  Peter Lovering

  Singsby Aviation

  David Lussey

  Peratech Ltd.

  Colin Arrowsmith

  ATEECC

  Nick R. C. Goddard

  Stephensson Gobin

  Martin E. Morey

  Morey Osys Technology Ltd.

  John B. Aitchison

  Alcan

  Wayne Richardson

  Senstronics

  Jeannette Roddy

  Answers Consulting

  Mark Nails

  TCS

  Steph Hargreaves

  Institute for Automotive and Manufacturing Advanced Practice (AMAP)

  Ron Jamieson

  RCID

  George Ord

  NE Innovation Centre Co. Ltd.

  External Consultants
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total cost to his Department was of the use of external consultants in 2002. 90513]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Ministry of Defence places its annual return for external assistance expenditure, which includes fees for external consultants, in the Libraries of the House. These data are collected on the basis of the financial year, and details of expenditure for 2001–be published shortly. To provide this information on the basis of a calendar year, and a specific figure for the cost of external consultants, could be achieved only at disproportionate cost. The figures for 2002–03 will be collected and published once the current financial year has ended.

  Fair Trade
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what fair trade criteria he sets when deciding upon what suppliers to use. [89911]

  Mr. Ingram
  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has made clear, the Government are committed to supporting ethical trading wherever possible and provide significant support to the Fairtrade Foundation's efforts in promoting the supply and marketing of Fairtrade products.

  The setting of Fairtrade criteria for the selection of suppliers would be contrary to the EC public procurement directives, which apply to this type of procurement. These rules prohibit both positive and negative forms of discrimination. The Ministry of Defence's approach is to publish its forthcoming, higher value, requirements for products that might have Fairtrade sources of supply in the Official Journal of the European Communities, and to set out in those advertisements the supplier selection and contract award criteria that will be applied. Fairtrade suppliers who satisfy the criteria and offer value for money solutions to MOD's requirements will always have every opportunity to be successful.

  Field Hospitals
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1)how many field hospitals are deployable; and if he will make a statement; [91517]

  (2)what is the (a) establishment and (b) strength of each (i) regular and (ii) reserve field hospital; and where each is based. [91515]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 20 January 20031 The establishment and strength of each of the regular and reserve field hospital units, together with their locations, is shown in the following table:
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  Field hospital units

  Unit

  Establishment

  Strength

  Based

  22 FD HOSP

  105

  89

  Thornhill Bks, Aldershot, Hants

  33 FD HOSP

  105

  105

  Fort Blockhouse, Gosport, Hants

  34 FD HOSP

  105

  91

  Queen Elizabeth Bks, Strensall, Yorkshire

  201 FD HOSP(V)

  416 (TA)

  368

  Fenham Bks, Newcastle Upon Tyne

  12 (Regular)

  202 FD HOSP (V)

  415 (TA)

  358

  Roger Nutbeem House, Kings Heath, Birmingham

  16 (Regular)

  203 FD HOSP (V)

  416 (TA)

  260

  TA Centre, Llandaff North, Cardiff

  13 (Regular)

  204 FD HOSP (V)

  416(TA)

  271

  TA Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland

  12 (Regular)

  205 FD HOSP (V)

  416 (TA)

  308

  Graham House, Glasgow Scotland

  12 (Regular)

  207 FD HOSP (V)

  415 (TA)

  323

  TA Centre, Kings Road, Manchester

  16 (Regular)

  208 FD HOSP (V)

  416 (TA)

  337

  Chavasse House, Sarum Road, Liverpool

  13 (Regular)

  212 FD HOSP (V)

  416 (TA)

  294

  Endcliffe Hall, Endcliffe Vale Road. Sheffield

  13 (Regular)

  243 FD HOSP (V)

  416 (TA)

  235

  TA Centre, Keynsham, Bristol

  16 (Regular)

  256 FD HOSP (V)

  416 (TA)

  316

  TA Centre, Walworth, London

  16 (regular)

  306 FD HOSP (V)

  429 (TA)

  251

  Imphal Bks, Fulford Road, York

  0 (Regular)

  We can currently deploy four field hospitals, which would be manned by both Regular and Reserve personnel.

  HM Lifeguards
  Jim Dowd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many incidents involving members of the public being attacked by horses used by HM Lifeguards in Whitehall have occurred in each of the last five years; in how many cases this has resulted in claims against his Department; and what has been the result in each case. [91562]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Ministry of Defence has not received any details of incidents within the last 12 months of members of the public being attacked by horses of the Lifeguards in Whitehall. Information relating to the previous four years could be provided only at disproportionate cost. No claims for compensation have been received during the last five years.

  HMS Coventry and HMS London.
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress has been made on the disposal of HMS Coventry and HMS London; and if he will make a statement. [90339]

  Mr. Ingram
  I can confirm that the Romanian Government have decided to acquire HMS Coventry and HMS London under Government-to-Government arrangements. The Acquisition Agreement was countersigned earlier last week by my noble Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement, Lord Bach, and the Romanian State Secretary for Armaments, Dr. Gheorge Matache. BAE Systems will act as the United Kingdom prime contractor.
  326W
  The Romanian Navy will receive highly capable and NATO compatible warships to meet their operational requirements and provide increased security in the region.

  It is fitting that having completed their service in the Royal Navy, the ships will continue their useful service with Romania, which has recently been invited to become a member of NATO.

  HMS Sheffield
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the programme is for the disposal of HMS Sheffield; and what revenue has been or is expected to be raised by her disposal. [91220]

  Mr. Ingram
  The final disposal programme and therefore subsequent revenue relating to HMS Sheffield have yet to be determined. However, I can confirm that Government-to-Government discussions are in progress with a potential customer. It is not our practice to provide details of current and sensitive disposal sales discussions and I am therefore withholding that information in accordance with Exemption 1 (International Relations) and Exemption 13 (Third Party's Commercial Confidences) of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Illegal Drugs/Contraband
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the totals of (a) ships intercepted and (b) seizures made of (i) contraband and (ii) illegal drugs by the Royal Navy in each of the past five years. [91241]

  Mr. Ingram
  The information requested as regards seizures of illegal drugs by the Royal Navy over the last five years is as follows.
  327W

  £

  Date

  Ship

  Value

  Type

  May 1999

  Marlborough

  1 billion

  Cocaine

  November 1999

  Northumberland

  135 million

  Cocaine

  July 2001

  Coventry

  80 million

  Cocaine

  July 2002

  Newcastle

  1.5 million

  Marijuana

  July 2002

  Newcastle

  42 million

  Cocaine

  September 2002

  Grafton

  —

  Marijuana

  October 2002

  Grafton

  65 million

  Cocaine

  However, statistics relating to ship interceptions and seizures of contraband are not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Iraq
  Mr. Hammond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what level of BA/Rescue team support is required to support the planned deployment of Royal Naval and Royal Air Force personnel to the Persian Gulf; and what impact such a deployment would have on emergency military fire cover in the United Kingdom. [92649]

  Mr. Ingram
  Royal Navy vessels do not sail without a full complement of damage control and fire-fighting capabilities, which include breathing apparatus and trained personnel. The level of such support varies from ship to ship. The current Naval Task Group 03 deployment is fully equipped and has the trained personnel to deal with fire hazards. The RAF have trained personnel in the Gulf region to support longterm operations. No additional RAF personnel have been deployed. There has been no effect on emergency military fire cover in the United Kingdom and none is anticipated.

  Job Sharing
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the extent of job sharing in his Department. [90857]

  Dr. Moonie
  The Ministry of Defence is committed to the work/life balance of its civilian staff. A range of flexible working patterns including part time working, flexible working hours, home working and job sharing is available to civilian staff by agreement with their management.

  United Kingdom Defence Statistics 2002, Chapter 2, table 2.33 shows 5,004 civilian staff (excluding those in Trading Funds) employed on a part time basis at 1 April 2002. At 15 January 2003, 594 civilian staff were recorded centrally as being employed formally under job sharing arrangements.

  Joint Task Force Exercise
  Patrick Mercer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what problems of compatibility were experienced between British and US communications equipment during the US Department of Defence's Joint Task Force Exercise. [85651]

  Mr. Ingram
  Exercise Internal Look was a US `Command Post' exercise. The only communications equipment employed was Command and Control (C2) computer networks. Each nation employed national 328W
  systems, which were not linked, and both also used a coalition C2 network which meant that compatibility problems were not an issue during the exercise.

  Patrick Mercer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many British troops were involved in the US Department of Defence's Joint Task Force Exercise. [85658]

  Mr. Ingram
  Exercise Internal Look 03 took place in December 2002.

  The number of United Kingdom personnel taking part in the exercise changed on a daily basis. About 830 were involved full-time for the majority of the exercise's duration.

  Marine Pollution
  Mr. Bill Tynan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether it is his Department's policy to regard the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973 and the Protocol of 1978 related thereto (MARPOL 73/78), as amended and reiterated in Regulation (EC) No 417/2002 as best practice; what plans he has to take steps to apply MARPOL 73/78 to vessels falling under the auspices of his Department; and if he will make a statement. [92314]

  Dr. Moonie
  All of the vessels that fall under the auspices of the Ministry of Defence comply with the provisions of the marine pollution legislation quoted and which is collectively known as MARPOL 73/78. Although MARPOL 73/78 allows, under Article 3, for the exemption of military vessels from its provisions it has long been MOD policy that these vessels will comply with or put in place systems that are as good or better than the standards required by this legislation. All military ships have a management system for environmental compliance and this is audited on a regular basis. In addition, any pollution incident is reported and the appropriate steps taken to minimise the pollution potential.

  Maritime Terrorist Threats
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what changes his Department has made in respect of future(a) numbers of and (b) armament for fast patrol boats as a result of Islamist terrorist maritime threats since the attack on the USS Cole. [91234]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Royal Navy currently has 18 Inshore Patrol Craft in commission. The requirement for naval force protection is reviewed regularly. Most recently, this has seen the decision to replace the Gibraltar Squadron with vessels previously assigned to patrol duties in the Northern Ireland region. I am, however, withholding full details of the Royal Navy's patrol craft capability in accordance with Exemption 1 of the code of practice on Access to Government Information.

  Missile Inceptors
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his assessment is of the feasibility of basing missile
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  interceptors in the UK as part of a ballistic missile defence system; and if he will make a statement. [91043]

  Mr. Hoon
  No such assessment has been undertaken.

  Missing Firearms
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many firearms have gone missing from the

  Year

  Royal Navy

  Army

  Royal Air Force

  Total losses

  Total1 recoveries

  1998

  Nil

  3 Pistols

  1 Military Rifle

  15

  11

  11 Military Rifles

  1999

  1 Pistol

  1 Pistol

  Nil

  15

  15

  9 Military Rifles

  1 Sub-Machine Gun

  1 Mortar

  1 Antique/Other

  1 Shot Gun

  2000

  1 Military Rifle

  21 Pistols

  1 Antique/Other

  45

  23

  1 Military Rifle

  4 Target Rifles (Sport)

  10 Antique/Others

  7 Shot Guns

  2001

  Nil

  4 Pistols

  2 Pistols

  11

  14

  3 Military Rifles

  2 Sub-Machine Guns

  2002

  Nil

  2 Pistols

  3 Pistols

  15

  9

  4 Military Rifles

  4 Sub-Machine Guns

  2 Target Rifles (Sport)

  1The numbers of recovered firearms quoted in the draft answer does not directly correlate to the losses in the same years, because losses and recoveries do not always occur in the same year.

  Naval Establishments
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to his answer of 16 December 2002,Official Report, column 516W, and his letter to the hon. Member for New Forest, East of 18 December 2002, how many intruders of those listed in each of the tables set out in that letter as having been arrested were charged with offences; and what the reasons are for the disparity between numbers arrested and numbers convicted following incursions at (a) RNAD Coulport from April 2001–02 and (b) HMNB Clyde from April 2000–01 and from April 2001–02. [91284]

  Mr. Ingram
  All persons arrested, identified in the tables contained in my letter of 18 December 2002, were charged and all those persons arrested in Scotland were reported to the Procurator Fiscal with a view to prosecution. Convictions however are a matter for the judicial system.

  Operational Status
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the operational status is of(a) 22 Regiment Royal Artillery and (b) 161 (Ambulance) Regiment RLC.[91048]

  Mr. Ingram
  22 Regiment Royal Artillery is under the operational command of 7 Air Defence Brigade and the Regiment is currently operational. 161 (Ambulance)
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  stocks of the (a) Army, (b) Navy and (c) RAF in each of the last five years; and what category of weapons these were. [91329]

  Dr. Moonie
  In the last five years up to 15 January 2003, 101 firearms were declared missing from the three armed services. Over the same period, 72 were recovered. The following table indicates the losses per year by category:

  Regiment Royal Logistic Corps was disbanded on 1 October 2002 as a result of the Strategic Defence Review.

  Pay Talks
  .Mr. Donaldson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions he has had with the Public and Commercial Services Union about their opposition to the four-year pay settlement; and if he will make a statement. [91641]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 20 January 2003] Neither my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, nor I have met the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) to discuss this issue. But the Permanent Secretary met with representatives of the union on 25 November 2002 to discuss their concerns. The Ministry of Defence continues to listen to the concerns of the PCS, and take account of them as implementation proceeds and officials continue to maintain a close dialogue with the trade unions about this matter.

  Public Service Agreements
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list PSA targets for 1999–2000 to 2001–02 which his Department has not achieved stating the progress made in each case; and if he will make a statement. [92143]
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  Dr. Moonie
  The Ministry of Defence published details of progress against all outstanding PSA targets, including for 1999–2000 to 2001–02, in its Performance Report 2001–02 (Cm 5661), laid before the House on 22 November 2002.

  QinetiQ
  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the timing of his placing in the Library his departmental minute on the sell-off of QinetiQ to the Carlyle Group. [91962]

  Dr. Moonie
  On 5 December 2002, immediately after the key terms for the sale of a stake in QinetiQ were agreed with the purchaser, I announced the details to Parliament. Following this, and in accordance with government accounting rules and in line with normal departmental practice, officials prepared a departmental minute describing the contingent liabilities accepted by the Ministry of Defence as part of the transaction. This was formally laid before Parliament on 17 December.

  Members have 14 sitting days to raise any objections to the proposals detailed in the minute and this period ends on 23 January 2003.

  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the composition was of the financial payment made to QinetiQ on its post-privatisation; how much was paid in respect of(a) staff pensions, (b) termination of prior contracts and (c) other issues.[92293]

  Dr. Moonie
  No such payments have been made to QinetiQ. Certain contingent liabilities in relation to staff pensions and to contract termination remain with the Ministry of Defence, and these were described in the departmental Minute laid before Parliament on 17 December 2002.

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his policy to postpone to go-ahead with the sale of QinetiQ to the Carlyle Group until Parliament has an opportunity to evaluate and debate the proposals set out in his departmental minute of 17 December 2002. [92300]

  Dr. Moonie
  No. To date, we have received no substantive objections which would justify either a delay in the sale process or a Parliamentary debate. However, we will, of course, continue to give proper consideration to any specific points raised in relation to the issues covered in the Departmental Minute laid before the House on 17 December 2002.

  RAF Fairford
  Mr. David Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the flight path of planes flying into and out of RAF Fairford. [92162]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 21 January 2003]Most aircraft arriving at or departing from RAF Fairford use the Daventry corridor, situated about 20 miles to the north east of the base. Incoming planes generally descend to 2000 feet as they make their final approach along a westerly or easterly flight path as dictated by the orientation of the runway and the prevailing wind speed and direction. Similarly, planes departing the base also use a westerly or easterly flight path.
  332W
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what limitations upon stored weapons apply to RAF Fairford. [92163]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 21 January 2003)Aircraft weapons are not stored at RAF Fairford during normal peacetime operations, although to a maximum limit of 200kg, explosives may be brought to RAF Fairford in support of exercise activities. The storage facilities for explosives are licensed in accordance with relevant peacetime Explosives Regulations.

  As might be expected, a small quantity of personal firearms and ammunition are held at the base.

  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many military personnel are stationed at RAF Fairford; and how many civilian personnel are employed there. [92164]

  Dr. Moonie
  [holding answer 21 January 2003]As at 31 December 2002, the numbers of military and civilian personnel at RAF Fairford were:

  Military personnel stationed

  Civilian personnel employed

  RAF Fairford

  175

  212

  Royal Navy (Amphibious Capability)
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the future amphibious capability of the Royal Navy in respect of(a) ships and (b) personnel. [91233]

  Mr. Ingram
  By the end of 2005 the Royal Navy will have substantially increased its overall capability to conduct amphibious operations. In addition to the Helicopter Landing Platform (HMS Ocean) and the Landing Ship Logistic RFA Sir Bedivere, on current plans the Royal Navy will also have available two new Landing Platform Docks (HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark) and four new Bay Class Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary). The Invincible Class Aircraft Carriers are also capable of operating in the amphibious assault role. There are no current plans to change the Royal Marines manning requirement. Table 31 of the Departmental Performance Report 2001–02 provides details of Royal Marines units.

  Search and Rescue
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the cost was in each of the last five years of his Department's search and rescue capability in the UK; and if he will make a statement. [91914]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 15 January 2003,Official Report, column 637–38W.

  Suez Veterans
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when a decision will be made on whether Suez veterans should receive an honour. [92036]
  333W
  Dr. Moonie
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 13 January 2003,Official Report, column 404W, to the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke).

CABINET OFFICE

  Annual Report
  Norman Lamb
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how much producing the Cabinet Office's latest annual report cost; how many copies were printed; how many copies of it were sold at its cover price; to whom copies of the report have been provided free of charge; and how many copies were provided free of charge. [908771]

  Mr. Alexander
  The Stationery Office Limited (TSO) produced the latest Cabinet Office Departmental Report (Cm 5429). TSO determine the number of copies printed for retail sale and meet the costs of printing and publication. TSO are not obliged to provide this information as these are costs which they meet themselves and are not charged to Departments. TSO has sold 354 copies of the departmental report and provided the Cabinet Office with 250 copies. The Cabinet Office paid £23,177 to TSO for other costs including design and the 250 copies received. The Cabinet Office copies were mainly distributed within the Department and to some other Government Departments.

  Delivery Unit
  Mr. Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office (1) how many people are in the delivery unit; and how many are(a) working within the Treasury and (b) transferred to the Treasury; [91169]

  (2) when the decision was made to move the delivery unit to the Treasury. [91513]

  Mr. Alexander
  The delivery unit remains a part of the Cabinet Office. At 1 January 2003, it had 34 full-time equivalent staff.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. David Laws
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many civil servants have been employed by(a) his Department and (b) each of its agencies and non departmental bodies in each year from 1994–95 to 2002–03; and if he will make a statement. [92364]

  Mr. Alexander
  Full-time equivalent numbers for staff in all Civil Service departments and agencies is released twice-yearly by Press Notice. The latest data, for April 2002, were published on 31 October 2002. Data for April of each year from 1995 to 2001 appear in the latest edition of the annual publication 'Civil Service Statistics'. Data for previous years are contained in previous editions of the publication. Copies of the Press Notices and annual publication are available from the Libraries of the House.

  Comparisons over time are made difficult because of changes in the make up of the departments and agencies comprising the Civil Service. Not only do new
  334W
  organisations appear and old ones disappear, but staff changes may reflect the transfer of work between departments and agencies.

  With the exception of those staff employed by the Health and Safety Commission and Executive, and the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, the staff employed by Executive non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) are not civil servants. Advisory NDPBs are generally supported by civil servants from their sponsor departments, and do not employ their own staff.

  My department publishes annually information on public bodies, including NDPBs. This includes details on the number of staff employed by the public body. Copies of 'Public Bodies 2001', and equivalent publication for previous years, are available in the Libraries of the House. 'Public Bodies 2002' will be published shortly.

  Ministerial Travel
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what his estimate is of the total expenditure by his Department on ministerial travel(a) in the UK and (b) abroad, in each year from 1995–96 to 2002–03 (estimated); and if he will make a statement.[92426]

  .Mr. Alexander
  Since 1999 this Government has published an annual list of all visits overseas undertaken by Cabinet Ministers costing £500 or more during each financial year. The Government has also published on an annual basis the cost of all Ministers' visits overseas. Copies of the lists are available in the Libraries of the House.

  Information for 1997–98 was included in the 1999 list. The overall cost of Minister's visits for the years 1995–96 and 1996–97 was most recently provided with the 2001 list. The information for 2002–03 will be published as soon as possible after the end of the financial year.

  Detailed information requested in respect of UK travel is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

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

  Open Government
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office pursuant to his written statement of 19 December 2002,Official Report, column 65WS, on open government, if he will provide a breakdown of the figures given on each Department by year from 1992. [91531]
  335W
  Mr Alexander
  The files prior to 1997 have been destroyed as part of the normal review process. The 1 April 1999 return covered a 33 month period.

  Department

  As at 31 March 1997

  1 April 1997–31 March 1998

  1 April 1998–31 March 1999

  1 April 1999–31 December 2001

  Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

  5,907

  201

  13

  42

  Cabinet Office

  4,198

  1,409

  1,859

  134

  Office for National Statistics

  400

  0

  0

  1

  Crown Prosecution Service

  1,054

  0

  0

  0

  HM Customs and Excise

  964

  44

  0

  0

  Ministry of Defence

  9,081

  1,519

  917

  535

  Department for Education and Skills

  3,802

  0

  0

  0

  Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions

  1,496

  5,754

  4,334

  10,693

  Foreign and Commonwealth Office

  10,597

  3,551

  956

  3,496

  Department of Health

  890

  0

  383

  849

  Department for Work and Pensions

  2,944

  0

  49

  329

  Home Office

  3,162

  180

  88

  123

  Board of Inland Revenue

  0

  0

  0

  2

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  4,692

  0

  452

  1,304

  Court Services

  2,114

  1,407

  0

  0

  Metropolitan Police

  615

  149

  205

  182

  Northern Ireland (NI and Departments, Northern Ireland Office and NI Court Services)

  11,808

  0

  0

  0

  Department for International Development

  613

  0

  136

  0

  Scottish Executive

  4,928

  0

  0

  0

  Department of Trade and Industry

  111

  3

  33

  504

  HM Treasury

  659

  49

  70

  217

  Wales Office, Office of the Secretary of State for Wales

  237

  0

  0

  746

  Government Communications Headquarters

  5,824

  141

  852

  2,266

  Statutory Instruments
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many statutory instruments have been issued by the Cabinet Office in each calendar year since 1979. [89841]

  Mr. Alexander
  The information requested covering the period from 1979 to 1998 could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, the information is available from 1999 onwards and is as follows:

  1999: 4

  2000: 3

  2001: 1

  2002: 2.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Coastal Defences
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if the Government has agreed with all operating authorities a common format for information on flood and coastal defence assets. [89741]

  Margaret Beckett
  A common format for information on all flood and sea defences was included within guidance issued to all operating authorities by the Environment Agency acting under its supervisory duty.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the Government's original target date was for the completion of the National Flood and Coastal Protection Database; what the target is now; and if she will make a statement. [89681]
  336W
  The most detailed breakdown of figures available centrally is as follows:

  Margaret Beckett
  The original target date for the completion of the National Flood and Coastal Defence Database (NFCDD) was 1 September 2000. However, early analysis indicated this was not achievable. Subsequently, the delivery has proved more complex than originally envisaged, and it is currently being installed at EA sites. The revised date for delivery of Phases One and Two is now June 2003. Positive steps have been taken to provide analysis and results required for other purposes in parallel with the database development to minimise the impacts of the delays.

  Livestock Disposal
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what calculation she has made of the costs of the EU directive on disposal of dead stock for(a) the Government and (b) farmers; [92075]

  (2) what discussions she has had with (a) the livestock industry and (b) hunts on the introduction of the EU directive on disposal of dead stock; [92076]

  (3) if she will make a statement on the Government's policy towards the forthcoming EU Directive on disposal of dead stock. [92074]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 20 January 2003]Since April 2002, we have been involved in discussions with livestock and disposal industry stakeholders over future arrangements and funding options for disposal of fallen stock. The farming unions and the Master of the Foxhounds Association have been involved in these discussions.

  I met with representatives from the farming unions and the knacker and rendering industry on 3 December 2002 to discuss a joint proposal for a National Fallen

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  Stock disposal scheme. The Government are prepared to make available the funding which it currently puts annually into collection and disposal of stock for the purposes of TSE testing into a National Scheme (nearly £30 million). However the industry must be responsible for additional funding and running of the Scheme (estimated to be around £20 million).

  The livestock industry must now consider whether it wants to proceed with a National Scheme on this basis.

  The Government expects farmers to comply with the new EU Directive. Those that do not can expect to be prosecuted.

  Deer
  Mr. Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many deer were shot by the Forestry Commission in Somerset in(a) 2000–01 and (b) 2001–02. [91172]

  Mr. Morley
  The subject of the question relates to matters undertaken by Forest Enterprise. I asked its Chief Executive, Dr. Bob McIntosh, to arrange a written response which I have attached.

  Letter from Dr. Bob McIntosh to Mr. Liddell-Grainger, dated January 2003:
  I refer to the question you have asked of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on how many deer were shot by the Forestry Commission in Somerset in (a) 2000–01 and (b) 2001–02. I have been asked to reply to you.
  We shot a total of 200 deer in 2000–01 (1 April-31 March) and 171 in 2001–02 (1 April-31 March) on Forestry Commission land in the county of Somerset.
  I hope this is the information you require.

  Mr. Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who is responsible for calculating the deer figures in the UK; and what they were at the most recent date. [91173]

  Mr. Morley
  No statutory body routinely collects information on overall wild deer numbers in England and Wales, or in Northern Ireland. The Deer Commission for Scotland conducts wild deer censuses in different areas every year and has estimated that wild deer in Scotland might currently number 600,000, although no completely reliable figure is available.

  Stephen Harris et al. (1995) estimated the following pre-breeding population sizes for deer in Great Britain.

  England

  Scotland

  Wales

  Total GB

  Red deer

  12.500

  347,000

  <50

  360,000

  Fallow deer

  95,000

  <4,000

  <1,000

  100,000

  Roe deer

  150,000

  350,000

  50

  500,000

  Sika deer

  2,500

  9,000

  0

  11,500

  Muntjac deer

  40,000

  <50

  <250

  40,000

  Chinese water deer

  650

  0

  0

  650

  Source:

  From: Harris, S., Morris P., Wray S. and Yalden D. 1995. "A Review of British Mammals: population estimates and conservation status of British mammals other than cetaceans". JNCC, Peterborough.

  Drainage Boards
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which(a) local
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  authorities and (b) drainage boards have still to produce a publicly available policy statement setting out plans for delivering the Government's policy aims and objectives for flood and coastal defence. [89641]

  Margaret Beckett
  When information on policy statements received was last compared with the Environment Agency in September 2002, statements had yet to be received from the following bodies:

  Internal Drainage Boards (13)

  Adlingfleet and Whitgift DC

  Althorpe DB

  Crowle Area IDB

  Gravesend Bridge to Sheerness and Penshurst C of S

  Lombards Wall to Gravesend

  Bridge C of S

  Rawcliffe DB

  Scotter IDB

  South Axholme IDB

  Thorntree IDB (completion expected by December 2002)

  Tickhill DB

  West Axholme

  West Butterwick

  Woodwalton DC

  Local Authorities (117)

  Ashfield District Council

  Aylesbury Vale District Council

  Babergh District Council

  Barking and Dagenham London

  Borough Council

  Barnet London Borough Council

  Basildon District Council

  Basingstoke and Deane

  Borough Council

  Blaby District Council

  Boston Borough Council

  Bracknell Forest Borough Council

  Bradford City Council

  Breckland Council

  Brent London Borough Council

  Brentwood Borough Council

  Bridgnorth District Council

  Brighton and Hove Council

  Broadland District Council

  Bromsgrove District Council

  Broxbourne Borough Council

  Cambridge City Council

  Carrick District Council

  Castle Point Borough Council

  Chelmsford Borough Council

  Chester-le-Street District Council

  Chiltern District Council

  City of London

  Corby Borough Council

  Craven District Council

  Crawley Borough Council

  Croydon London Borough Council

  Dacorum Borough Council

  Dartford Borough Council

  Derbyshire Dales District Council

  Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council

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  Ealing London Borough Council

  East Cambridgeshire District Council

  East Hertfordshire District Council

  East Lindsey District Council

  Fenland District Council

  Forest Heath District Council

  Forest of Dean District Council

  Greenwich London Borough Council

  Guildford Borough Council

  Hackney London Borough Council

  Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council

  Harborough District Council

  Haringey London Borough Council

  Harlow District Council

  Havering London Borough Council

  High Peak Borough Council

  Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council

  Horsham District Council

  Isles of Scilly Council

  Kensington and Chelsea Royal Borough

  Kettering Borough Council

  King's Lynn & West Norfolk

  Borough Council

  Kingston upon Thames Royal Borough

  Lewisham London Borough Council

  Lincoln City Council

  Maidstone Borough Council

  Maldon District Council

  Malvern Hills District Council

  Mendip District Council

  Merton London Borough Council

  Mid Devon District Council

  Milton Keynes Council

  Newham London Borough Council

  North Hertfordshire District Council

  North Kesteven District Council

  North West Leicestershire District Council

  North Wiltshire District Council

  Norwich City Council

  Nottingham City Council

  Oadby and Wigston Borough Council

  Oxford City Council

  Penwith District Council Plymouth City Council

  Reading Borough Council

  Redbridge London Borough Council

  Richmond upon Thames London

  Borough Council

  Rochford District Council

  Rushmoor Borough Council

  Salisbury District Council

  Sedgefield Borough Council

  Sedgemoor District Council

  Selby District Council

  Slough Borough Council

  South Bucks District Council

  South Derbyshire District Council

  South Hams District Council

  South Holland District Council

  South Kesteven District Council

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  South Norfolk District Council

  South Oxfordshire District Council

  South Somerset District Council

  Southend-on-Sea Borough Council

  Spelthorne Borough Council

  St. Albans District Council

  Staffordshire Moorlands District Council

  Stevenage Borough Council

  Teesdale District Council

  Three Rivers District Council

  Thurrock Borough Council

  Tower Hamlets London Borough Council

  Tunbridge Wells Borough Council

  Uttlesford District Council

  Wakefield City Council

  Waltham Forest London Borough Council

  Wandsworth London Borough Council

  Watford Borough Council

  West Berkshire Council

  West Lindsey District Council

  West Somerset District Council

  West Wiltshire District Council

  Westminster City Council

  Weymouth & Portland Borough Council

  Windsor & Maidenhead Royal Borough

  Wokingham Council

  Wyre Forest District Council

  It should be noted that many of these councils do not have watercourses presenting significant flood risk.

  Energy Efficiency
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which local authorities adopted measures to improve the thermal insulation of buildings under their Home Energy Conservation Act obligations in fewer than 0.25 per cent. of their buildings over the last year. [90805]

  Mr. Morley
  The Home Energy Conservation Act does not require Energy Conservation Authorities to report on specific energy efficiency measures or the numbers of buildings in which measures have been installed. They are required to report on the overall progress they have made in implementing measures they have identified as being practicable, cost-effective and likely to result in significant improvement in the energy efficiency of the residential accommodation in their area.

  Environment Agency
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to review High Level Target 9 following the Environment Agency's report to her Department. [89751]

  Margaret Beckett
  All High Level Targets, including Target 9, are due to be reviewed this year.

  Mr. Liddell-Grainger
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the total budget for the Environment Agency(a) was in 2001–02 and (b) is in 2002–03.[91508]
  341W
  Mr. Meacher
  The total expenditure budget for the Environment Agency in(a) 2001–02 was £662.3 million and (b) 2002–03 was £758.2 million.

  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what action the Government are taking to ensure that the Environment Agency website can cope with the volume of traffic in emergencies. [91394]

  Mr. Morley
  The website is not the primary means of providing flood warning. The main flood warning systems operate effectively, including the Agency's Floodline telephone service, Automatic Voice Warning systems, news media information and direct manual warnings in flood warned areas.

  However, the Environment Agency has recognised the problems that occurred on its website during the new year floods. It has acted to improve the reliability of its service by installing a new high volume service to provide flood warning information for up to 100,000 visitors an hour—some 20 times more than the volume of visitors experienced during the peak of the new year floods.

  In addition, the Agency has restructured its website so that the flood warning facility will be unaffected by other non-flood warning users, and updated the design and search facility to provide a more user-friendly service.

  European Water Directive
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations her Department will be making to the Council of Ministers in discussions regarding the European Water Framework Directive concerning acceptable targets and objectives for levels of mercury in groundwater. [91928]

  Mr. Morley
  The Department will seek to ensure that both human health and the ecosystems dependent upon groundwater are protected from the risks posed by mercury. We will be looking to ensure that the Water Framework Directive and the intended new "daughter" Directive for Groundwater deliver the same high level of protection that is provided under the existing stringent regulatory regime covering mercury in groundwater.

  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what resources have been made available in the spending review to the Environment Agency to carry out its role as competent authority in implementing the European Water Framework Directive. [91929]

  Mr. Morley
  The Environment Agency has continued to receive significant grant-in-aid from the Department. This has increased from £103.7 million in 1999–2000 to £116.7 million in 2002–03 (figures in EA Corporate Plan for 2002–03).

  In total, the agency's budget (grant plus charges and levies) has increased from £620 million in 1999–2000 to just short of £750 million in 2002–03. These are substantial resources, and our view is that the agency is sufficiently funded to deliver its statutory responsibilities.
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  It is for the agency to organise those resources so that the Water Framework Directive is adequately resourced but we are confident it has been provided with adequate means to do so.

  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what planning policy and regional guidance will be issued to local authorities with regard to the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive. [91930]

  Mr. Morley
  Planning policy is for my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. Planning policy guidance note, (PPG) 25 Development and flood risk, already makes reference to the requirements of the Water Framework Directive. In addition, PPG 23 Planning and pollution control, is currently being revised and it will also make appropriate reference. We are considering whether anything further will be required as regards the implications for planning of the Water Framework Directive.

  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what she estimates the impact of the European Water Framework Directive to be upon(a) water management and (b) land use planning at local government level.[91931]

  Mr. Morley
  The information is as follows:

  (a) The Water Framework Directive sets up a catchment-based system of managing water through the establishment of river basin districts. The Environment Agency, which the Government have proposed should be the competent authority for the directive, already manages water on a catchment basis. Therefore, although boundaries will be new, the principle will not.

  In addition, England is well placed in legislative and institutional terms to implement the directive-in terms of the regulatory system, licence regimes and legal framework already in place. Our second consultation paper consults on what the gaps are and how they might be filled.

  The activities required by the Water Framework Directive-such as review of human activity, economic analysis, co-ordination of river basin management plans and selection of programme(s) of measures-will enable water to be managed in a more holistic way which encourages interested parties to contribute more actively to how water is managed in their area.

  (b) We are considering the implications of the Directive for land use planning at local government level in discussion with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Environment Agency and others. The Environment agency is also carrying out research into the effects of land use on water quality.

  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will estimate the overall costs to the United Kingdom that will be incurred by the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive. [91932]

  Mr. Morley
  In England and Wales a preliminary assessment of the costs and benefits of implementing the Directive was set out in the first consultation paper issued jointly by the then Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions and the
  343W
  National Assembly for Wales. The study estimated total costs in the range of £2 billion to £9.2 billion. A copy of the paper is in the House Library.

  These costs will be updated in the revised Regulatory Impact Assessment which is in progress and which will be published with the Third Consultation Paper which will be published this year.

  Implementation of the directive in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter. Defra and the Welsh Assembly Government are working jointly on transposition.

  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what measures her Department and the Environment Agency are putting in place to prepare for the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive. [91933]

  Mr. Morley
  The Water Framework Directive deadlines stretch to 2015, the date by which environmental objectives must be met.

  Much work is already underway by both Defra and the Environment Agency to prepare for implementation. Both have consulted and will consult further on implementation. The Environment Agency has developed an implementation programme to prepare for implementation.

  Water Framework Directive
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps she has taken to consult non-governmental organisations about the interpretation and implementation of the Water Framework Directive. [88433]

  Margaret Beckett
  We are currently consulting on our proposals to give legal effect to the Directive. This includes proposals covering the public participation requirements of the Directive in Article 14. This is our second consultation and a third is planned for 2003. The Environment Agency have also, at our request, been carrying out consultation on various technical issues relating to the Directive.

  In June 2001, we set up a forum for key stakeholders to discuss issues relating to the Water Framework Directive and water policy in general. Its membership covers a wide range of interests, including the environment, the water industry, agriculture, the countryside and industry. At its first meeting, the group agreed that it would have three main purposes: to provide input to Government thinking on transposition of the Water Framework Directive; raise issues of concern to the group relating to implementation of the WFD; and provide input into development of a longterm strategy for water.

  In addition, Defra set up an interactive electronic stakeholder forum a year ago, with the aim of capturing a wider range of stakeholder views about the water environment. Ideas from this forum were directly reflected in our document on future priorities for water policy, "Directing the Flow", published last month.

  Beyond that, Defra has played an active role in a wide range of stakeholder conferences and seminars organised by other organisations, where stakeholders
  344W
  have got together to discuss specific aspects of water policy, in many of which the Water Framework Directive was a prominent issue.

  Defra officials and Ministers have also had a large number of bilateral meetings with stakeholders on water policy issues.

  Finally, the Government regulatory agencies (Environment Agency, English Nature, Ofwat) have had a large number of meetings themselves with stakeholders on water policy and the Water Framework Directive.

  Fallen Stock
  Mr. Roger Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much fallen stock by(a) species, (b) region and (c) month was rendered in each year since 1997. [92166]

  Mr. Morley
  We do not have figures for the amount of fallen stock that has been rendered in the UK. This information is available only at disproportionate cost.

  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what estimate she has made of the amount of fallen stock in terms of(a) weight and (b) species in the UK in each of the last 12 months; [92167]

  (2) what the average cost was for rendering fallen stock in the last year for which figures are available.[92168]

  Mr. Morley
  Information regarding the amount of fallen stock for each of the last 12 months is not available. However, the industry has estimated that something in the order of, at least, 200,000 tonnes of fallen stock will need to be collected annually, when the ban on burial of fallen stock is implemented from 30 April this year.

  The estimated tonnage is be made up of the following:

  1,316,000 adult animal carcases (bovine, ovine, swine and equine)

  2,262,000 immature animal carcases (bovine, ovine, swine and equine)

  36,000,000 poultry carcases (avians).

  In arriving at this figure, assumptions have been made about mortality rates for adult and immature animals and their average weight.

  The United Kingdom Renderers Association estimate that the average cost for rendering fallen stock is in the order of £40–50 per tonne. In arriving at this figure, assumptions have been made to take account of seasonal variations and regional differences.

  Fisheries
  Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many British fishery officers have been sent during 2002 to those Baltic States which are due to accede to the European Union in 2004; and what the purpose was of sending them. [92644]
  345W
  Mr. Morley
  Three British Sea Fishery Officers from Defra visited Poland in 2002 to advise and train Polish inspectors on the enforcement of EU fisheries legislation.

  Flooding
  Mr. Flook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on progress with its flood defence scheme at Hillfarrance, near Taunton. [91944]

  Mr. Morley
  Operational responsibility for flood management measures rests with the local operating authorities, normally the Environment Agency (EA) and local councils, who decide which projects to promote and their timing.

  Defra is considering the EA's application for grant on its proposed flood alleviation scheme for Hillfarrance against the normal technical, economic and environmental criteria and priority score arrangements. However a final decision on grant aid cannot be taken until an application for planning permission has been considered by Taunton Deane Borough Council. Subject to this being in place, I understand the EA plan to start work in April 2003.

  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to provide additional funding for flood defences. [91956]

  Mr. Morley
  The Government are committed to maintenance and improvement of flood and coastal defences, including those to reduce the risk of coastal erosion as well as flooding, and has planned for spending of nearly £1.5 billion over the next three years:

  £million

  2002–03

  2003–04

  2004–05

  2005–06

  Defra1

  131

  134

  137

  182

  ODPM2

  280

  295

  332

  382

  Total

  411

  429

  469

  564

  1For capital projects, Environment Agency national initiatives such as National Flood and Coastal Defence Database and Catchment Flood Management Plans, Storm Tide Forecasting Service etc.

  2Funding from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to local authorities to support their levies to the Environment Agency and internal drainage boards and their own spend on flood and coastal defence.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she expects the Environment Agency's flood warning service to be available to all people whose homes or businesses have been designated as at risk of flooding. [89608]

  Margaret Beckett
  The Environment Agency has made a commitment in its Corporate Strategy to increase the coverage of its flood warning services to 77 per cent. of properties in flood risk areas by 2007. This will rise to 80 per cent. by the year 2009–10.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what proportion of the population designated as at risk of flooding will 346W
  be covered by the Environment Agency's warning service by (a) 1 April 2003, (b) 1 April 2004, (c) 1 April 2005 and (d) 1 April 2006. [89610]

  Margaret Beckett
  The Environment Agency warns people of flooding by at least two means. These usually are a direct warning using the EA's automatic voice messaging (AVM) system and local radio announcements when flood warnings are issued. The warnings are also posted on the EA's website. As part of the EA's flood awareness campaign, each householder in a flood risk area receives an annual mailing advising them what to do during a flood. The EA plans to increase coverage of direct warnings to each household as follows:

  (a) April 2003 70 per cent. of households

  (b) April 2004 73 per cent. of households

  (c) April 2005 75 per cent. of households

  (d) April 2006 76 per cent. of households

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what criteria are used by the Government to determine whether a property is designated as at risk of flooding. [89609]

  Margaret Beckett
  A property is designated as at risk from flooding from main rivers and the sea if it appears within the area shown at risk on the Environment Agency's Indicative Flood Maps (which are available on the internet). These maps show the best available information on flood risk. An extreme flood outline representing the 0.1 per cent. probability of flooding in any year is under development and will be published later in 2003.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she plans to introduce a 0.5 per cent. standard for flood defences; and what estimate she has made of the cost to public funds of adapating a 0.5 per cent. standard for flood protection. [89629]

  Margaret Beckett
  There are no plans to introduce a common 0.5 per cent, or other common standard and no national estimate of the costs of such a standard have beenmade. There could be as many as 10,000 separate flood risk areas in England covering a very wide variety of land uses from low grade agricultural land to major industrial sites. It would not be feasible or desirable to apply the same standards to all these areas. The exclusion of flood water from some areas, particularly from some agricultural and amenity land would significantly increase the flooding problems to be addressed elsewhere.

  The Department does provide indicative standards, linked to guidance on project appraisal, which are designed to ensure that suitable standards for the relevant land use are adopted where it is technically feasible and economically worthwhile to do so.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the progress made by the Environment Agency towards developing flood risk categories. [89640]
  347W
  Margaret Beckett
  The Environment Agency has developed a method for categorising flood risk for the prioritisation and delivery of the flood warning service and it has been implemented throughout England and Wales.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what progress has been made by the Environment Agency to identify private flood and coastal defences. [89745]

  Margaret Beckett
  The Environment Agency have identified all private flood defences on main river as well as all private sea defences.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what reports she has received from the Environment Agency about progress made in developing the National Flood and Coastal Defence Database. [89747]

  Margaret Beckett
  Defra officials have been kept fully informed by the Environment Agency about the progress of this development and receive regular reports on the project.

  Fuel Poverty
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what percentage of those defined as being in fuel poverty in 2001 have carried out DIY insulation measures to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. [90806]

  Mr. Morley
  The information requested is not available. However, general information regarding the number of properties where improvements have been carried out will be available from the English House Condition Survey 2001, which is the responsibility of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

  Livestock Movements
  Geraldine Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has received from the NFU regarding the 20-day standstill movement restrictions. [91997]

  Mr. Morley
  The NFU and other industry organisations have made a number of representations about the 20 day standstill. Ministers and officials regularly meet industry representatives, including the NFU President and his officers, to discuss this and other matters.

  Geraldine Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent assessment she has made of the impact of the 20-day standstill period on British agriculture. [91998]

  Mr. Morley
  A detailed risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis into the 20-day standstill is currently being carried out in line with the FMD Inquiry recommendations. The emerging findings will inform the decision about the shape of the movement rules for spring which we hope to announce very soon.

  Packaging Waste Recycling Targets
  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) when she intends to consult on the UK's 2004 packaging waste recycling targets; [91494]

  (2) what preliminary assessment she has made of the likely packaging waste recycling targets required for 2004 to enable the UK to comply with the most likely minimum targets expected to be set; [91496]

  (3) when she intends to announce the UK packaging waste recovery targets (a) for 2004 and (b) for 2005. [91495]

  Mr. Meacher
  I expect the Advisory Committee on Packaging (ACP) to provide the Government with advice on their views on the possible targets in the UK between 2004 and 2008. I know that an ACP Task Force is currently looking at future targets, including targets for 2004. We are aiming to consult on a number of packaging issues this year, including targets for the period 2004–08. We would propose to announce the targets as early as possible, with a view to providing long-term targets to aid stability in the PRN market and future investment, but this will have to await the outcome of our consultation exercise.

  Press Releases
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many press releases have been issued by her Department in each(a) year and (b) quarter from 1995–96 to 2002–03; and if she will make a statement. [92459]

  Alun Michael
  Defra was created in June 2001. All press releases are available on the Defra website (www.defra.gov.uk). Numbers issued are as follows:

  Number

  2001

  June-end September

  1159

  October-end December

  163

  Total

  322

  2002

  January-end March

  127

  April-end June

  129

  July-end September

  134

  October-end December

  148

  Total

  538

  1First Defra release issued 14 June

  Retrospective identification and enumeration of the press releases issued prior to June 2001, by the Home Office, the former DETR and MAFF press offices on policy subjects now covered by Defra would be available only at disproportionate cost.

  Rodent Survey
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she expects to receive the results of the rodent survey element of the 2001 English House Condition Survey. [91066]

  Mr. Morley
  The English House Condition Survey conducted by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister collects data on behalf of this Department about
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  the incidence of rodents. We expect to receive the information from the 2001 survey in February. A report on the analysis of the data will be published in due course.

  Sea Pollution
  Colin Burgon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what international discussions are taking place to control the threat of pollution at sea. [91795]

  Mr. Meacher
  [holding answer 21 January 2003]Marine pollution comes from a variety of sources and the UK is active in a wide range of international fora to tackle and prevent marine pollution.

  For example, we are a contracting party to the OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic and the London Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution from Dumping. We are also working closely with the European Union to tackle marine pollution and better protect our seas.

  In addition, we are working through the United Nations Environment Programme's Washington Global Programme of Action to tackle marine pollution from land-based sources. The UK also plays a lead role in the International Maritime Organisation to address issues of ship safety and pollution from ships.

  Sheep (EU Regulations)
  Mr. Stunell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which Ministers and officials attended the January Council of Ministers meeting on the EU Draft Regulations on the double-tagging of sheep. [91417]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 20 January 2003]This month's Agriculture and Fisheries Council is scheduled to take place on 27–28 January. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is expected to head the UK delegation. My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary and I plan to accompany her. The Minister for Environment and Rural Development in the Scottish Executive and the Deputy First Minister and Minister for Rural Development and Wales Abroad in the Welsh Assembly Government, plan to attend together with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. We will be supported by a number of officials, including the Director General responsible for Farming, Food and Fisheries.

  Sickness Absence
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many working days have been lost due to illness in her Department in(a) 2002 and (b) each of the preceding five years. [90967]

  Alun Michael
  Records are not yet available for the number of days lost due to sickness absence in 2002, but these will be announced in due course. Sickness absence figures for previous years are published in the Cabinet Office annual report "Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Civil Service", copies of which are placed in the Library of the House.
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  Defra was created in June 2001. The figure for that year, shown as an average per staff year, relates to parts of the former DETR and the former MAFF and its agencies.

  2001—7.2 days

  The Department is committed to the effective management of sickness absence, and to meeting its Service Delivery Agreement target of reducing sickness absence to 6.9 days for 2003.

  TB Research
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on what funding was made available in the last financial year for TB research in the areas of(a) finding a cattle vaccine, (b) finding a badger vaccine and (c) providing a comprehensive cattle test for TB. [92077]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 20 January 2003]Defra spent the following amounts on developing TB vaccines and diagnostic tests (including pathogenesis studies) for cattle and badgers in 2001–02 and 2002–03:

  £

  Cost per year

  Subject

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Total

  Diagnostics for TB

  1,133,726

  2,035,792

  3,169,518

  Badger Vaccines

  617,948

  1,037,729

  1,655,677

  Cattle Vaccines

  923,734

  1,037,729

  1,961,463

  Total

  2,675,408

  4,111,250

  6,786,658

  A sub-group of the Independent Scientific Group on cattle TB is conducting a scoping study into the feasibility of animal TB vaccines, and is due to report shortly.

  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on what funding is available for consequential loss for TB breakdowns for those farmers who are part of the Woodchester Park Project area of Gloucestershire. [92078]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 20 January 2003]Defra has made special arrangements with farmers in the Woodchester Park study area to pay fair compensation for consequential losses associated with cattle TB breakdowns in the project area. Funding is paid from the TB research programme.

  Village Halls
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the impact on village halls of regulations introduced since 1997. [91844]

  Alun Michael
  No such specific assessment has been made. However, all proposals for regulation which have an impact on businesses, charities or voluntary bodies must be accompanied by a regulatory impact assessment. The necessary checks and balances required
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  under the system ensure that regulation is necessary and proportionate and the risks, options, benefits and costs are fully explored.

  I am aware from correspondence that concerns have been expressed in particular about the impact on village halls of the "Disability Discrimination (Providers of Services) (Adjustment of Premises) Regulations 2001". However the Disability Discrimination Act requires service providers to do only what is reasonable in all the circumstances, and there is no question of unreasonable costs being imposed.

  I have recently discussed concerns expressed about the prospective impact on village halls of the Licensing Bill currently before Parliament with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Dr Howells).

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Convention on the Future of Europe
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his policy is on the recommendation of Working Group X of the Convention on the Future of Europe that qualified majority vote should apply to minimum rules for cross-border crimes and crimes against a common policy of the EU. [92122]

  Mr. MacShane
  The Government support extending QMV where we believe it is in the national interest to do so. We are considering this proposal in that light. In doing so, we shall also take into account the scope of the competence to be given to the EU in this area when draft Treaty provisions are tabled as part of the Convention process.

  Capita Group
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the contracts that have been awarded to the Capita Group by his Department. [89968]

  Mr. Rammell
  The FCO has two current contracts with Capita both covering staff recruitment services. Over their lifetime the total value of these contracts will be in the region of £1.87 million.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many civil servants have been employed by(a) his Department and (b) each of its agencies and non-departmental bodies in each year from 1994–95 to 2002–03; and if he will make a statement. [92373]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The number of civil servants employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and its agency from 1994 to 2003 is listed below. No civil servants are employed by non-departmental bodies. Board members of non-departmental bodies are paid expenses only.
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  Number of civil servants employed by the Foreign and

  Commonwealth Office and its agency from 1994 to 2003

  All staff in post figures correct on 1 April

  FCO

  Wilton Park

  19941

  N/A2

  N/A

  19951

  5,984

  30

  19961

  5,787

  28

  19971

  5,539

  35

  1998

  5,412

  37

  1999

  5,485

  48

  2000

  5,480

  50

  2001

  5,490

  60

  2002

  5,680

  60

  1Excluding ODA.

  2The master data file for 1994 is corrupted and is being rebuilt.

  Cricket World Cup
  Mr. Ancram
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) when(a) he and (b) Ministers and officials in his Department first told the England Cricket Board that in the Government's view it would be better if the England cricket team should not go to Zimbabwe; [92681]

  (2) on what dates and in what form, in addition to the oral statement by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in Westminster Hall on 17 December 2002, Official Report, column 191WH, (a) he and (b) Ministers in his Department have publicly expressed the Government's view that it would be best if the England cricket team should not go to Zimbabwe. [92682]

  Mr. Straw
  FCO officials told representatives of the England and Wales Cricket Board in July 2002 that Ministers might find it difficult to accept that England should play in Zimbabwe, while stressing that this was a decision for the cricket authorities.

  On 16 December 2002, the International Cricket Council's security mission to Zimbabwe recommended that the matches scheduled for Zimbabwe should go ahead. In a Westminster Hall debate the following day, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Mike O'Brien, said that in his personal opinion it would be better if the England team did not go to Zimbabwe.

  A statement issued by the FCO on 29 December 2002 reaffirmed that while it was not for the Government to tell the cricket authorities what to do, it was the Foreign Secretary's personal view that it would be better if England did not go. Ministers have repeatedly underlined this message since then.

  Democracy (Arab States)
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to promote democracy in the Arab world. [91867]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We promote democracy and good governance in the Arab world through dialogue with government and civil society, based on equality and respect, in particular for the Islamic principle of consultation (shura). Together with EU partners, we have supported initiatives designed to promote dialogue with Arab countries on human rights and civil society issues.

  Entente Cordiale
  Mr. Grieve
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the French Government concerning appropriate celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale; and if he will make a statement. [92591]

  Mr. MacShane
  There is close bilateral co-operation at official level about the Entente Cordiale centenary celebrations in 2004. Both countries are committed to ensuring that the centenary is a success.

  Fair Trade
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what fair trade criteria he sets when deciding upon what suppliers to use. [89912]

  Mr. Rammell
  FCO purchasing policy is in accordance with the Government's Public Purchasing Consolidated Guidelines, which require the procurement of goods and services to be based on value for money and acquired by competition unless there are convincing reasons to the contrary.

  Fair trade products are widely available in our offices. For example almost all tea and coffee provided for official meetings is fair trade and our canteens and restaurants sell fair trade products including coffee, tea, chocolate and muesli bars.

  Human Rights
  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the United States administration on the guidance given in the publication, "A Human Rights Approach to Prison Management—Handbook for Prison Staff", in respect of United Kingdom citizens held by the United States in the prison at Guantanamo Bay. [90232]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has not specifically discussed the publication "A Human Rights Approach to Prison Management—Handbook for Prison Staff" in the context of Guantanamo with the United States Administration. We have however discussed the welfare and treatment of British detainees held at Guantanamo Bay with the US authorities.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the United Kingdom representatives at the United Nations regarding human rights surveillance by the United Nations in Colombia. [92628]

  Mr. Rammell
  During my visit to New York from 2–3 December I had detailed discussions with UK and UN officials about the work of the UN Human Rights Office in Bogota.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Government of Colombia regarding(a) abuses of human rights and (b) persecution of human rights workers. [92632]
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  Mr. Rammell
  My hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office raised these concerns at the highest level during his visit to Colombia in October. We maintain a regular dialogue with the Colombian Government and make our concerns on these issues clear.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what discussions he has had with the United States regarding abuse of human rights in Colombia; [92633]

  (2) what discussions he has had with the United States regarding (a) Plan Colombia and (b) other aid packages to Colombia. [92629]

  Mr. Rammell
  We have regular discussions with the US Administration about developments in Colombia, including the peace process, the human rights situation, and the EU aid package. The EU also has a dialogue with the US on these issues. Neither the EU nor the UK are involved in Plan Colombia.

  Iraq
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which of the sites listed in the Government's dossier on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction published on 24 September 2002 have been visited by inspectors from the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission; and whether anything of significance was found at such locations. [90179]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We understand from published information from UNMOVIC and the IAEA inspectors have visited all of the sites identified in the UK dossier. They have not reported uncovering any signs of weapons of mass destruction, or programmes for their production at the sites. Given that there had been considerable advance publicity about these sites, it is not entirely surprising that the inspectors failed to uncover any evidence of WMD programme at the sites. Compliance with the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 must be more than simply allowing access to UN weapons inspectors. There must be full cooperation with the inspectors and complete openness about activities at all sites visited, as the Resolution requires.

  Joan Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the UN weapons inspectors have visited(a) the Castor Oil Production plant at Fallujah in Iraq, (b) the al-Dawrah Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Institute and (c) the Amariyah Sera and Vaccine Plant at Abu Ghraib in the pursuit of their duties under UN Resolution 1441. [91343]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  [holding answer 16 January 2003]Information as published by UNMOVIC and the IAEA indicates that all three sites have been visited by the UN weapons inspectors. Further information is available from their internet websites www.un.org/depts/unmovic and www.iaea.org/worldatom.

  Mr. Connarty
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with representatives of the Northern Iraqi Kurdish people on the situation in Iraq. [91685]
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  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Ministers and officials regularly meet representatives of the northern Iraq Kurdish administration as well as other Iraqi oppositionists. Most recently, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister met Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, leaders of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan respectively, in December 2002.

  Mr. Connarty
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with the Government of Syria on relations with Iraq. [91686]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Iraq was one of the issues covered in a meeting the Secretary of State and I had with the Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouk Al-Shara'a, in London on 16 December. Earlier that day the Prime Minister also discussed the issue with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which countries in the Middle East have made requests to the United Kingdom Government to take military action against Iraq on their behalf or with their support; and if he will make a statement. [91734]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  As the Government have repeatedly made clear, no decision to launch military action against Iraq has been taken, and military action is not inevitable. Our policy is to ensure that Iraq complies with its obligations under relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.

  Israeli Embassy Bombing
  Rob Marris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what relevant warnings from the Israeli Embassy in London were received by his Department in the month before 26 July 1994; and whether the warnings were passed by his Department to the courts which subsequently convicted Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami. [86271]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The Israeli Embassy made a representation for extra security to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 18 July 1994. I am assured that these were forwarded to the Diplomatic Protection Group, who are responsible for Embassy security, for action. I understand that the trial court and the Court of Appeal were aware of these facts.

  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if his Department's Ministers have signed PII certificates in relation to the bombings of the Israeli Embassy and Balfour House on 26 July 1994. [86602]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  At the time of the trial in 1996, the then Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, signed a PII certificate in relation to the bombings of the Israeli Embassy and Balfour House.

  Khmer Rouge
  Mr. Streeter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how the UK ambassador to the UN voted in relation to the setting up of a tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders; and if he will make a statement. [91069]
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  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We support a UN-supported tribunal to bring to justice those Khmer Rouge leaders most responsible for the atrocities committed during their regime (1975–79). The UK abstained in a vote on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Resolution at the 2002 General Assembly because of our concerns that Cambodia's commitment to the process appeared in doubt when it failed to co-sponsor the Resolution; and the UN Secretary General had expressed reservations on the Resolution's implementation. These concerns were shared by a number of other states who also abstained. However, we welcome the recent resumption of talks between Cambodian and United Nations negotiators in New York and remain prepared to offer advice and financial support for a UN-supported tribunal.

  Mozambique
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many claims for property appropriated without compensation by the Mozambique Government since 1975 have been lodged with his Department; how many such claims have been settled; and what steps are being taken to secure the settlement of those claims still outstanding. [91896]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  101 claims have been lodged with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for property appropriated without compensation by the Mozambique Government since 1975. None of these have been settled. The FCO has made many ministerial and diplomatic representations over the years to the Mozambique authorities about the expropriated properties and we will continue to look for opportunities to do so.

  Pakistan
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what recent discussions he has had with the Pakistani authorities on its blasphemy laws; [92046]

  (2) if he will make a statement on the situation of Christians in Pakistan. [92045]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We are concerned about any human rights violations in Pakistan. We have serious concerns about the situation of Christians, particularly because of the many attacks against them in the past year and the misuse of the blasphemy laws. We remain deeply concerned that the death penalty can be imposed for blasphemy. The UK opposes the death penalty in all circumstances. On 15 July 2002 I raised our concerns directly with the Pakistani high commissioner in London. Together with our EU partners, we also regularly raise our concerns with the Pakistani authorities in Islamabad. We will continue to take every appropriate opportunity to urge Pakistan to pursue laws and practices which foster tolerance and mutual respect and to protect Christians and other religious minorities against discrimination, intimidation and attacks.

  Paper Supplies
  Sue Doughty
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs who the suppliers are of his Department's(a) paper and (b) paper products. [91913]

  Mr. Rammell
  The FCO has two corporate contracts for its paper requirement. The first with Dixon and Roe for recycled copier paper and second with Premier Paper for higher-grade stationery paper. Other paper products (such as index cards, diaries, planners and post-it notes) are supplied in the main by Banner Supplies Limited (BSL). This company was awarded the supply contract following an EC competitive procurement tender run jointly by the FCO and MOD. On the very rare occasions when BSL are unable to meet our needs then local sources of supply are used.

  Press Releases
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many press releases have been issued by his Department in each(a) year and (b) quarter from 1995–96 to 2002–03; and if he will make a statement. [92439]

  Mr. Straw
  Our records of the number of Foreign and Commonwealth Office press releases issued extend back only as far as May 1997. For the figures since May 1997, 1 refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave to the hon. Member for Tayside North (Pete Wishart) on 12 June 2002,Official Report, columns 1269–70W.

  During 2002 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued 637 press releases and has issued 25 since 1 January 2003.

  Nigeria
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with the Nigerian authorities on the subject of religious conflict. [92047]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We remain in close touch with the Nigerian authorities on this issue. Officials from the British high commission in Abuja regularly visit the northern states where the majority of religious violence takes place and raise the matter of violence with the governors of the states concerned. In July last year, a British Government team specialising in conflict prevention visited Plateau state to inquire into the causes of violence there and discuss how the British Government might help in preventing further disturbances. The team convened a round-table discussion attended by both Christians and Muslims. We are also supporting the efforts of Coventry Cathedral's Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, who have been trying to build trust between the religious communities in Kaduna over the last year. We will continue to monitor the situation closely.

  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the authorities in Gujarat, India on the subject of violence against Christians. [92048]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We have had no discussions with the authorities in Gujarat at ministerial level. Officials have been in contact with the police authorities in 358W
  Gujarat about the situation there. However, Ministers and officials have raised our concerns with the Government of India on a number of occasions since the violence began in February last year, although not specifically regarding violence against Christians. Most recently, I discussed Gujarat with Mr. I D Swami, the Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs, on 17 October 2002.

  We remain very concerned about the welfare of many in Gujarat and continue to urge India to bring to justice the perpetrators of the violence.

  Western Sahara
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he expects to receive the UN Secretary General's proposals on the putative referendum on the future of the Western Sahara; and if he will make a statement. [92325]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  From 14 to 17 January 2003, James Baker, the United Nations Secretary General's Personal Envoy, was engaged in a series of meetings with the parties concerned, discussing ideas to resolve the dispute over Western Sahara. Once he has had the opportunity to consider the response of the parties he will make his proposals public.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made concerning the referendum on the future of Western Sahara to(a) the Government of Morocco and (b) the United Nations. [92640]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  I discussed the future of Western Sahara with Mohammed Benaissa, the Moroccan Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, in November 2002.

  Officials maintain regular contact with the United Nations Secretariat country delegations on this subject. It is discussed annually during the General Assembly and more regularly by the Security Council.

  Zimbabwe
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of whether Robert Mugabe and his government are guilty of genocide. [91264]

  Mr. Rammell
  It is unclear whether Mugabe could be considered to have committed genocide.

  Much of the intimidation, political violence and withholding of food is directed against the opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, and the areas where it has support.

  Genocide has to be committed against a "national, ethnic, racial or religious group".

  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the political situation in Zimbabwe. [91818]

  Mr. Rammell
  The political, economic and humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate, with recent food riots and the alleged assault of two MDC MPs in police custody.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Theft/Fraud
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much money has been lost by her Department and its agencies and non-departmental public bodies through(a) fraud and (b) theft for each year since 1996–97. [92469]

  Dr. Howells
  All thefts and frauds are reported for each financial year to the Treasury. Details are no longer available for the period prior to 1998.

  (a) are have been no reported instances of fraud.

  (b) in 1998 a lap top computer was stolen, estimated value £1,350 and in 2001 computer hardware to a value of £1,823 was lost to theft. In 2002 computer hardware to a value of £3,200 was lost to theft. Non-departmental bodies report direct to the Treasury and details are not held by the Department.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what her estimate is of the cost of theft and fraud to(a) her Department, (b) its agencies and (c) non-departmental public bodies in 2002. [89895]

  Dr. Howells
  All thefts and frauds are reported for each financial year to the Treasury. In 2002 known losses through theft or fraud have been(a) £3,200 (theft of computer equipment) (b) £2,800 (thefts). Information for non-departmental public bodies is not held centrally.

  Performance-enhancing Drugs
  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many tests for erythropoietin and human growth hormones she expects to be conducted by UK Sport in each of the next three years; and if she will make a statement. [91874]

  Mr. Caborn
  The introduction to sport of testing for the detection of blood plasma expanders such as erythropoietin (EPO) is quite recent. The testing protocols are still being assessed to ensure that they are effective and at present there is not full agreement about the most appropriate testing regime for EPO. However, UK Sport, the national anti-doping organisation, is proposing to include EPO testing at several major events in the UK (both at and prior to the event) over the next 12 months. Previously, UK Sport has undertaken testing for EPO at the 2001 World Half Marathon, the 2002 London Marathon and the Commonwealth Games. UK Sport will continue to monitor the development of an agreed testing procedure.

  As part of the 2002 Spending Review this government has allocated additional funds to UK Sport, which amounts to £1.5 million in 2004–05 and £3.2 million in 2005–06. Once testing protocols for EPO are agreed, this increase in funding will enable UK Sport to make a full assessment of the needs for this type of testing, to plan the delivery of testing in those sports that are at greatest risk from EPO abuse and to introduce EPO testing to the UK's on-going anti-doping programme.

  There is no approved test for human growth hormones at present. However, UK Sport is regularly in touch with the leading experts on these substances who
  360W
  are based in the UK. Once a test is approved, UK Sport will be able to assess the need and the resources required to introduce human growth hormone testing to the UK's anti-doping programme.

  Sickness Absence
  Mr. Roger Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many working days have been lost in her Department and due to illness in each year since 1997–98. [92718]

  Dr. Howells
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Members for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) on 16 January 2003,Official Report, column 714W.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Assault Sentences
  Mr. Watson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average sentence for assaulting a shop worker was in the last two years. [90261]

  Hilary Benn
  The information requested is not collected centrally.

  Drugs
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of the departmental budget allocated in this financial year for tackling drug crime will be spent on(a) staff and (b) associated staff costs; and if he will make a statement. [91672]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  All expenditure on tackling drugs contributes to the fight against drug crime.

  Of the departmental expenditure specifically targeted on delivering the Drug Strategy, some 13 per cent. will be spent on staffing and associated costs in the current financial year.

  Paul Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his estimate is of the numbers and percentage of prisoners who will be participating in drug treatment programmes in each of the next 10 years. [90270]

  Hilary Benn
  The Prison Service is committed to delivering the following Key Performance Targets by March 2004:

  5,700 prisoners to enter a rehabilitation programme or therapeutic community annually;

  27,000 prisoners to enter Detoxification annually;

  25,000 initial Counselling, Assessment, Referral, Advice and Throughcare (CARATs) assessments to be undertaken annually; and

  to maintain 28,000 prisoners on voluntary testing compacts.

  The Government's recent Spending Review 2002 makes provision to boost treatment in prisons and revised targets are now being negotiated taking into account additional funds. These will define delivery until March 2006. It is, however, too soon to confirm what these revisions will be.
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  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what budget has been allocated for the education campaign due to be launched this spring on drug misuse; what assessment will take place of the effectiveness of the campaign: who will carry out the assessment; when the results will be published; and if he will make a statement. [91673]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  The campaign is jointly funded by the Home Office and the Department for Health. £3 million has been allocated in this year and a similar level of funding is anticipated over the following three years. The campaign will be fully evaluated, including a quantitative tracking survey which will be supplemented by qualitative surveys as appropriate. The evaluation contract is being commissioned through COI (Central Office of Information), the Government's communications agency, and we anticipate appointing a research agency in the near future. The tracking survey results will be placed in the Library when they become available.

  Under-age Drinking
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on under-age drinking. [90960]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  A number of legislative measures are in place to help tackle under-age drinking. The Licensing (Young Persons) Act 2000 made it an offence for any person to sell alcohol to a person under 18 on licensed premises, or knowingly to allow another person to do so. It also created the offence of buying, or attempting to buy, alcohol on licensed premises on behalf of a person under 18. Measures in the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 provided the police and local authorities with increased powers to tackle under-age drinking, including for example, measures to make it easier for local authorities to designate areas where restrictions on anti-social drinking will apply. It also created a positive duty on licensees and their staff not to sell alcohol to under 18s.

  The Licensing Bill currently in the House of Lords contains proposals to amend the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 to reinstate the police power to

  Current members of the EMBF

  Ms Yvonne Thompson1

  Ms Maxine James

  Mr. Leslie Fairclough

  Mrs. Jaswin MacDonald

  Ms Adeeba Malik

  Mr. Michael Davis-Bingham

  Mr. Tony Sealey

  Sir Gulam Noon MBE

  Mr. Numan Azmi

  Mr. Kam Kothia

  Professor Monder Ram

  Miss Mai Sim Lei

  Mr. Niyazi Enver

  Mr. Askar Sheibani

  Mrs. Rita Patel

  Dr. Haider Imam

  Mr. Mohammed Isap

  Councillor Mohammed Afzal Khan

  1Chair

  Previous members who have served on the EMBF since it was set up in 2002 but who are no longer members are as follows:

  Previous members of the EMBF

  Ms Jennifer Craig

  Mr. Pravin Kapadia

  Mr. Mohammed Nazir

  Mr. Jeffery Yap

  Mr. Clyde Williams

  Mrs. Sukvinder Studds

  Lord Amir Bhatia OBE

  —

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  confiscate sealed containers (in addition to opened containers) from young people in public places, where a police officer reasonably believes that the young person is, or has been, or intends to, consume the alcohol in a public place.

  In addition, the Home Office, together with other Departments, are working with the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit on their study into tackling the harm associated with alcohol misuse. This has involved a public consultation, run jointly with the Department of Health. The project will pay particular attention to issues such as alcohol-related crime and anti-social behaviour, problems faced by vulnerable groups such as children and what works best in tackling the problems of alcohol misuse.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Aerospace Industry
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for what purpose capital spending on aerospace programmes for financial year 2003–04 set out in Annex A, table 3 of his departmental report, Cm 5416 is intended; and if she will make a statement. [91958]

  Alan Johnson
  The capital spending on aerospace programmes, recorded in the departmental report (CM 5416), relates to the net capital requirement anticipated at the time the report was published taking account of the payments and receipts under the Government's portfolio of Launch Investment contracts. Through Launch Investment partnerships the Government support the design and development of civil aerospace projects in the UK.

  Appointments
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry who have been members of the Ethnic Minority Business Advisory Forum since its inception; what(a) expenses and (b) salary each received; and if she will make a statement. [91666]

  Nigel Griffiths
  Current members of the Ethnic Minority Business Forum (EMBF) are as follows:

  Members are unpaid but are reimbursed for travel and subsistence, according to the rates applicable to senior civil servants.

  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry who have been members of the Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment since its inception; what expenses or salary each received; and if she will make a statement. [91665]
  363W
  Mr. Wilson
  The members of the Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment (ACBE) are appointed for two-year terms jointly by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. No members of ACBE have ever received a salary; they are however entitled to claim reimbursement for reasonable travel expenses. Since its inception in May 1991 the members, and their organisations at the time of appointment, have been:

  Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment (ACBE)

  ACBE I, May 1991–May 1993

  Sir John A. Collins

  Shell UK Ltd.

  Norman Adsetts OBE

  Sheffield Insulation Group

  Rod Aspinwall

  Aspinwall & Company Ltd.

  John Baker

  National Power

  Anthony Bird OBE

  The Bird Group of Companies

  David Challen

  J. Henry Schroder Wagg & Co.

  Sir Anthony Cleaver

  IMB UK Ltd.

  Peter Costain

  Costain Group plc

  Ian Coull

  J. Sainsbury plc

  Sue Green

  Legal & General Group plc

  Christopher Hampson

  ICI

  Sir Christopher Harding

  BET plc

  Peter Heath

  Cleanaway Ltd.

  Nicholas Hood CBE

  Wessex Water plc

  Robert J. Jones

  British Gas plc

  David Lyon

  Bowater plc

  Dorothy Mackenzie

  Dragon International

  Cameron McLatchie OBE

  British Polythene Industries plc

  Nigel Palmer OBE

  Pittard Garner plc

  Dr. Robin C. Paul

  Albright & Wilson plc

  Paul Rink

  Wolstenholme Rink plc

  George Simpson

  Rover Group

  John Spiers

  Norsk Hydro UK Ltd.

  Derek Wanless

  National Westminster Bank

  David Yeomans

  David Yeomans Associates

  ACBE II, November 1993–April 1996

  Derek Wanless

  National Westminster Bank

  John Baker

  National Power

  Sir Peter Bonfield CBE

  British Telecommunications plc

  Cedric Brown

  British Gas plc

  Ann Burdus

  Dawsons International

  Rodney Chase

  British Petroleum plc

  Mike Clasper CBE

  Procter & Gamble Europe

  David Davies

  Johnson Matthey plc

  Peter Davies

  DHL International Ltd.

  Dr. Oliver Doubleday

  Bax Farm

  Richard Gamble

  Royal Insurance plc

  Ian Gibson CBE

  Nissan Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd.

  Roger Hewitt

  Roundhay Securities Ltd.

  Derek Higgs

  Prudential Portfolio Managers Ltd.

  Ron Huggins

  Kimberley-Clarke Ltd.

  Sir Gordon Jones

  Yorkshire Water plc

  Martin Laing CBE

  John Laing plc

  Robert Lawton

  Lawton Farms

  David Malpas

  Tesco plc

  Jean Parker CBE

  Vacu-Lug Traction Tyres Ltd.

  Dr. Robin C. Paul CBE

  Albright & Wilson UK Ltd.

  George Phillipson

  Redland Aggregates Ltd.

  Sir Anthony Pilkington

  Pilkington plc

  Alan Smith

  The Boddington Group

  John Spiers CBE

  Norsk Kydro UK Ltd.

  Geoff Turnball MBE

  GT Group

  ACBE III, May 1996–September 1999

  David Davies

  Past Chairman and Chief Executive, Johnson Matthey plc

  Marcus Beresford

  GK N plc

  Henry Casley

  Southern Electric plc

  Rodney Chase

  British Petroleum plc

  Mike Clasper CBE

  Procter & Gamble Europe

  Vic Cocker

  Severn Trent Water plc

  Dr. Peter Doyle CBE

  Zeneca Group plc

  Anthony Greener

  Diageo plc

  Roy Harrison

  Tarmac plc

  Derek Higgs

  Prudential Portfolio Managers Ltd.

  Stephen Lusty

  Airmaster Environmental Engineering

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  Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment (ACBE)

  Dr. George Matthewson CBE

  Royal Bank of Scotland plc1

  Ian McAllister CBE

  Ford Motor Company Ltd.

  Sir Brian Moffat OBE

  British Steel plc

  Stuart Sweetman

  Post Office Counters

  Roger Taylor

  Sun Alliance

  Archie Norman

  ASDA Group plc2

  Adrian White

  Biwater Ltd.2

  ACBE IV, November 1999–September 2001

  Dr. Chris Fay

  Formerly of Shell UK Ltd.

  Gerry Acher

  KPMG

  Dr. Robin Bidwell

  ERM

  Vic Cocker

  Formerly of Severn Trent

  Rodney Chase

  BP Amoco

  Gordon Edge

  Generics Group

  Roy Gardner

  Centrica

  Sheila Hamilton

  Teknek Electronics

  Roy Harrison

  Formerly of Tarmac

  Richard Haythornwaite

  Blue Circle

  Ian McAllister CBE

  Ford Motor Company Ltd.

  Rob Margetts

  Huntsman Corporation

  Dee Razdan

  Adtranz

  Harry Skidmore

  Easi-bind International

  Ian Stephenson

  Johnson Matthey

  Stuart Sweetman

  Post Office Counters

  Tessa Tennant

  Formerly of Henderson Investors

  Dr. Alan Tillotson

  ARENA Network: Wales Environment Centre

  ACBE V. November 2001–September 2003

  Dr. Chris Fay OBE

  Formerly of Shell UK Ltd.

  Gerry Acher CBE

  KPMG

  Robin Bidwell CBE

  ERM

  Vic Cocker CBE

  WRAP

  Roy Gardner

  Centrica plc

  Richard Haythornthwaite

  Invensys

  Ian McAllister CBE

  Ford Motor Company Ltd.

  Dee Razdan

  Bombardier Transportation

  Harry Skidmore

  Easi-Bind International Ltd.

  Ian Stephenson

  Johnson Matthey

  Alan Tillotson

  Chief Executive. ARENA Network

  Nick Baldwin

  Powergen

  Tony Bastock OBE

  Contract Chemicals

  Colin Drummond

  Viridor Ltd.

  Linda McGoldrick

  Marsh-M MC

  Chris Mellor

  Anglian Water plc

  Lynne Meredith

  BAA

  Sir Nigel Mobbs

  Slough Estates plc

  Paul Morgan

  Roseberry Recycling Ltd.

  Peter Morgan

  Baltimore Technologies plc

  Prof. Ken Vowles OBE

  Executive Director International, Scottish Power

  1Resigned part way through this term.

  2Resigned part way through term.

  Business Insurance Costs
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what recent assessment she has made of the impact of insurance costs on the competitiveness of British industry. [91841]

  Nigel Griffiths
  In a recent 'omnibus' survey of SMEs for the Small Business Service, 28 per cent. of the sample said insurance was an issue for them, although only 3 per cent. said it was the greatest obstacle they faced (competition/sales was most frequently cited as the greatest obstacle, by 24 per cent. of firms).

  The Government also announced on 12 December 2002 details of a review of the operation of the Employers Liability Compulsory Insurance system, one of the objectives of which is to
  "Assess the scale and nature of the current difficulties being experienced in relation to ELCI, in particular the extent to which these difficulties are likely to be short-term only, repeated in the future or permanent."

  Miners' Compensation (Newton-le-Willows)
  Mr. Watts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many miners in Newton-le-Willows have received(a) offers and (b) final offer settlements for their white finger and pneumoconiosis claims. [91877]

  Mr. Wilson
  The figures are as follows:

  COPD

  VWF

  Number of full and final offers made

  68

  50

  Number of full and final settlements

  34

  37

  Note:

  Newton-le-Willows was defined using postcode WA 12.

  Consumer Credit Act
  Mr. David
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what plans she has to amend the Consumer Credit Act 1974; [92091]

  (2) what the scope is of her review of the Consumer Credit Act 1974; [92092]

  (3) when the Government intends to publish its review of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 [92093]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  In July 2001 I announced a review of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. As part of this review I have already published consultations to extend the provisions of the Act by removing the financial limit, to make the terms for early settlement of loans fairer to consumers and to enable agreements to be concluded on line.

  In August 2002 I published a progress report which can be found along with all other publications related to this review on the DTI website. This can be found on: http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics1/consumer_finance.htm

  I will be publishing further consultations on reviewing the licensing regime, the provisions on extortionate credit and on simplifying the advertising regulations.

  Credit Cards
  Mr. Lazarowicz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will introduce measures to require credit card providers to include a comparative box in their marketing material setting out the key features and costs of the credit cards they provide. [92565]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  A review of the Consumer Credit Act was announced in July 2001 and as part of this review I will be publishing a consultation on the simplification of the credit advertising regulations.

  In preparation for that, my Department is in regular discussion with the credit industry and consumer bodies on the calculation and advertising of APRs on credit cards, and the provision for other key information.

  Debt Management Companies
  Paul Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what measures she plans to introduce to ensure good practice among debt management companies; [91833]
  366W
  (2) what assessment she has made of the Office of Fair Trade's guidance for debt management companies and the level of protection they offer to consumers. [91834]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Companies providing debt management services, whether they charge or not, are required to be licensed under the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Under the Act the Director General of Fair Trading (DGFT) has a duty to ensure applicants for a licence are fit to engage in the activities for which they are licensed.

  In December 2001 the DGFT issued guidelines to debt management companies to ensure they deal fairly and openly with consumers—the Debt Management Guidance (December 2001). A copy of the guidance can be found in the Libraries of the House.

  The guidance requires that companies offering debt management services should comply with the best practice identified in it. Where the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has evidence of practices breaching the guidelines the DGFT can take action to refuse or revoke the consumer credit licence, or take such other action as appropriate under other legislation (e.g. Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations etc).

  I am satisfied that the guidance ensures consumers a good level of protection; and I am looking forward with interest to the results of the Compliance Review which the OFT is currently undertaking.

  Electricity Industry
  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what discussions she has had with Ofgem about modification P95A, P100, P102, P103 and P114 to the Balancing and Settlement Code; and if she will make a statement. [92353]

  Mr. Wilson
  The Governance Procedures for the industry Codes are under the locus of the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, Ofgem, as the independent regulator. I have not had discussions with the authority regarding these modification proposals.

  Modifications P102, P103 and PI14 to the Balancing and Settlement Code (BSC) are currently in the assessment phase. Following the assessment phase, the BSC panel will make a recommendation to the authority on whether the modifications better achieve the BSC objectives. At the BSC Panel meeting on the 16th January 2003, the Panel rejected modification P95A and recommended that modification P100 be made. The authority will now make a final decision on their implementation on the basis of the BSC objectives and their wider statutory obligations.

  Post Boxes
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the future of red post boxes in urban areas. [92179]

  Mr. Timms
  These are matters that fall within the day to day responsibility of Royal Mail and I have therefore asked the Chairman to reply direct to the hon. Member.

  New Cars
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how she intends to monitor the effect of the new EU block exemption regulations for the sale of motor vehicles that come into force on 1 October 2003. [92653]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  [holding answer 21 January 2003]The Department is in regular contact with businesses and representatives of the car retailing and servicing sector, and organisations representing the consumer interests, and will be working to ensure that if there is evidence that the new block exemption is being infringed, that evidence is brought to the attention of the relevant enforcement authority.

  The regulation places responsibility on the Commission to monitor its operation on a regular basis, and to report in May 2008. From May 2004, the regulation will also be enforced in the UK by the Office of Fair Trading under the new modernisation of enforcement of European Union Competition rules.

  Post Office Card Account
  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what consultation took place with the Department for Work and Pensions before the delay imposed on the issue of personal invitation documents for the post office card account. [91138]

  Mr. Timms
  Ministers and officials of the Department of Trade and Industry are working closely with colleagues from the Department for Work and Pensions on all aspects of the migration of benefits and pensions to ACT and the introduction of universal banking services.

  Postcodes
  Mr. Truswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what use her Department and its agencies make of postcode areas for(a) the collection and publication of data, (b) devising formulae for the distribution of grants and awards and (c) the delivery of services; and when such usages were last reviewed. [87740]

  Ms Hewitt
  This information is not held centrally by the Department and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. I have asked the relevant agencies to respond to my hon. Friend.

  Letter from A. Brimelow to Mr. Paul Truswell:

  HOUSE OF COMMONS PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS: 2002/563
  I am replying to your Parliamentary Question 563 tabled on 13 December 2002, about the use made of postcode areas for (a) the collection and publication of data, (b) devising formulae for distribution of grants and awards, (c) the delivery of services; and when such usages were last reviewed.
  The Patent Office publish an annual facts and figures booklet which includes a breakdown of the number of patent, trade mark and design applications filed and granted or registered by region based upon postcode data provided by the applicant. The Patent Office Search and Advisory Service also uses postcode analysis on an ad-hoc basis to answer general Intellectual Property enquiries made under that service. The last review was in 2001.
  We do not distribute grants or awards to our customers.
  368W
  Letter from Ms R. J. R. Anderson to Mr. Paul Truswell:

  PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION ON THE USE OF POST CODES
  As Chief Executive off the Radiocommunications Agency, I have been requested to reply directly to your question of 13 December 2002 to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
  The Radiocommunications Agency does not use post codes for (a) collecting or publicising data, other than for collecting customer addresses; or (b) devising formulae for the distribution of grants or awards. For (c) the delivery of services, the Agency only uses post codes as a customer search aid and for defining which of its national or regional offices has responsibility for particular customers.

  Letter from Dr. R. Heathcote to Mr. Paul Truswell, dated January 2003:
  RE: Review and use of postcode information for the data processing, distribution and delivery of services.
  You tabled a Parliamentary Question on 13 December 2002 to Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, concerning what use was made of post code areas for (a) the collection and publication of data, (b) devising of grants and awards and (c) the delivery of services; and when such usages were last reviewed. I have been asked to reply in respect of the Employment Tribunals Service (ETS), which is an executive agency of the DTI, providing the administrative support for the Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Great Britain.
  The ETS does not use postcode areas for the collection and publication of data. The agency's work does not involve devising formulae for the distribution of awards and grants, although the tribunals do make awards of compensation on the cases which they deal with, these are not determined according to postcode.
  Prior to 1996, each office had a regional boundary which was defined, with some exceptions, along county borders. These borders were realigned along postcode area boundaries as a result of the de-centralisation of the applications process. This meant that applications were sent direct to the appropriate office, according to the post code of the place where the applicant either worked or applied to work. Since then, changes to the boundaries between offices have been made to accommodate changing workloads particularly the opening of a new tribunal office at Watford in July 2000, whose regional area was carved out of neighbouring regions by transferring post code areas to it.
  Employment Tribunals in Scotland have retained their centralised system with all applications being sent to the Glasgow office, with cases then being generally assigned to a local office or hearing centre on the basis of the postcode of the applicant's home address. EAT has only two offices (London and Edinburgh) covering England & Wales and Scotland respectively, dealing with appeals split along the border between the two countries, not according to postcodes.
  The agency is presently undertaking a review of the distribution of workloads with regards to the geographical match between the origin of tribunal cases and the present spread of its 33 offices and hearing centre around the country. This review was initiated as a result of a recommendation contained within 'Moving Forward: the report of the Employment Tribunal System Taskforce'. A full copy of the taskforce report can be accessed at www.employmenttribunalsystemtaskforce.gov.uk The work that is currently being done in support of the analysis of postcodes will also consider public transport links to our existing network of offices.

  Letter from D. Flynn to Mr. Paul Truswell, dated 20 January 2003:
  The Secretary of State has asked me to respond to your question (2002/563) as to what use The Insolvency Service makes of postcode areas for (a) the collection and publication of data, (b) devising formulae for the distribution of grants and awards and (c) the delivery of services; and when such usages were last reviewed.

  369W
  The Insolvency Service has made no use of postcode areas for the collection and publication of data, devising formulae for the distribution of grant and awards or the delivery of services.

  Letter from Dr. J. W. Llewellyn to Mr. Paul Truswell:
  The Secretary for Trade and Industry has asked me to reply on behalf of the National Weights and Measures Laboratory (NWML) to your question on what use her Department and its Agencies makes of postcode areas for (a) the collection and publication of data, (b) devising formulae for the distribution of grants and awards and (c) the delivery of services; and when such usages were last reviewed.
  NWML does not use postcodes in any of the ways described.

  Letter from C. Clancy to Mr. Paul Truswell:
  I am responding on behalf of Companies House, Executive Agency to your Parliamentary Question on the Department of Trade and Industry's policy on the usage of postal code areas.
  Companies House does not make use of postcodes in the collection and publication of data or in devising formulae for the distribution of grants and awards.
  In the delivery of services, postcodes are used to target invitations for company directors and their professional advisers to attend regionally held seminars on directors' legal responsibilities under the Companies Act. This was last reviewed in February 2002. In the last twelve months they have also been used to target invitations to customers to take part in regionally based focus groups, where they can give face to face feedback on Companies House services and its relations with customers. It will be reviewed in April 2003.

  Rural Businesses (Broadband)
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what financial assistance her Department is providing to help small businesses in rural areas access broadband services. [91738]

  Mr. Timms
  I refer the right hon. Member to the reply that I gave him on 9 December 2002,Official Report, column 65W.

  Textile Industry
  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assistance she is giving to the textile industry in East Lancashire; and if she will make a statement. [91184]

  Mr. Timms
  Since 1997 in East Lancashire the Small Business Service (SBS) have made seven awards totalling £167,000 to textile firms under the Enterprise Grant Scheme. SBS have also established an ethnic apparel support group to help companies market their products and assist with their production capacity. The North West Development Agency is working with North West "TexNet", the Cluster Management Group for the textile industry, to identify further measures to sustain the industry and develop the cluster. NWDA will consider individual projects as they are brought forward and action as necessary.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

  A-Levels
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils and students sat A-levels in(a) French, (b) German, (c) Spanish and (d) Russian in each year since 1998. [91316]
  370W
  Mr. Miliband
  The number of pupils and students who were entered for A-levels in French, German, Spanish and Russian in years 1998 to 2001 are:

  Age

  17

  All ages

  1998

  French

  17,994

  20,622

  German

  8,088

  9,316

  Spanish

  3,969

  5,068

  Russian

  303

  534

  1999

  French

  16,163

  18,662

  German

  7,663

  8,916

  Spanish

  4,108

  5,233

  Russian

  293

  541

  2000

  French

  13,830

  16,049

  German

  6,706

  7,930

  Spanish

  3,933

  5,084

  Russian

  314

  538

  2001

  French

  14,149

  16,076

  German

  6,849

  7,901

  Spanish

  4,030

  5,046

  Russian

  285

  498

  Education Maintenance Allowance
  Mr. Flook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when 16 to 18-year-olds in Somerset will become entitled to Education Maintenance Allowance. [92180]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The national Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme will be available from September 2004 across the whole of England.

  In non-pilot areas such as Somerset, the first tranche of students who will be eligible to apply from that date will be those students who complete their compulsory education in the 2003–04 academic year. In existing pilot areas, EMA will continue to be available to all students age 16–19 (and in a small number of cases, age 20) in post-compulsory further education.

  Free Nursery Places
  Mr. Wood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what progress has been made towards meeting the 2004 target for having free nursery places available to all three year-olds; and for what reason such places are not yet available to all three year-olds. [89554]

  Maria Eagle
  Currently around 70 per cent. of three year-olds are able to access a free, part-time early education place. The 65 most deprived local education authorities already offer a free place to all three year-olds whose parents want one. The remaining authorities are responsible for devising eligibility criteria for the distribution of free places in their area according to social need.

  On 11 December 2002, Charles Clarke announced that all three year-olds will be entitled to receive a free place from April 2004. This is six months earlier than originally planned.
  371W
  It has been necessary to increase gradually the number of free early education places available for three year-olds in order to allow authorities time to build up the amount of provision in their areas.

  GCSEs
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils sat GCSEs in(a) French, (b) German, (c) Spanish and (d) Russian in each year since 1997. [91317]

  Mr. Miliband
  The number of pupils entered for GCSEs in French, German, Spanish and Russian in each of the five years since 1997 is as follows.

  Age

  15

  All ages

  1997

  French

  299,868

  313,013

  German

  126,170

  130,687

  Spanish

  33,594

  40,845

  Russian

  1,308

  1,895

  1998

  French

  301,253

  312,358

  German

  125,940

  129,674

  Spanish

  37,987

  44,575

  Russian

  1,167

  1,705

  1999

  French

  306,061

  316,742

  German

  128,491

  132,027

  Spanish

  38,705

  45,113

  Russian

  1,113

  1,655

  2000

  French

  308,032

  318,889

  German

  126,176

  129,696

  Spanish

  41,400

  47,935

  Russian

  1,230

  1,758

  2001

  French

  315,656

  326,065

  German

  129,098

  132,178

  Spanish

  44,692

  50,944

  Russian

  1,225

  1,801

  IT Equipment
  Dr. Palmer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on progress in providing teachers in Broxtowe with a laptop computer with internet access. [92004]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  In May 2002 Nottinghamshire LEA, responsible for Broxtowe, was allocated a total of £867,926 and latest records show the LEA has spent £828,360, purchasing 936 laptop computers. To date LEAs have been given £60 million to purchase laptop computers on behalf of their schools. So far over 60,000 laptops have been purchased.

  I announced on 9 January 2003 a £195 million extension of the Laptops for Teachers initiative to April 2006, making the total amount of funding £300 million. This will result in two thirds of all eligible teachers benefiting from personal access to a laptop computer over the four year period of this initiative. LEAs,
  372W
  including Nottinghamshire will receive a further allocation of Laptops for Teachers funding in May this year.

  Leadership Incentive Grant
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the administrative cost of the(a) introduction and (b) implementation of the leadership incentive grants; and if he will make a statement. [91525]

  Mr. Miliband
  [holding answer 20 January 2003]Our current estimate of costs for administering the Leadership Incentive Grant process this financial year is approximately £400,000 to cover the cost of promoting collaborative working between schools.

  For the next financial year we have provisionally set aside £1 million from the Targeted Improvement Grant to fund local activity in support of national funding of £175 million to schools.

  Rights of the Child
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to his answer of 19 December 2002,Official Report, column 976W, when he received a copy of the report on the United Kingdom by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. [90138]

  Mr. Denham
  The report was published on 4 October 2002, and I received a copy that day. The report was circulated to relevant Whitehall Departments on the same day.

  Teachers
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the average number of hours worked per week was for(a) teachers, (b) deputy head teachers, (c) head teachers and (d) all teachers in each year since 1997. [91522]

  Mr. Miliband
  [holding answer 20 January 2003]The information is as follows:

  (i) The only year between 1997–2002 for which information is available is 2000.

  Average number hours worked per week

  Grade

  Hours/week

  Heads

  59.1

  Deputy heads

  56.6

  Classroom teachers

  51.8

  All teachers

  52.8

  Source:

  2000 OME Teacher's Workload Diary Survey

  (ii) On 15 January, Government, employers and school work force unions signed a national Agreement that will raise standards and tackle work load by removing unnecessary bureaucracy and by transferring some of the administrative, clerical and managerial work currently undertaken by teachers to trained support staff, allowing teachers to focus on their core professional responsibilities.
  373W
  Schools will be supported by additional resources that will enable them to employ at least 10,000 more teachers and at least 50,000 more support staff during this Parliament.

  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of the working time of(a) teachers, (b) deputy head teachers, (c) head

  Proportion of time spent on activities by grade as at March 2000

  Percentage

  Heads

  Deputy Heads

  Classroom

  All Teachers

  Teaching

  5

  24

  34

  30

  Teaching related activity1

  17

  27

  30

  28

  Non-teaching related activity2

  78

  49

  36

  42

  Total

  100

  100

  100

  100

  1Teaching related activities include time spent for lesson preparation and planning, marking pupils work, writing reports, and reporting to parents and families. It also includes time spent on training.

  2Non-Teaching related activities include non-teaching contact, administrative work, staff management and other activities.

  Source:

  2000 OME Teacher's Workload Diary Survey

  (ii) On 15 January, Government, employers and school workforce unions signed a national agreement that will raise standards and tackle workload by removing unnecessary bureaucracy and by transferring some of the administrative, clerical and managerial work currently undertaken by teachers to trained support staff, allowing teachers to focus on their core professional responsibilities.

  Schools will be supported by additional resources that will enable them to employ at least 10,000 more teachers and at least 50,000 more support staff during this Parliament.

SCOTLAND

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many civil servants have been employed by(a) her Department and (b) each of its agencies and non-departmental bodies in each year from 1994–95 to 2002–03; and if she will make a statement. [92406]

  Mrs. Liddell
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given today by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office.

  Departmental Running Costs
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what the running costs were of the Department in(a) 1997 and (b) the most recent year for which figures are available. [90752]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The Scotland Office was established in its present form on 1 July 1999.

  Details of the Department's administration costs are set out in the Departmental Reports and Resource Accounts of the Department.
  374W
  teachers and (d) all teachers was spent on (i) teaching, (ii) other teaching related tasks and (iii) non-teaching related tasks in each year since 1997. [91523]

  Mr. Miliband
  [holding answer 20 January 2003]The information is as follows:

  (i) The only year between 1997–2002 for which information is available is 2000.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what her estimate is of the number of permanent staff in the Scotland Office in each year from 1999–2000 to 2003–04; if she will give the reasons underlying any change in staff numbers; and if she will make a statement. [90377]

  Mrs. Liddell
  Details of staff numbers from 1999–2000 to 2003–04 plans are set out in the Scotland Office Departmental Report 2002.

  The Department was established in its current form on 1 July 1999. Since that time the Department has sought to recruit the staff it requires to meet its objectives and to carry out efficiently and effectively the work it is asked to do.

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many full time equivalent staff there were at the Scotland Office in each year since 1999–2000. [90446]

  Mrs. Liddell
  Details of staff numbers since 1999–2000 are set out in the Scotland Office Departmental Report for 2002.

  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland pursuant to her answer of 19 December 2002, to the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait),Official Report, column 915W, what the Scotland Office's (a) current staffing level and (b) full staffing level is; and when she expects her Department to reach its optimum staffing level. [91028]

  Mrs. Liddell
  [holding answer 16 January 2003]My Department, which includes the Office of the Advocate General for Scotland, currently has 122 staff in post and we are planning to reach 130 staff during the course of 2003–04. Staffing levels are reviewed annually.

  External Consultants
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what the total cost to her Department was of the use of external consultants in 2002. [90501]

  Mrs. Liddell
  In 2001–02, my Department spent £17,484 on external consultants. Details for the current financial year are not yet available.

  Theft/Fraud
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much money has been lost by her Department and its agencies and non-departmental public bodies through(a) fraud and (b) theft in each year since 1996–97. [92485]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The Scotland Office was established in its present form on 1 July 1999.

  The cost of theft to the department in 1999–2000 was estimated at £2,200. Since then, no cases of theft or fraud have been reported to the department.

  Heritage Assets
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what sales of heritage assets and antique assets have been made by her Department since May 1997; if she will list other assets; and if she will estimate the total sales proceeds. [92408]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The Scotland Office was established in its present form on 1 July 1999. Since that date, the department has not sold any assets.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Adoption and Children Bill
  Vera Baird
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, when the new draft court rules to support the Adoption and Children Bill will be made available for consultation. [91839]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  The Adoption and Children Bill received Royal Assent on 7 November 2002. The Adoption and Children Act was published on 9 December 2002 with explanatory notes following in early January 2003.

  I, and Ministerial colleagues here and in Department of Health, are considering plans for implementation of the Act.

  Full implementation is anticipated by the end of 2004. However, some elements such as the definition of "harm" in relation to domestic violence are expected sooner. We expect to consult on an amendment to the Family Proceedings Rules 1991 (DomesticViolence) this spring.

  Annual Report
  Norman Lamb
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, how much producing the Lord Chancellor's Department's latest annual report cost; how many copies were printed; how many 376W
  copies of it were sold at its cover price; to whom copies of the report have been provided free of charge; and how many copies were provided free of charge. [90886]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  My Department was charged a total of £48,710.50 by The Stationery Office Ltd. (TSO) for publication of our latest annual report. The total number of copies of the report printed, as opposed to those supplied to my Department under the terms of the contract, is a matter of commercial judgment by TSO and not disclosed to us. I understand 362 copies of the report have been sold at the cover price of £23.50. My Department was supplied with a further 1,250 copies under the terms of our contract with TSO. Approximately 1,150 of these were distributed internally (including to our agencies and sister Departments) with the balance being used for promotional purposes. The report is also available to view on my Department's website (www.lcd.gov.uk/deprep0102/index.htm).

  Royal Appointments
  Margaret Moran
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if she will list the(a) roles and ranks, (b) purpose and (c) cost of royal appointments in (i) the UK and (ii) Bedfordshire. [91083]

  The Prime Minister
  I am replying to this question as it relates to matters for which I am responsible.

  The Lord-Lieutenant of a county or metropolitan area is the permanent local representative of The Monarch. The duties of the post include attending on Royalty during official visits to the county, performing certain duties in connection with the armed forces, and making presentations of honours and awards on behalf of The Monarch. Lord-Lieutenants also play an important role in supporting and encouraging voluntary and community activities in their areas. In the shire counties the Lord-Lieutenant has leadership of the local magistracy as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Justices of the Peace, and in carrying out the duties of the Keeper of the Rolls. There are 47 Lord-Lieutenants in England. The expenditure of Lord-Lieutenants for the financial year 2001–02 was approximately £758,700. The Lord-Lieutenant for Bedfordshire did not submit a claim for 2001–02.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Construction Industry Training Levy
  Mr. Donaldson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans he has to equalise the company wage bill threshold level at which the construction industry training levy becomes payable. [91851]

  Jane Kennedy
  The Construction Industry Training Board is funded through a statutory levy which is based on the payroll costs of companies within its scope. Small companies are exempted from the levy. The level of exemption from payment of levy is included in the annual Levy Order, made by the Department on advice from the Board.
  377W
  The levy threshold level, which is currently set at £15,000 payroll cost, applies equally to all companies within the scope of the Construction Industry Training Board. The levy threshold in Great Britain, which is set at £61,000, reflects the respective Boards.

  The Department has no plans to alter this threshold, but will continue to review the situation with the CITB when proposals for a Levy Order come forward.

  Corporal Punishment
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when the Office of Law Reform will complete its analysis of the responses to the public consultation on 'Physical Punishment in the Home-Thinking About the Issues, Looking at the Evidence'. [90456]

  Mr. Pearson
  The consultation process, the largest the Office of Law Reform has undertaken, drew a wealth of responses. In all, some 1,700 people expressed their views in one way or another. Analysing these has taken some time, but the Office is now in the later stages of preparing a report on the consultation process containing this analysis.

  Exam Results
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what percentage of children in(a) Northern Ireland and (b) England achieved A*-C grades at GCSE in all three core subjects in each of the last five years. [91577]

  Jane Kennedy
  The information is as follows:

  (a) Figures for 2001–02 are not yet available.

  The percentages of all 15-year-olds achieving grades A*-C in all three core subjects (English, Mathematics and a Science) were as follows:

  Percentage

  1996–97

  41

  1997–98

  39

  1998–99

  41

  1999–2000

  42

  2000–01

  42

  (b) The Department for Education and Skills will provide this information.

  Killyleagh High School
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the plans for the former Killyleagh High School premises. [91927]

  Jane Kennedy
  I understand that no formal decision has yet been taken on the future use of the former Killyleagh High School premises, although the matter is to be considered shortly by the South Eastern Education and Library Board.

  Landfill Directive
  David Burnside
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what financial assistance will be given 378W
  to district councils to assist with the costs of implementing EC Directive 1999/31 on the landfill of waste. [92276]

  Angela Smith
  Waste Management Plans prepared by district councils in Northern Ireland are a key element of the Government's strategy for implementing EU Directive 1999/31 on landfill of waste. These plans will provide a network of facilities for the segregation, reprocessing and treatment of waste, resulting in its diversion from landfill.

  To facilitate the preparation and implementation of their plans, the Department of the Environment provided district councils with grant aid of £2 million in 2001–02 and £3.6 million in 2002–03. An indicative sum of £6.4 million has been set aside for 2003–04 for this purpose. As a result of the 2002 Spending Review, it is expected that this level of grant aid will at least be maintained up to 2005–06.

  David Burnside
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what penalties will be placed on local authorities and site operators who do not comply with the EC Directive 1999/31 on the landfill of waste. [92279]

  Angela Smith
  The Landfill Directive contains two separate components—targets for reducing the amount of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) going to landfill and the introduction of detailed regulatory requirements in relation to the design, operation and aftercare of sites.

  The Waste and Emissions Trading Bill, currently before Parliament, sets the framework for the introduction of local authority landfill allowances schemes in each of the four territories of the UK to ensure that the BMW targets are met. The Bill permits allocating authorities (in the case of NI, the Department of the Environment) to make regulations setting the level of penalties and supplementary penalties where a local authority has breached its landfill allowance or has failed to maintain prescribed records, make prescribed returns etc. Penalties are automatic, but allocating authorities may extend the time for paying any penalty (including interest) or relieve a local authority, whether or not subject to conditions, from liability to the whole or any part of a penalty (including interest).

  The Bill also provides for penalties to be imposed on landfill site operators who fail to maintain prescribed records, make prescribed returns etc The penalties are stated on the face of the Bill and include fines and/or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

  In Northern Ireland, a consultation exercise on options for meeting the BMW targets has just ended and an analysis of responses is under way. If this shows support for a system of district council landfill allowances, the provisions of the Bill in relation to penalties will be applied.

  The Department of the Environment proposes to consult on the regulatory requirements of the Directive, including penalties, later this year.

  Planning Applications
  Mr. Peter Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many planning applications submitted to the Department have not been determined
  379W
  after (a) three, (b) six, (c) nine and (d) 12 months; and for those over 12 months, how long it is since they were first submitted. [91366]

  Angela Smith
  The total number of planning applications received by the Planning Service has increased from 19,771 in 1997–98 to 24,504 in 2001–02, an increase of 24 per cent. within five years. The result of this continuing increase has been an increase in the numbers of live applications in the system. At 31 December 2002, there were 11,361 live applications.

  Planning Service is committed to reducing the numbers of live applications, and in order to deal with this significant increase in workload, additional staff have been put in place and further staff are currently being recruited.

  Of the 11,361 live applications at 31 December 2002:

  5,305 were submitted three months or less ago;

  2,203 were submitted between three and six months ago;

  1,239 were submitted between six and nine months ago;

  637 were submitted between nine and 12 months ago; and

  1,977 were submitted over a year ago.

  Aggregating these figures to deal with the specific questions:

  6,056 applications have not been determined after three months;

  3,853 applications have not been determined after six months;

  2,614 applications have not been determined after nine months; and

  1,977 applications have not been determined after 12 months.

  Of the 1,977 applications older than 12 months:

  375 were submitted between 12 and 15 months ago;

  224 were submitted between 15 and 18 months ago;

  216 were submitted between 18 and 21 months ago; and

  177 were submitted between 21 and 24 months ago, with the remaining 985 older than two years.

  The number of cases live for longer than two years include major applications being processed under the Article 31 procedure and other contentious cases. Article 31 cases include applications which have led to public inquiries or hearings before the Planning Appeals Commission, and applications which require the submission of an Environmental Statement. The processing of other contentious cases is often extended where Planning Service is involved in protracted discussions with applicants, local communities and elected representatives in order to seek acceptable solutions to matters causing local concern.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Work-related Illness
  Mrs. Calton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the number of days lost from the UK workplace due to stress; and if he will make a statement. [88243]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  Estimates from the 2001–02 survey of Self-reported Work-related Illness indicate that self-reported work-related stress, depression or anxiety account for thirteen and a half million reported lost working days per year in Britain.
  380W
  The statistics highlight the importance of tackling work-related stress, which the Health and Safety Commission has recognised by developing a strategy and priority programme of work. So far the Commission has published guidance to help managers and employers undertake a stress risk assessment; commissioned and published research about the evidence linking different factors in the workplace with stress; commissioned research on best practice interventions in dealing with work-related stress (which will be published in the spring); launched new web pages to provide a forum for sharing best practice; and begun the important job of developing standards of good management practice. These standards will provide the yardstick by which organisations can gauge their performance in tackling a range of key stressors.

  Adviser Discretion Fund
  Sir. Archy Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many payments have been made yearly from the Adviser Discretion Fund; and how many of these payments have gone to help pay for advance childcare deposits or other childcare costs in(a) Scotland and (b) the UK. [90764]

  Maria Eagle
  Information on the number of awards made through the adviser discretion fund since its introduction in July 2001 is in the table.

  Total number of Adviser Discretion Fund awards

  Scotland

  GB1

  2001 (from July)

  15,205

  49,819

  2002 (up to November)

  19,441

  173,778

  Total

  34,646

  223,597

  Information on all the goods and services the Adviser Discretion Fund has helped to purchase is not collected centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, the following table gives information under broad headings on the type of goods and services purchased using the Adviser Discretion Fund by people who have started work after receiving an award from the fund.

  Type of goods or services purchased

  Proportion of the number of awards provided to people who have moved into work (percentage)2

  Help with clothes purchase

  52

  Help with travel fares

  20

  Help buying tools

  6

  Help with training/certificates

  2

  Help overcoming other barriers

  20

  1Employment services in Northern Ireland are the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Office.

  2This information cannot be broken down by country.

  Source:

  Jobcentre Plus

  Departmental Expenditure (Newsprint)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the total expenditure of his Department was on newspapers, magazines and periodicals in 2002. [90516]
  381W
  Mr. McCartney
  The Department's total expenditure on newspapers, magazines and periodicals in 2002 was approximately £173,000. Subscriptions may also be taken at local level and information about these is not collected centrally.

  Employment Zone Model
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his oral answer to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy), of 13 January,Official Report, column 393, on the economically inactive, if he will make a statement on the Government's plans for the future of the employment zone model. [91615]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  The performance of the 15 employment zones is encouraging, and they have already helped over 29,000 long-term unemployed people from deprived areas move into work.

  From October 2003 we are extending the employment zone approach to lone parents and New Deal returners in existing zone areas. We want to see how well the employment zone approach translates to this wider client group. From April 2004 we also intend to test a multiple provider approach in some employment zone areas.

  We are continuing to look at the lessons we can learn from employment zones and how these can be put to use in the longer term.

  Jobs Transition Service
  John Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on the work of the Jobs Transition Service. [89050]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  We have introduced the Rapid Response Service, formerly known as the Job Transition Service, to provide support for people affected by redundancies and help them make the transition into sustainable new jobs. The nature of the help provided by the service is tailored to the needs of the individuals, the employer and the local labour market. This can include offering information, advice and guidance to those affected, help with jobsearch, facilitating retraining where necessary or developing customised retraining programmes. People affected by redundancy can also have early access to Jobcentre Plus programmes such as the New Deals and Work Based Learning for Adults.

  In Scotland the Rapid Response Service builds on and complements the work already undertaken by the Scottish Executive's Partnership Action for Continued Employment (PACE) initiative. Training provision for individuals involved in a large scale redundancy in Scotland is normally met by PACE partnerships or Training for Work (TfW). However, the Rapid Response Service can provide specific, job-focused training in cases where TfW or PACE partnership support is not appropriate. The Rapid Response Service also provides its full range of non-training services in cases of major redundancies in Scotland.

  By December 2002, the Rapid Response Service nationally had provided support to over 200 companies and made its services available to over 67,000 people facing redundancy.

  New Deal
  Mr. Clelland
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people in(a) Newcastle upon Tyne and (b) Gateshead have been assisted by the New Deal. [89530]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  The available information is in the table.

  Total number of programme participants1

  Newcastle upon Tyne2

  Gateshead2

  New Deal for Young People (from January 1998)

  7,930

  4,570

  New Deal 25 plus (from July 1998)

  6.560

  3,260

  New Deal for Lone Parents (from July 1998)

  1,710

  1,140

  New Deal 50 plus (Employment Credit claims) (from April 2000)

  440

  370

  1Up to end of September 2002.

  2Local authority areas.

  Note:

  The information is not available at local authority level for the New Deal for Disabled People and New Deal for Partners.

  Source:

  New Evaluation Database.

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) pursuant to his answer of 19 December 2002, refs 88095, 88096 and 88138, on the New Deal Environment Task Force, if he will list the amount of the under spend in each financial year to 2002–03; [89862]

  (2) pursuant to his answer of 19 December 2002, refs 88095, 88096 and 88138, on the New Deal Environment Task Force, if he will list the other welfare to work initiatives that have been supported by the under spend against the original assumptions for the Environment Task Force; and if he will list the (a) additional amount spent as a result of the under spend on the Environment Task Force, (b) planned total spending and (c) actual expenditure in each financial year to 2002–03 for each such initiative. [89870]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  Information on under spends and their re-allocation is not available for individual New Deal Options, because while records are kept on the annual expenditure on each New Deal for Young People Option, annual budgets are not allocated on that basis. The purpose of the New Deal is to help young people move into work by meeting their individual needs. Therefore, an overall budget is allocated to Jobcentre Plus districts, which is then used as required to meet this objective.

  My answer of 19 December to the hon. Member, Official Report, column 1031W, refers to expenditure and under spends across the New Deal for Young People which have been re-allocated to support other welfare to work initiatives. For example, at the time of the 1998 Budget, it was estimated that £2.620 billion Windfall Tax would be spent on the New Deal for Young People by March 2002. Actual expenditure on the programme during this period was £1.190 billion, freeing funds for new initiatives such as Action Teams for Jobs and the permanent establishment of the New Deals.

  Information on the allocation of the Windfall Tax to welfare to work initiatives is in the pre-Budget report published in November 2002. This is available in the Library.
  383W
  Ms Christine Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many young people in the City of Chester have been helped into jobs by the New Deal. [90281]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  Up to the end of September 2002, the New Deal had helped nearly 400,000 young people into work, including 374 in the City of Chester.

  Pension Income
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the average pension income was in each year since 1997. [93077]

  Mr. McCartney
  The average incomes of pensioners is in the table.

  £ per week

  Average pension income

  Year

  All pensioner units

  Pensioner couples

  Single pensioners

  1997–98

  196

  280

  143

  1998–99

  201

  285

  148

  1999–2000

  209

  291

  155

  2000–01

  215

  301

  160

  Notes:

  1. All incomes are £ per week and at 2000–01 prices.

  2. The average incomes quoted are net incomes before housing costs, which measures the net incomes before a reduction for the cost of housing.

  3. Pensioners are defined as: single (no-cohabiting) people over state pension age (65 for men and 60 for women) and couples (married or cohabiting) where the man, who is defined as the head of the couple is aged 65 and over.

  Source:

  Pensioners' Incomes Series, 2000/1

  Sickness Absence
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many days were lost due to sickness absence in the Department in 2002. [90535]

  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many working days were lost due to illness in his Department in(a) 2002 and (b) each of the preceding five years. [90742]

  Mr. McCartney
  The information is not available in the form requested. Statistics for the DWP are available from April 2002.

  The number of days lost due to sickness absence between 1 April 2002 and 30 November 2002 is 1,113,333.9 days. Using this figure, the average number of working days lost due to sickness for this period equates to 12.2 days per person.

  Statutory Instruments
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many statutory instruments were issued by the Department of Social Security in each calendar year since its formation; and how many have been issued by his Department since June 2001. [89848]

  Angela Eagle
  The information is in the table.
  384W

  Year

  Statutory instruments issued

  Department for Social Security

  25 July 1988 to 31 December 1988

  26

  1989

  61

  1990

  83

  1991

  83

  1992

  85

  1993

  73

  1994

  72

  1995

  80

  1996

  145

  1997

  90

  1998

  61

  1999

  90

  2000

  110

  1 January 2001 to 7 June 2001

  70

  Department for Work and Pensions

  8 June 2001 to 31 December 2001

  38

  1 January 2002 to 31 December 2002

  98

  Thames Gateway
  Jon Cruddas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the extra resources required to support the growth and development of new communities in the Thames Gateway area; what discussions he has had with other Government Departments in relation to supporting the growth and development of new communities in the Thames Gateway; and what resources he has allocated to support the growth and development of new communities in the Thames Gateway. [90426]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  We are supporting deprived areas in the Thames Gateway through a variety of initiatives designed to help people furthest from the labour market find and keep jobs. These include the new deal for communities, action teams for jobs, employment zones, and the minority ethnic outreach service. The costs of this work are met from the overall budgets for these programmes.

  We are working closely with partners in these Thames Gateway areas to ensure that the problems faced by people in the poorest communities are tackled in an intensive and co-ordinated way.

  Winter Fuel Payment
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what his projections are of(a) the cash level and (b) the level at 2001–02 prices of the winter fuel allowance in (i) 2007–08, (ii) 2011–12 and (iii) 2021–22. [90125]

  Mr. McCartney
  The winter fuel payment was introduced in 1997–78 at £20 for each eligible household and £50 for those on income support or income-based jobseeker's allowance. It was increased to £100 for winter 1999–2000 and to the current rate of £200 for each eligible household in winter 2000–01.

  This amount will continue to be paid for the rest of this Parliament, but we will keep the rate under review.

  Workplace Health and Safety
  Mr. Barry Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his answer of
  385W
  11 December, Official Report, column 379W, on workplace health and safety, what the cost was to the Exchequer of work-place accidents and illnesses for the most recent year for which figures are available. [90017]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  The most recent year for which figures are available is 1995–96. I refer the hon. member to the answer I gave him on 1 1 December 2002,Official Report, volume 396, column 379W.

HEALTH

  Brachytherapy Treatment
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if it is his policy to support the introduction of brachytherapy treatment facilities by hospital trusts; [91274]

  (2) what his policy is to eliminate the differential availability of brachytherapy for prostate cancer patients in different parts of the country; [91275]

  (3)if he will make a statement on the efficiency of brachytherapy as a treatment for certain prostate cancers; and if he will list those primary care trusts which are known to his Department (a) to fund and (b) to refuse to fund brachytherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer; [91277]

  (4) what guidance he has issued to PCTs on the desirability of (a) their determining which prostate cancer sufferers should be funded for brachytherapy treatment and (b) their allocating cancer treatment funds en bloc to hospital trusts for them to determine which patients should receive funding for brachytherapy. [91278]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answers 21 January 2003]The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) recently published guidance on the organisation and delivery of services for people with urological cancers, including prostate cancer. The guidance states that the option of brachytherapy should be discussed with men with early prostate cancer.

  However, the NICE guidance also acknowledges that the place of brachytherapy in the treatment of prostate cancer is uncertain and notes the importance of research to evaluate the effectiveness of brachytherapy for prostate cancer. The guidance refers to a randomised intergroup trial comparing brachytherapy with radical surgery that is being organised by the National Cancer Institute of Canada and the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group and strongly encourages United Kingdom participation in this study. As a result, the Department is making £900,000 available through the National Cancer Research Network (NCRN) to enable national health service patients to enter this trial. The National Cancer Research Institute Prostate Cancer Clinical Studies Group and the NCRN are working closely together to take this trial forward in the NHS.

  No guidance has been issued to primary care trusts (PCTs) on the allocation of funding for brachytherapy treatment. We are devolving power from the centre to enable PCTs to use the extra resources for the NHS to
  386W
  deliver on both national and local priorities for their communities, accounting publicly for how they have used them.

  It is not possible to list which PCTs fund brachytherapy, as this information is not collected centrally. Decisions on this treatment are a matter for the clinician and funding authority concerned and should be made in the light of all the available evidence.

  As more evidence on the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of brachytherapy becomes available, the Department will consider whether this treatment is a suitable topic for referral to NICE as a technology appraisal.

  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the refusal of the New Forest Primary Care Trust to offer brachytherapy treatment for prostate cancer. [91276]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 21 January 2003]The decision on whether or not to commission brachytherapy for local patients is currently a matter for individual primary care trusts (PCTs). Brachytheraphy is a comparatively new therapy, for which there is currently a limited evidence base which many clinicians regard as inconclusive.

  Local PCTs recognise the need to consider very carefully whether to provide a treatment for which the National Institute for Clinical Excellence has asserted that more research on effectiveness is needed.

  In view of this, and the understandable desire of patients for brachytherapy, concerted work is currently underway through the central south coast cancer network to review this treatment and agree a way forward for local health services. This process of review is currently underway and is expected to conclude before the end of the financial year.

  Cancer Funds
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what items of expenditure he has included in his tracking exercise for earmarked cancer funds; [91940]

  (2) when he will publish the results of his investigation into the destination of money earmarked for cancer in (a) 2001–02 and (b) 2002–03. [91939]

  Ms Blears
  We have asked strategic health authorities to identify total additional investment in cancer services, with a sub total for cancer drugs and supporting information on new service developments.

  Further details are available at http://www.doh.gov.uk/cancer/trackinginvestment.htm

  We intend to publish the results in late spring 2003.

  Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Syndrome
  Helen Southworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent evaluation his Department has made of the incidence of carbon monoxide poisoning syndrome. [91606]

  Ms Blears
  The Department does not routinely collect information on the incidence of carbon monoxide poisoning.
  387W
  Information that the Department evaluates is taken from the other Government Departments and the National Poisons Information service.

  Helen Southworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action his Department is taking to ensure effective(a) diagnosis, (b) treatment and (c) rehabilitation for people suffering chronic effects of carbon monoxide poisoning syndrome. [91610]

  Ms Blears
  In February 2002, the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Nursing Officer published a letter Carbon Monoxide: The Forgotten Killer. This letter pulled together the most current information available on carbon monoxide and was forwarded to community nurses, midwives, health visitors and general practitioners. The letter gives instruction on how to diagnose carbon monoxide poisoning as well as how to manage patients who may display symptoms of poisoning.

  The Department has also forwarded a videotape, prepared for the Health and Safety Executive, to all GP surgeries. This tape again highlights the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning and gives advice to medical practitioners on how to diagnose possible poisoning cases.

  The Department has supported and continues to support voluntary organisations through the Section 64 Grants to Voluntary Organisations Scheme. These organisations provide support and advice for people and their families who have been affected by carbon monoxide poisoning.

  Officials in the Department have also published two papers in scientific journals that discuss carbon monoxide poisoning and in particular how exposure to long-term, low concentrations of carbon monoxide can affect health. The Department has also included a research project on carbon monoxide in its most recent programme of research in the air pollution field. The results of this project will be made available to the public on completion.

  Cardiac Resuscitation
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of patients suffering cardiac arrests were resuscitated by ambulance staff, in each ambulance trust area in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [91587]

  Mr. Lammy
  This information is not collected centrally.

  Chronic Heart Disease
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many primary care practices have chronic heart disease management registers. [88750]

  Ms Blears
  The development of practice-based registers of people with coronary heart disease (CHD) is a milestone under the national service framework (NSF) for coronary heart disease. We are not collecting data on all aspects of implementation of the NSF centrally and the national focus has been on monitoring the immediate priorities. Progress towards the milestones is being monitored locally by strategic health authorities.
  388W
  Evidence from the Primary Care and CHD collaboratives suggests that most practices have registers in place. In due course, the Commission for Health Improvement will provide an independent assessment of progress, including a specific review of the NSF for CHD.

  Commission for Health Improvement
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many employees there are in the Commission for Health Improvement. [91073]

  Mr. Lammy
  The number of people employed by the Commission for Health Improvement totals 328.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many full-time equivalent staff are employed in(a) the Department and (b) each of the agencies it sponsors; and what the figures were for 1997. [90673]

  Mr. Lammy
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, 16 January 2003,Official Report, column 697W.

  Drug Rehabilitation (Kent)
  Mr. Norman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many registered drug addicts there were in(a) Tunbridge Wells and (b) Kent in each of the past five years. [92110]

  Ms Blears
  Following the closure of the Home Office Addicts Index in 1997, the regional drug misuse databases were the main source of information on persons presenting to drug treatment services with a drug problem. Information is available by health authority (HA) area and is shown in the table.

  Number of users reported as presenting for treatment for drug

  misuse in East Kent and West Kent Has during the six month

  periods ending 30 September 1996 to 31 March 2001

  Six month period ending

  East Kent HA

  West Kent HA

  Total

  September 1996

  106

  356

  462

  March 1997

  57

  296

  353

  September 1997

  105

  196

  301

  March 1998

  20

  195

  215

  September 1998

  14

  222

  236

  March 1999

  63

  132

  195

  September 1999

  132

  116

  248

  March 2000

  180

  288

  468

  September 2000

  174

  284

  458

  March 2001

  162

  201

  363

  Notes:

  1. Reporting to the Regional Drug Misuse Databases was voluntary; changes in the numbers of users presenting may, at least in part, be due to changes in reporting practice.

  2. Following NHS reorganisation in 2002, East Kent and West Kent health authorities became part of the Kent and Medway strategic health authority.

  Source:

  The Department of Health series of Statistical Bulletins "Statistics from the regional Drug Misuse Databases". Bulletins for the six months ending March 1998 onwards are available on the internet at: http://www.doh.gov.uk/publiciwork public health.htm£SDD
  389W
  Mr. Norman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many drug rehabilitation places were available to registered drug addicts in(a) Tunbridge Wells and (b) Kent in each of the past five years. [92117]

  Ms Blears
  In the case of residential rehabilitation, places are often purchased at a residential centre that may be outside the drug misuser's area of residence. Some social services agree to fund long distance placements with the agreement of the drug misusers so that he or she can be removed from the area where they are involved in drug using. Purchasing decisions are entirely a matter for agreement between the drug misusers and the local agencies.

  Food Additives
  Mr. Hendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent assessment he has made of the effect of food colourings on the behaviour of children. [92335]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 21 January 2003]The Committee on Toxicity of Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) assessed a recent study investigating the possible effects of food colourings on the behaviour of children. COT considered that, while the research findings were consistent with the published reports, it was not possible to reach any firm conclusions about the significance of the observed effects.

  The Food Standards Agency subsequently established a working group to advise on the feasibility of further research. The group held its first meeting on 13 December 2002 and is expected to conclude its work this spring.

  Haemophilia
  Mr. Connarty
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether recombinant treatment products will be made available this year to all haemophilia sufferers in(a) England and (b) Northern Ireland. [91283]

  Ms Blears
  In England, all haemophilia patients up to the age of 21 years receive recombinant clotting factors. The Government are considering the case for extending provision to all other haemophilia patients. A decision will be made shortly.

  Recombinant clotting factors have recently been made available for all haemophilia patients in Northern Ireland.

  Health Services (Norfolk)
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many members of the Commission for Health Improvement attended the scrutiny sessions of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital in 2002; and what was the cost of the visit; [91071]

  (2) how many members of the Commission for Health Improvement attended the scrutiny sessions of the Norfolk Mental Health Trust in 2002; and what the cost was. [91072]

  Mr. Lammy
  Teams carrying out clinical governance reviews are multidisciplinary. Each team normally comprises: a doctor. a nurse, a national health service manager, a lay member and another clinical professional who is not a doctor or a nurse; for example, a pharmacist or physiotherapist. A Commission for Health 390W
  Improvement (CHI) review manager co-ordinates the team's work and a team of analysts collate and analyse data about the trust.

  CHI has commenced a clinical governance review of Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust. The review week is on 20 January 2003. The review team will comprise:

  one medical doctor;

  one nurse;

  one clinical professional who is not a doctor or nurse;

  one lay person;

  one manager; and

  one other.

  CHI conducted a clinical governance review of Norfolk Mental Health NHS Trust between July and December 2002. The CHI review team that visited Norfolk Mental Health NHS Trust comprised eight members:

  one lay member;

  one mental health service user reviewer;

  two occupational therapists;

  three mental health specialists; and

  one manager.

  The average cost of a clinical governance review from start to publication of the clinical governance review report ranges between £159,000 for an acute trust and 229,000 for a mental health trust. The difference in cost is due to the team size. The mental health review uses more reviewers and service users.

  Healthy Start Scheme
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will announce the results of his consultation on the Healthy Start proposals; whether the Healthy Start Scheme will maintain the value of benefit to mothers who choose to bottle-feed their babies; and how many mothers and children he estimates will be eligible for the Healthy Start Scheme in each of the next five years. [91074]

  Ms Blears
  The Department intends to publish a summary of healthy start consultation responses in spring 2003.

  The numbers of mothers and children eligible for the welfare food scheme will continue to be determined by the number of families which are in receipt of qualifying income-based benefits, and the numbers of children who receive day care from eligible providers.

  Decisions about the proposed reformed scheme will not be taken until the results of the consultation have been fully assessed.

  Herbal Medicines
  Dr. Evan Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information his Department collates on the number of adverse events in relation to(a) herbal medicines and (b) dietary supplements. [91127]

  Ms Blears
  The Medicines Control Agency/ Committee on Safety of Medicines (MCA/CSM) Yellow Card Scheme collates reports of suspected adverse reactions to medicines. The scheme was
  391W
  extended to include unlicensed herbal remedies in October 1996. The MCA also collates reports of suspected adverse reactions to vitamins and minerals.

  In addition, the MCA collates information on the safety of medicines, including unlicensed herbal remedies and vitamins and minerals from the published literature (such as the recent article in the "Lancet" on 11 January 2003), from other regulatory authorities and from external bodies such as Guy's Hospital medical toxicology unit.

  A number of articles have been published in the CSM/ MCA drug safety bulletin, "Current Problems in Pharmacovigilance", drawing attention to adverse reactions associated with the use of herbal remedies and encouraging reporting through the Yellow Card Scheme.

  Herbal medicines and vitamin and mineral supplements are often supplied without prescription, and are taken without advice from doctors or pharmacists. It is generally recognised that the reporting rate for medicines supplied over the counter (OTC) is lower than that of suspected adverse reactions associated with prescription medicines. To increase reporting of suspected adverse reactions with OTC medicines, the Yellow Card Scheme has recently been extended to include nurses as reporters, and will be extended to include patient reporting via NHS Direct in the near future.

  Hospital Food
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the answer of 7 January 2003,Official Report, column 181W, what proportion of trusts make no use of leading chef dishes. [91589]

  Mr. Lammy
  Through the Better Hospital Food programme. acute hospital trusts were asked to include three leading chef dishes in their menus each day.

  Information collected from the national health service does not differentiate between hospitals which have included no leading chef dishes in their menus and those which have included fewer than three. It is therefore not possible to provide an accurate number of trusts which have made no use of these dishes.

  Hospital Hygiene
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidelines he has issued on the use of alcoholic hand gels in the prevention of the spread of noroviruses; and if he will make a statement. [91129]

  Ms Blears
  Evidence based guidelines on the general principles for preventing healthcare associated infection were commissioned and funded by the Department and published in January 20011. These guidelines include the standard principles for hand hygiene and use of alcoholic hand rubs to decontaminate hands.

  Chief Executives of NHS trusts were recently reminded that the incidence of gastro-enteritis increases at this time of the year and that they may wish to consult published guidance on managing outbreaks due to norovirus, previously referred to as small round structured viruses or Norwalk-like viruses2.
  392W1Journal of Hospital Infection (2001) 47(Supplement): SI doi:10.1053/jhin.2000.0921 available at http://www.doh.gov.uk/ hai/epic.htm.2Journal of Hospital Infection (2000) 45:1–10 Article nojhin.2000.0662 available at http//www.phls.org.uk/topics az/ norwalk/hospital srsv.pdf
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what powers have been given to ward managers to enforce rigorous cleaning standards with particular reference to powers to withhold payment from contractors or staff; and if he will make a statement on the use of these powers by ward managers to date. [91130]

  Mr. Lammy
  Health Service Circular HSC 2001/010, issued in April 2001, required national health service trusts and primary care trusts to ensure that all ward sisters and charge nurses have authority to ensure that the basics of care, including standards of cleanliness, are right. The circular also required that modern matrons be introduced to provide highly visible, accessible and authoritative figures.

  Where problems arise with cleaning standards which ward sisters or charge nurses are unable to resolve directly, then there should be systems to address these, including the authority for matrons to instruct that payment for cleaning services be withheld.

  Guidance on a system to address problems with cleaning services, including withholding of payment or termination of contracts, is set out in "Process Mapping the Housekeeper Service—A Toolkit for Change", launched in November 2002.

  The exercise of these powers is a matter for local discretion, and information is not held centrally on the extent to which they have been applied.

  HPA
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many IT Systems within the organisations due to be amalgamated within the HPA will require re-engineering as a result of the changes. [90087]

  Ms Blears
  Over time, all information technology systems will need to be reviewed and updated, to ensure they contribute to the objectives of the proposed Health Protection Agency (HPA), as set out in "Getting Ahead of the Curve", issued in January 2002. The board of the proposed HPA will be responsible for developing the necessary strategy.

  In the immediate term, priority is being given to ensuring that, on the establishment of the proposed HPA, existing systems continue to function effectively.

  Job Sharing
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the extent of job sharing in his Department. [90860]

  Mr. Lammy
  The percentage of staff who work part-time within the Department is 9 per cent. Of those part-time workers, 10 posts are known to be job shares. However, that number could be a great deal higher, as employees working on job share contracts are recorded as 'part-time' workers.
  393W
  It is therefore not possible to correctly identify the number of staff employed on a job share contract, as these figures do not differentiate between those actually employed part-time and those employed specifically on a job share contract.

  Medical Reservists
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health 'what steps he is taking to ensure that there are no consequences for the level of service provided by Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth and Portsmouth hospitals NHS trust should medical staff working there he required to join troops in the middle east or be required to serve in war with Iraq; and if he will make a statement. [91395]

  Ms Blears
  The Portsmouth hospitals national health service trust has worked for many years with the Ministry of Defence to ensure that the provision of hospital services is not adversely affected when military medical personnel are required to deploy on exercises and other military commitments.

  Contingency planning is ongoing between the Department of Health and the trust to minimise the effect of any call up should further deployments be required. The NHS community in Portsmouth and Hampshire is working with the trust in support of these contingency plans.

  Mid-Essex Hospital Trust
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the total pay costs for employees in the latest available financial year were in the Mid-Essex hospital trust area. [91365]

  Mr. Lammy
  [holding answer 21 January 2003]The total employee costs for Mid Essex Hospital Services National Health Service trust for 2001–02 was £76,664,000.

  Source:
  Summarisation Schedule for Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust 2001–02.

  Milk
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the Healthy Start Scheme will reflect FSA guidance on the age limits for(a) whole milk and (b) semi-skimmed milk. [91076]

  Ms Blears
  The guidance provided by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on the age limits for whole and semi-skimmed milk is based upon that provided by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy (COMA). The welfare food scheme will continue to follow this advice.

  Decisions about the proposed reform of the scheme will not be taken until the results of the public consultation, which closed on the 13 December 2002, have been assessed.

  Mixed-sex Mental Health Wards
  Mr. Flook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many mixed sex mental health wards there are in(a) Somerset and (b) Somerset and Dorset strategic health authority area. [91946]
  394W
  Ms Blears
  The information requested is not available, as compliance is measured on a trust by trust basis and not at individual ward level.

  Hospital wards generally care for both men and women. Guidance issued to the national health service for new mental health accommodation recommends that patient privacy is maintained through providing single bedrooms, preferably with en-suite facilities.

  In existing facilities it is the responsibility of each NHS trust to determine the most appropriate configuration to meet their specific requirements. Wards may be split into single sex bays or single rooms, or otherwise configured to provide adequats egregation of gender.

  Overseas Dental Surgeons
  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what training is on offer for those with qualifications from the University of Nairobi, who are not refugees, to qualify for registration as a UK dental surgeon; [87427]

  (2) for what reason dental qualifications from the University of Nairobi are not recognised for registration as a UK dental surgeon; and if he will make a statement. [87426]

  Mr. Lammy
  The General Dental Council (GDC) may only register dentists who have satisfied the GDC that they have the requisite knowledge and skills to practise safely.

  Accordingly, section 15 (1) of the Dental Act 1984 empowers the GDC to register as dentists graduates of a university dental school in the United Kingdom or any person who is a national of a member state of the European Economic Area and holds an appropriate European diploma. Section 16 of the Act empowers the GDC to set an examination for other dentists who trained abroad and are seeking registration here.

  The national advice centre for post graduate education of dentists, which is located at the Royal College of Surgeons, advises dentists on how to acquire the training and experience required to sit the GDC's international qualifying examination.

  Patient Advice and Liaison Service
  Dr. Starkey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if his Department will check that each NHS trust has instituted a Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) before community health councils are abolished; where a suitable PALS has not been implemented in an area, if he will extend the life of the local community health council to maintain cover; and whose responsibility it is to ensure a PALS is instituted before the relevant community health council is abolished. [91862]

  Mr. Lammy
  Patient advice and liaison services (PALS) are not linked to the abolition of Community Health Councils (CHCs). CHCs will be replaced by a new system of patient and public involvement, based on local authority scrutiny of health services and the establishment of the Commission of Patient and Public Involvement in Health and Patients' Forums.
  395W
  PALS are an additional resource, providing a responsive service for patients, their families and carers.

  The Department has commissioned a mapping exercise of PALS implementation, due for completion at the end of January. Initial responses indicate an 89 per cent. implementation rate. It is anticipated that all trusts will have implemented PALS by April 2003.

  PHLS Laboratories
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) in how many cases discussions about the financial terms of the transfer of a PHLS laboratory to the relevant NHS trust have not begun; [90060]

  (2) how many agreements have been reached between NHS trusts and the PHLS about the financial details of the transfer of laboratories; and in how many cases such agreements are outstanding. [90059]

  Ms Blears
  Detailed discussions about all the laboratory transfers are well advanced between Public Health Laboratory Service group directorates and national health service trusts. All are due to be completed by 31 March 2003.

  Prostate Cancer
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he plans to begin his Department's public awareness campaign on prostate cancer. [92634]

  Ms Blears
  The national health service prostate cancer programme stated that an education programme for the public, patients and professionals on the risks associated with individual testing for prostate cancer will be introduced.

  This has been achieved through the prostate cancer risk management programme, which sent out evidence-based primary care resource packs to all general practitioners in England from 23 September 2002 to aid them in counselling men who are worried about prostate cancer. This ensures that men make an informed choice about whether or not to have a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test based on an information leaflet developed specifically for men about the advantages and disadvantages of having a PSA test.

  The Department is funding a Section 64 grant to the Prostate Cancer Charity to increase further information about prostate cancer. This is supporting the creation, review, provision and dissemination of a range of awareness material, supported by £135,000 over three years.

  Red Alert Status
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the hospitals that have been on red alert on each day since 1 November 2002 in England and Wales. [91469]

  Mr. Lammy
  The term "red alert" is used by very few trusts and does not have a standard definition.

  All hospitals have escalation procedures, which are activated during times of increasing pressure. However, details of these procedures will depend on local circumstances and are not held centrally.

  Retained Organs Commission
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health who the members of the Retained Organs Commission are; and what their(a) profession and (b) attendance records are. [91315]

  Mr. Lammy
  Details of all Retained Organs Commission board members, including their names and curricula vitae, are available on the Commission's website at www.nhs.uk/retainedorgans

  The official minutes of each board meeting record those members who attend, and these are also published on the Commission's website. I have asked the Chair of the Commission to write to the hon. Member with further details of Commissioner's attendance.

  Sickness Absence
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many days were lost due to sickness absence in the Department in 2002. [90538]

  Mr. Lammy
  The statistics on days lost due to sickness absence within the Department of Health during the year 2002 will be available in due course. The figures will be available through the "Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Civil Service 2002" produced by the Cabinet Office. The report will be available on the Cabinet Office website and will be placed in the Library.

  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many working days have been lost due to illness in his Department in(a) 2002 and (b) each of the preceding five years. [90969]

  Mr. Lammy
  The statistics on days lost due to sickness absence within the Department of Health during the year 2002 will be available in due course. The figures will be available through the "Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Civil Service 2002" produced by the Cabinet Office. The report will be available on the Cabinet Office website and will be placed in the Library.

  The average number of working days lost since 1997 are shown in the table.

  Average1 days lost per employee through sickness (per staff year)

  1997

  7.8

  1998

  29.2

  1999

  6.6

  2000

  5.5

  2001

  6.5

  1Working days absences exclude weekends and bank holidays for staff working a "Monday to Friday" week.

  2Based on pre-audit data and methodology. In 1998 Civil Service departments and agencies undertook an audit of their monitoring systems following the 'Working Well Together' report. The reworked figures were not submitted in time for publication of the 1998 report and unadjusted figures were published in this year.

  Source:

  Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Civil Service BM1 Health Services report (1997 Table I, 1998 Table K), Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Civil Service BIOSS report Table H (1999), Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Civil Service BIOSS report table H (2000), Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Civil Service AON report table E (2001).
  397W
  The Department is committed to meeting its public service agreement targets for reducing sickness absence and will be conducting a review of its guidance for both long-term and short-term sickness absence management.

  Timber
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library a copy of the NHS PASA report on timber. [89674]

  Mr. Lammy
  The National Health Service Purchasing and Supply Agency has not published a specific report on timber. The Agency has published its second environmental report for 2001–02, which includes a comprehensive section on timber. This report has been placed in the Library. The Agency also gives details of its policy on timber, and the environmental issues relating to timber and purchasing in the NHS, on its website. Members of the public can also also obtain such details by writing to Corporate Affairs, National Health Service Purchasing and Supply Agency, 80 Lightfoot Street, Chester CH2 SAD.

  Type 2 Diabetes
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many new cases of Type 2 diabetes have been diagnosed in each of the last five years in(a) males

  Malicious fires1,2 by location and brigade area, England and Wales, 1997 and 20013

  Brigade area

  1997 total

  Road vehicles

  Educational establishments

  20013 total

  Road vehicles

  Educational establishments

  England and Wales

  72,932

  38,218

  1,081

  109,816

  72,081

  1,052

  England

  67,682

  35,162

  1,007

  102,402

  67,038

  1,005

  England—non-met. counties

  34,292

  17,519

  462

  53,184

  34,458

  499

  Avon

  1,514

  887

  20

  3,227

  2,513

  22

  Bedfordshire

  824

  513

  0

  1,162

  865

  10

  Berkshire

  800

  509

  12

  1,224

  943

  2

  Buckinghamshire

  926

  562

  12

  1,424

  1,033

  9

  Cambridgeshire

  890

  504

  15

  1,199

  813

  5

  Cheshire

  1,129

  432

  25

  1,627

  948

  14

  Cleveland

  1,353

  571

  36

  2,409

  1,486

  5

  Cornwall

  347

  178

  0

  533

  311

  5

  Cumbria

  557

  300

  8

  675

  380

  10

  Derbyshire

  949

  507

  13

  1,370

  942

  15

  Devon

  959

  443

  20

  1,107

  614

  21

  Dorset

  643

  286

  10

  975

  579

  17

  Durham

  1,151

  507

  31

  1,398

  751

  12

  East Sussex

  857

  455

  9

  1,431

  919

  17

  Essex

  1,128

  649

  12

  2,424

  1,687

  21

  Gloucestershire

  527

  264

  14

  680

  466

  5

  Hampshire

  1,205

  526

  11

  1,459

  821

  24

  Hereford and Worcester

  610

  299

  0

  827

  445

  5

  Hertfordshire

  848

  431

  13

  1,302

  885

  8

  Humberside

  1,528

  722

  8

  2,245

  1,380

  32

  Isle of Wight

  87

  22

  0

  125

  32

  0

  Kent

  1,865

  1,086

  25

  3,006

  2,143

  24

  Lancashire

  1,968

  821

  37

  2,835

  1,367

  41

  Leicestershire

  1,345

  752

  22

  1,877

  1,175

  32

  Lincolnshire

  551

  263

  8

  855

  473

  0

  Norfolk

  850

  411

  5

  1,135

  738

  6

  North Yorkshire

  552

  255

  11

  891

  555

  6

  Northamptonshire

  929

  550

  4

  1,439

  954

  10

  Northumberland

  528

  272

  5

  617

  371

  5

  Nottinghamshire

  1,661

  818

  18

  3,614

  2,668

  15

  Oxfordshire

  645

  372

  1

  787

  562

  11

  Shropshire

  518

  309

  10

  848

  515

  0

  398W
  under 30, (b) males 30 and over, (c) females under 30 and (d) females 30 and over; and if he will make a statement. [91648]

  Mr. Lammy
  This information is not collected in the form requested.

  Waiting Lists
  Mr. Flook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people in the Taunton and Somerset NHS trust area were waiting for in-patient treatment on the latest available date. [91945]

  Ms Blears
  At the end of November 2002, the number waiting for in-patient treatment at the Taunton and Somerset national health service trust was 6,408.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Arson
  Mr. Pickles
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many(a) malicious vehicle fires, (h) incidents of arson and (c) incidents of arson in educational establishments there were, broken down by local authority fire brigade area, in England and Wales, in (i) 1997 and (ii) 2001. [92497]

  Mr. Raynsford
  The information requested is in the following table.
  399W

  Malicious fires1,2 by location and brigade area, England and Wales, 1997 and 20013

  Brigade area

  1997 total

  Road vehicles

  Educational establishments

  20013 total

  Road vehicles

  Educational establishments

  Somerset

  448

  226

  15

  808

  511

  15

  Staffordshire

  1,169

  653

  3

  1,742

  1,135

  33

  Suffolk

  386

  164

  6

  701

  404

  16

  Surrey

  570

  329

  5

  922

  661

  8

  Warwickshire

  535

  343

  10

  765

  567

  5

  West Sussex

  582

  239

  2

  985

  539

  5

  Wiltshire

  358

  89

  4

  533

  306

  10

  Isles of Scilly

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  England—met. Counties

  33,390

  17,644

  545

  49,218

  32,580

  506

  Greater Manchester

  7,271

  4,042

  156

  10,497

  7,016

  122

  Merseyside

  3,562

  1,569

  123

  5,595

  3,468

  61

  South Yorkshire

  2,415

  1,562

  30

  3,403

  2,379

  43

  Tyne and Wear

  3,152

  1,581

  29

  3,808

  2,259

  35

  West Midlands

  5,900

  3,044

  66

  7,551

  4,826

  57

  West Yorkshire

  4,702

  2,874

  69

  8,111

  6,168

  90

  Greater London

  6,388

  2,971

  72

  10,253

  6,464

  98

  Wales

  5,250

  3,056

  74

  7,414

  5,043

  47

  North Wales

  635

  275

  23

  1,153

  689

  0

  Mid and West Wales

  1,523

  991

  18

  2,088

  1,518

  4

  South Wales

  3,092

  1,791

  33

  4,173

  2,836

  42

  1Including late call and heat and smoke damage incidents.

  2Figures are based on sampled data weighted to true brigade totals.

  3Figures are provisional

  City of London
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister for what reasons the City of London received the ceiling in the recently announced local authority grant settlement; and if he will make a statement. [91876]

  Mr. Leslie
  The City of London gained primarily from the "fixed costs" elements in the Education and EPCS blocks to reflect the diseconomies of scale faced by smaller authorities and the increased weighting for daytime visitors and commuters in the Highways and EPCS blocks.

  Community Projects
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what powers he has to ensure that local authority income from the sales of schools and community buildings is invested in the community on specific projects. [92341]

  Payments 1998 to 2000–01

  Financial year

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Payee name

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Adur District Council

  8,415.00

  14,423.00

  Allerdale Borough Council

  25,808.37

  1,029,147.65

  108,678.35

  Alnwick District Council

  12,285.17

  Arun District Council

  1,487,515.34

  802,715.68

  16,182.40

  Babergh District Council

  49,992.5

  Barrow Borough Council

  34,415.00

  43,627.85

  21,036.79

  Berwick upon Tweed Borough Council

  26,117.16

  143,029.00

  442,155.87

  Birmingham City Council

  373,794.38

  Blackpool Borough Council

  3,092,956.75

  6,610,695.00

  3,159,713.30

  Blyth Valley, Borough of

  2,038.00

  32,987.88

  Bournemouth Borough Council

  384,229.21

  232,529.88

  258,282.20

  400W
  Mr. Raynsford
  Local authorities are free to use these receipts for any capital purpose in accordance with Office of the Deputy Prime Minister policy of giving authorities increased financial freedom.

  Flood Protection
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much was paid in grant to each local authority in respect of(a) coastal defence and (b) flood protection in each of the last five years; and how much will be paid to each local authority for 2003–04. [89643]

  Margaret Beckett
  I have been asked to reply.

  Defra provides grant to local authorities for flood defence and coast protection capital works which satisfy essential criteria. Authorities may claim grant on eligible expenditure during the construction of works. Details are provided in the table for the grant paid to each authority for each of the last five years. For 2002–03 the amount shown is that paid to date. Allocations to all operating authorities for 2003–04 are still being considered.
  401W

  Payments 1998 to 2000–01

  Financial year

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Payee name

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Bridgnorth District Council

  107,500.00

  Brighton and Hove Council

  625,835.13

  42,573.38

  Cambridgeshire County Council

  7,371.00

  Canterbury City Council

  2,616,936.90

  450,970.41

  75,236.28

  Caradon District Council

  106,695.02

  5,219.67

  65,780.14

  Carrick District Council

  Charnwood Borough Council

  Chichester District Council

  26,211.72

  71,818.89

  19,896.03

  Christchurch Borough Council

  1,005,697.73

  103,071.25

  Copeland Borough Council

  18,604.85

  24,726.05

  Derby City Council

  Derbyshire Dales District Council

  Dover District Council

  452,168.55

  117,401.21

  45,574.79

  Easington District Council

  5,607.67

  42,677.63

  East Devon District Council

  530,010.56

  371,770.95

  56,669.90

  East Riding of Yorkshire Council

  3,321,397.41

  560,889.12

  151,110.22

  Eastbourne Borough Council

  5,554,467.88

  1,526,994.63

  Epping Forest District Council

  74,731.25

  10,494.25

  Fareham Borough Council

  42,096.60

  Gosport Borough Council

  503,662.45

  547,932.99

  130,744.02

  Great Yarmouth Borough Council

  1,065,829.70

  339,333.80

  123,521.25

  Hartlepool Borough Council

  3,401.25

  53,281.94

  Hastings Borough Council

  Havant Borough Council

  21,387.50

  587,992.50

  21,226.22

  Hertsmere Borough Council

  1,46,583.05

  Isle of Scilly Council

  354,909.00

  10,842.50

  Isle of Wight Council

  587,134.65

  918,297.51

  Kerrier District Council

  41,486.15

  Kings Lynn and West Norfolk, Borough

  361,373.40

  Kingston Upon Hull City Council

  17,463.22

  Lancaster City Council

  295,520.00

  340,934.92

  121,500.00

  602,221.99

  Lewes District Council

  55,679.00

  New Forest District Council

  413,180.88

  48,092.32

  216,284.18

  350,955.55

  8,046.65

  North Cornwall District Council

  41,692.95

  North Devon District Council

  2,830.50

  255,014.55

  9,014.26

  272,378.63

  North Dorset District Council

  4,714.71

  North East Lincolnshire Council

  3,269.38

  North Norfolk District Council

  479,324

  431,628.67

  142,318.01

  North Tyneside Council

  Poole, Borough of

  56,000.00

  9,588.22

  3,554.73

  402,567.58

  Portsmouth City Council

  892,535.77

  68,485.97

  38,244.20

  Purbeck District Council

  103,353.36

  43,398.53

  Redbridge, London Borough of

  Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council

  11,413.85

  37,738.10

  16,910.46

  Restormel, Borough of

  228,930.60

  68,690.25

  Salisbury District Council

  15,688.13

  Scarborough Borough Council

  265,760.10

  3,181,993.70

  38,141.10

  3,127,940.77

  Sefton, Metropolitan Borough of

  565,895.70

  727,342.38

  Shepway District Council

  213,532.48

  327,422.72

  365,011.25

  75,068.67

  70,179.57

  South Bedfordshire District Council

  8,123.71

  South Hams District Council

  39,131.26

  South Herefordshire District Council

  21,005.75

  South Somerset District Council

  69,396.48

  21,970.34

  South Tyneside Council

  Southend on Sea Borough Council

  2,479.85

  17,804.22

  81,225.00

  Suffolk Coastal District Council

  211,280.03

  1,574,443.60

  232,582.74

  Sunderland, City of

  239,964.16

  33,023.55

  Taunton Deane Borough Council

  70.25

  Telford and Wrekin Council

  20,000.00

  10,860.99

  Tendring District Council

  79,342.47

  608,024.05

  Thanet District Council

  104,470.00

  Torbay Borough Council

  2,581.25

  20,452.46

  Wakefield City Council

  47,466.87

  Wansbeck District Council

  100,610.25

  97,777.50

  Waveney District Council

  16,454.52

  247,385.05

  44,836.86

  West Devon District Council

  16,685.00

  West Dorset District Council

  532,636.52

  44,299.75

  252,620.76

  158,363.49

  126,383.31

  172,940.36

  West Oxfordshire District Council

  West Somerset District Council

  55,682.25

  Weymouth and Portland Borough Council

  7,198.64

  Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council

  20,201.25

  Wirral, Metropolitan Borough of

  145,875.00

  1,282,500.00

  1,151,820.25

  Worthing Borough Council

  18,191.84

  Wyre Borough Council

  59,259.58

  22,851.00

  Total

  24,181,318.94

  855,654.28

  24,785,714.60

  1,220,579.89

  12,562,881.07

  1,951,492.667

  402W 403W

  Payments 2001–02 to 2002–03

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Adur District Council

  Allerdale Borough Council

  10,791.84

  897,894.40

  76,469.85

  Alnwick District Council

  2,493.75

  Arun District Council

  201,976.10

  52,870.43

  Babergh District Council

  Barrow Borough Council

  2,375.97

  Berwick upon Tweed Borough Council

  1,912,494.59

  Birmingham City Council

  153,556.38

  Blackpool Borough Council

  1,850,268.67

  Blyth Valley, Borough of

  1,810.13

  2,143.75

  Bournemouth Borough Council

  237,197.18

  360,004.15

  Bridgnorth District Council

  Brighton and Hove Council

  57,831.63

  Cambridgeshire County Council

  Canterbury City Council

  170,595.74

  106,627.40

  32,024.25

  Caradon District Council

  57,046.69

  53,842.57

  Carrick District Council

  21,066.85

  Charnwood Borough Council

  111,982.50

  Chichester District Council

  Christchurch Borough Council

  47,583.62

  Copeland Borough Council

  12,290.40

  Derby City Council

  21,375.00

  Derbyshire Dales District Council

  41,829.04

  Dover District Council

  796,595.41

  8,646.99

  Easington District Council

  East Devon District Council

  24,685.49

  6,750.00

  62,775.78

  39,230.10

  East Riding of Yorkshire Council

  1,288,543.89

  272,311.94

  Eastbourne Borough Council

  912,078.13

  38,655.50

  Epping Forest District Council

  Fareham Borough Council

  Gosport Borough Council

  30,131.86

  36,064.63

  Great Yarmouth Borough Council

  260,863.42

  66,078.56

  Hartlepool Borough Council

  2,618.26

  Hastings Borough Council

  22,546.49

  Havant Borough Council

  68,333.66

  41,063.75

  Hertsmere Borough Council

  17,735.23

  Isle of Scilly Council

  Isle of Wight Council

  100,154.57

  Kerrier District Council

  1,965.63

  Kings Lynn and West Norfolk, Borough

  Kingston Upon Hull City Council

  Lancaster City Council

  662,125.85

  116,748.31

  2,194.50

  Lewes District Council

  New Forest District Council

  87,277.50

  290,780.75

  North Cornwall District Council

  North Devon District Council

  14,102.32

  North Dorset District Council

  North East Lincolnshire Council

  North Norfolk District Council

  39,240.00

  28,363.65

  North Tyneside Council

  2,400.98

  Poole, Borough of

  111,933.16

  Portsmouth City Council

  102,160.51

  5,374.26

  Purbeck District Council

  Redbridge, London Borough of

  16,920

  Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council

  339,698.20

  22,879.73

  Restormel, Borough of

  26,394.15

  3,058.38

  18,695.00

  Salisbury District Council

  20,516.25

  Scarborough Borough Council

  4,200,712.68

  6,786.34

  11,746,934.22

  Sefton, Metropolitan Borough of

  10,113.31

  469,782.74

  11,523.00

  Shepway District Council

  2,890.23

  24,170.35

  South Bedfordshire District Council

  South Hams District Council

  2,576.14

  6,010.90

  South Herefordshire District Council

  South Somerset District Council

  South Tyneside Council

  26,335.05

  Southend on Sea Borough Council

  765,179.10

  1,984,447.48

  Suffolk Coastal District Council

  65,697.50

  Sunderland, City of

  21,726.95

  10,365.25

  Taunton Deane Borough Council

  404W 405W

  Payments 2001–02 to 2002–03

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Coast protection

  Flood defence

  Telford and Wrekin Council

  68,09*6.06

  5,568.99

  Tendring District Council

  180,133.72

  Thanet District Council

  Torbay Borough Council

  652.99

  Wakefield City Council

  Wansbeck District Council

  110,345.72

  Waveney District Council

  West Devon District Council

  West Dorset District Council

  294,571.57

  206,086.95

  600,499.10

  1,730,650.04

  West Oxfordshire District Council

  37,220.25

  West Somerset District Council

  23,524.38

  Weymouth and Portland Borough Council

  14,603.71

  553,657.21

  Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council

  Wirral, Metropolitan Borough of

  16,886.89

  Worthing Borough Council

  Wyre Borough Council

  3,985.77

  10,280.25

  Total

  14,288,494.92

  2,168,746.23

  15,176,572.55

  4,083,336.79

  Housing (Rural Areas)
  Andrew George
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what proportion of housing stock was(a) owner occupied, (b) public sector rented and (c) private sector rented in (i) England and (ii) local authorities defined as rural, by region, in each year since 1978. [90836]

  Mr. McNulty
  The proportions of the housing stock owner occupied, public sector rented and private sector rented in England are tabled. Information on the proportions for rural authorities by region is also provided, but is available only for 2001.

  Proportion of dwellings by tenure: England

  Percentage

  Owner occupied

  Public rented

  Private rented

  1978

  56

  31

  13

  1979

  57

  31

  12

  1980

  59

  29

  12

  1981

  60

  29

  11

  1982

  60

  29

  11

  1983

  61

  28

  11

  1984

  62

  27

  11

  1985

  63

  27

  11

  1986

  64

  26

  10

  1987

  65

  25

  10

  1988

  66

  25

  10

  1989

  67

  24

  9

  1990

  67

  23

  10

  1991

  67

  23

  10

  1992

  67

  23

  10

  1993

  67

  22

  10

  1994

  67

  22

  11

  1995

  67

  22

  11

  1996

  68

  22

  11

  1997

  68

  21

  11

  1998

  68

  21

  11

  1998

  69

  21

  10

  1999

  69

  20

  10

  2000

  70

  20

  10

  2001

  70

  19

  10

  Note:

  Public rented is Registered Social Landlord plus local authority.

  Percentages may not add exactly to 100 due to rounding.
  406W

  Proportion of dwellings by tenure in 'rural' local authorities by

  Government Office Region: 2001

  Percentage

  Owner occupied

  Public rented

  Private rented

  North East

  60

  33

  7

  North West

  75

  14

  11

  Yorkshire and the Humber

  78

  14

  8

  East Midlands

  76

  16

  9

  West Midlands

  72

  17

  11

  East

  76

  14

  10

  London

  —

  —

  —

  South East

  78

  12

  10

  South West

  73

  15

  11

  England

  75

  15

  10

  Note:

  Public rented is Registered Social Landlord plus local authority.

  Percentages may not add exactly to 100 due to rounding.

  Housing Co-operatives
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what discussions he has held with the Housing Corporation concerning the funding of new developments through housing co-operatives; and if he will make a statement. [92342]

  Mr. McNulty
  There have been no discussions specifically about funding new developments through housing co-operatives.

  The Housing Corporation publishes an annual National Investment Strategy which sets out its investment objectives and policies. This is supported by investment strategies produced in each region which contain regional priorities derived from the regional housing statements prepared by the Government office for the region and the corporation with various regional and local bodies. Funding in each region is allocated according to these priorities and registered social landlords, including housing co-operatives, can bid for this funding.

  Housing Corporation
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what discussions he has held with the Housing Corporation on the provision of adequate funding for the rehabilitation of street properties. [92343]

  Mr. McNulty
  There have been no discussions specifically about funding the rehabilitation of street properties.

  The Housing Corporation's national investment strategy aims to focus more of its programme on increasing the supply of homes, particularly in areas of high demand. However, the corporation will continue to fund refurbishment of existing properties where this meets strategic priorities.

  Local Government Finance
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister which London local authorities will not have a real terms grant increase this year based on inflation, wage commitments and net nursing care and health transfers applicable to those local authorities; how much the shortfall is in each case in(a) percentage and (b) cash terms; and what percentage that represents of each of those local authorities' average Band D council tax. [91873]

  Mr. Leslie
  All London authorities received a like-for-like increase in grant of at least 3.5 per cent. in the provisional settlement, considerably above the latest increase in the retail price indices. This increase fully reflects-at national level-the transfers of function and new burdens, including those for social services.

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what plans he has to review the revenue supply grant settlement for South Somerset District Council for 2003–04; and if he will make a statement. [92296]

  Mr. Raynsford
  The consultation on the 2003–04 provisional local government finance settlement closed on 14 January. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is currently considering the representations that were made during the consultation period, including those on behalf of South Somerset District Council. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will announce the settlement to Parliament at the beginning of February.

TREASURY

  Departmental Spending Plans
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the budget was of(a) Customs and Excise, (b) the Inland Revenue and (c) the Government Actuary's Department will be in 2004–05 and 2005–06; and if he will make a statement. [91775]

  Ruth Kelly
  The spending plans for all Departments for the years 2004–05 and 2005–06 were published in July 2002 in the 2002 Spending Review White Paper: "Opportunity and Security for All". The Chancellor's Departments including Customs and Excise, Inland Revenue and the Government Actuary's Department 408W
  were covered in chapter 20. http://www.hm-treasury. gov uk/Spending_Review/spend_sr02/report/spend_ sr02_repchap20.cfm

  Building Restoration (VAT)
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to alter VAT rates on the restoration of buildings. [91990]

  John Healey
  The Government's long-term objective is to secure a reduced rate of VAT for the repair and maintenance of listed buildings that are used as places of worship, which are currently not permitted under long-standing formal European agreements with our European partners. In Budget 2001, the Chancellor announced that the European Commission has indicated that it will review its reduced rates for VAT in 2003. In the meantime, the Government have introduced a grant scheme to run in the interim period, until the review has been completed.

  Child Tax Credit
  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many families received the children's tax credit in 2001–02, broken down into those that received(a) under £100, (b) £101 to £200, (c) £201 to £300, (d) £301 to £400, (e) £401 to £500 and (f) over £500; and in what form it was collected in each case. [91971]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I regret that the breakdown requested is not available. For the number receiving the Children's Tax Credit (ChTC) for 2001–02 via PAYE code adjustments, and for the number of these for which the adjustment was reduced because the claimant was a higher rate, I refer the hon. Member to my answer to him on 17 April 2002,Official Report, column 971W.

  Estimates of the values of the 2001–02 ChTC to all taxpayers, including those claiming via self assessment, will become available from the Survey of Personal Incomes towards the end of this year.

  Construction Industry
  Mr. Prisk
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the value is of tax lost in the last year to the Inland Revenue in connection with the Construction Industry Scheme. [91950]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The information requested is not available.

  Mr. Prisk
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimates have been made of the cost to date of developing software to manage the Construction Industry Scheme. [91951]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The Inland Revenue will not begin software development until a decision has been taken on the future of the Construction Industry Scheme, following analysis of the responses to the consultation document.

  Mr. Prisk
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimates have been made of the total costs for developing software for the future administration of the Construction Industry Scheme. [91952]
  409W
  Dawn Primarolo
  The Inland Revenue published a Consultation Docuiment with the PBR entitled "The Inland Revenue and The Construction Industry: Working Together for a New Scheme". This document contains a series of proposals for the future of taxation in the Construction Industry. The overall estimated cost to the Inland Revenue of putting these proposals in place—including IT, capital costs and staff training—is £40 million. At this stage in the development it is not possible to provide any reliable estimates for specific elements.

  Mr. Prisk
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many Construction Industry Scheme vouchers the Inland Revenue processed in the last financial year. [91954]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The total number of CIS vouchers processed during the period 5 April 2001 to 31 March 2002 was £8,821,609.

  Mr. Prisk
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress is being made by the Inland Revenue to develop software to manage the Construction Industry Scheme. [91955]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The consultation period for the consultation document "The Inland Revenue and the Construction Industry: Working Together for a New Scheme" ends on 28 February 2003. No decision on the future of the Construction Industry Scheme will be

  Sudden infant death rates by social class based on father's occupation1,2, 1997–2001, England and Wales

  Rates3

  Year of death

  Social class

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  Non-manual

  0.3

  0.2

  0.2

  0.2

  0.1

  Manual

  0.6

  0.4

  0.4

  0.4

  0.4

  All births (excl. sole registered births)

  0.5

  0.3

  0.4

  0.3

  0.3

  Sole registered births

  1.8

  1.5

  1.4

  1.3

  1.3

  All births

  0.6

  0.4

  0.4

  0.4

  0.4

  1Numbers of infant deaths by social class are based on father's occupation at death registration.

  2Numbers of live births by social class, used in calculating rates, are based on father's occupation at birth registration.

  3Rate per 1,000 live births.

  Euro
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if his Department has completed the preliminary technical work relating to the five economic tests of the euro; and if he will make a statement; [92080]

  (2) if he will list the studies commissioned on the five economic tests for the euro, stating in each case whether each (a) has been completed, (b) is under way and (c) has yet to be started; and if he will make a statement. [92081]

  Ruth Kelly
  The preliminary analysis supporting the five tests assessment—technical work needed to enable the assessment to be completed within two years of the start of the Parliament—is well under way.

  The "Paper for the Treasury Committee on the Treasury's Approach to the Preliminary and Technical Work" published on 6 September 2002 set out a number of supporting studies that will be published alongside the assessment of the five economic tests. Further detail can be found in the 6 September Paper.
  410W
  taken until the responses to the document have been analysed. In the meantime, software development will not begin.

  Cot Deaths
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list for each year since 1997 the death rates from sudden infant death syndrome for babies born into families in the manual social classes. [91984]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Paul Marsden, dated 22 January 2003:
  As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking to list each year since 1997 the death rates from sudden infant death syndrome for babies born into families in the manual social classes. (91984)
  The table below provides sudden infant death rates by social class based on father's occupation in England and Wales for the years 1997–2001. Recording of occupation on births and deaths where the birth was registered solely by the mother is incomplete. For this reason, sudden infant death rates by social class are shown excluding sole registered births. The death rates for solely registered births are shown separately.
  Occupation at death was used to derive numbers of deaths by social class in this table, as only a 10 per cent. sample of birth registrations are coded to an occupation.

  Government Procurement Savings
  Mr. Prisk
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for what reason the figure of £850 million saved in Government procurement was not included in the Treasury performance report against public service agreement. [91937]

  Mr. Boateng
  The data gathering for the value for money gains in 2001–02 was not completed by the publication date of the Performance Report. Total gains for 2000–01 and 2001–02 are £815 million.

  Income Tax
  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much income tax was paid during the last financial year, broken down by(a) gender and (b) 10 year age bands. [91970]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Amounts of income tax liabilities broken down by gender and 10 year age bands in 2000–01 are in the table.
  411W

  £ million

  Age band

  Male Total tax

  Female Total tax

  All Total tax

  under 20

  250

  140

  390

  20–29

  7,170

  4,270

  11,400

  30–39

  21,500

  7,650

  29,100

  40–49

  22,900

  6,530

  29,400

  50–59

  17,800

  4,680

  22,500

  60–69

  6,060

  1,780

  7,840

  70 or over

  3,160

  1,750

  4,910

  All

  78,800

  26,800

  105,600

  Estimates are based on the Survey of Personal Incomes

  Inland Revenue
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the(a) nominal and (b) real percentage increase in spending in the Inland Revenue from 1998–99 to 2002–03; and if he will make a statement. [91720]

  Dawn Primarolo
  As the 2002–03 expenditure information will not be available until after the end of the financial year it is not possible to answer this question at the present time.

  £000

  Running Costs

  Other Current

  Capital

  Total

  Income applied against expenditure and raised from fees and charges

  Net Total

  1990–91

  1,167

  163

  1,330

  1,133

  197

  1991–92

  1,236

  432

  1,668

  1,355

  313

  1992–93

  1,154

  384

  1,538

  1,538

  —

  1993–94

  1,234

  173

  1,407

  1,407

  —

  1994–95

  1,263

  177

  1,440

  1,366

  74

  1995–96

  1,221

  604

  1,825

  1,574

  251

  1996–97

  1,183

  517

  105

  1,805

  1,738

  67

  1997–98

  1,490

  4,080

  12

  5,582

  5,263

  319

  1998–99

  1,490

  3,763

  36

  5,289

  5,289

  —

  1999–2000

  1,450

  3,802

  14

  5,266

  5,266

  —

  2000–01

  1,397

  3,810

  25

  5,232

  5,232

  —

  2001–02

  1,538

  4,942

  21

  6,501

  6,407

  94

  2002–03

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  2003–04

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  N/A

  Notes:

  1. NILO ceased to exist on 1 July 2002, with functions merged into either the UK Debt Management Office or HM Treasury.

  2. Under previous accounting treatment, as used in the years 1990–91 to 1995–96, 'other current' and 'capital' costs are grouped together.

  3. The increase in costs in 1997–98 coincides with the first full year that OPG was part of NILO.

  4. Costs for 2001–02 are stated in resource terms, following the introduction of resource accounting across Government.

  5. Any income above the amounts listed in the table was returned to the Consolidated Fund as extra receipts.

  National Savings and Investments
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to privatise National Savings and Investments; and if he will make a statement. [91727]

  Ruth Kelly
  There are no plans to privatise National Savings and Investments.

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the reduction in the annual costs of government borrowing as a consequence of the existence of National Savings and Investments(a) in gross terms and (b) net of the administrative costs involved; and if he will make a statement. [91729]

  Insurance Standard
  Mr. Stephen O'Brien
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions he has had with the International Accounting Standards Board regarding the development of a new insurance standard. [91197]

  Mr. Boateng
  None.

  Ministerial Travel
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the total expenditure by his Department on ministerial travel(a) in the UK and (b) abroad, in each year from 1995–96 to 2002–03 (estimated); and if he will make a statement. [92434]

  Ruth Kelly
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer given to him today by the Minister of State, Cabinet Office.

  National Investment and Loan Office
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the annual cost of the National Investment and Loan Office in each year from 1990–91 to 2003–04 (planned). [91728]

  Ruth Kelly
  The annual costs of the National Investment and Loans Office in each year from 1990–91 to 2003–04 are outlined in the table.

  Ruth Kelly
  National Savings and Investments' Annual Report includes information on "value added". This is a measure of how cost-effective they are at raising finance for government from the retail sector. It is a measure of the difference in the cost of raising funds through NS&I (after taking account of administrative costs and, where appropriate, tax-foregone) and the cost of raising the same amount through similar (ie variable, fixed-rate or index-linked) gilts. By raising cost-effective finance, NS&I help to reduce the overall cost of government borrowing.

  The value added figure for 2001–02 was £76.3 million. If administrative costs had been omitted (gross) the figure would have been £232.1 million.
  413W
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the outstanding amount of savings and investment with National Savings and Investments, broken down by product; and if he will make a statement. [91730]

  Ruth Kelly
  The total invested in National Savings and Investments' products at 31 March 2002 was £62.3 billion. The breakdown by product was published in National Savings and Investments Product Accounts 2001–02 on 18 December 2002. The position as at end-March 2002 was as follows:

  National Savings and Investments' product breakdown at end

  March 2002

  £ million

  Capital Bonds

  1,284

  Children's Bonus Bonds

  1,209

  Fixed Rate Savings Bonds

  529

  Guaranteed Equity Bonds

  40

  Income Bonds

  9,285

  Year

  Cash accounting basis (£000)

  Resource accounting basis from 1998–99 (£000)

  1990–91

  £173,224

  (including £6,650 capital expenditure)

  1991–92

  £181,714

  (including £6,143 capital expenditure)

  1992–93

  £196,960

  (including £12,803 capital expenditure)

  1993–94

  £198,769

  (including £4,778 capital expenditure)

  1994–95

  £196,701

  (including £4,046 capital expenditure)

  1995–96

  £193,520

  (including £5,382 capital expenditure)

  1996–97

  £179,656

  (including £3,521 capital expenditure)

  1997–98

  £175,537

  (including £3,066 capital expenditure

  1998–99

  £171,016

  £180,337

  (including £6,110 capital expenditure)

  (including provision of £5,110 for product accounts adjustments which did not form part of public expenditure)

  1999–2000

  £169,097

  £179,661

  (including £120 capital disposals)

  (including provision of £589 for product accounts adjustments which did not form part of public expenditure)

  2000–01

  £167,429

  £165,561

  (including £3,300 capital expenditure)

  2001–02

  £163,847

  £174,073

  (including £122 capital expenditure

  2002–03

  £170,608

  £171,170

  (including £300 capital expenditure)

  2003–04

  £170,200

  £172,300

  (including £1,300 capital expenditure)

  2004–05

  £172,490

  £172,300

  (including £500 capital expenditure)

  2005–06

  £170,280

  170,300

  (including £500 capital expenditure)

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the present(a) maturity structure and (b) average interest cost of outstanding monies borrowed by the UK Government through National Savings and Investments; and if he will make a statement. [91732]

  Ruth Kelly
  As at end-March 2002, the weighted average maturity for all National Savings and Investments' products is estimated at 4.14 years.
  414W

  National Savings and Investments' product breakdown at end-

  March 2002

  £million

  Individual Savings Accounts

  886

  Investment Accounts

  7,433

  Ordinary Accounts

  1,378

  Pensioners Guaranteed Income Bonds

  4,056

  Premium Bonds

  17,299

  Savings Certificates

  18,022

  Treasurers' Accounts

  61

  Products no longer on sale

  836

  Total

  62,318

  Mr.Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the total administration costs for National Savings and Investments in each year from 1990–91 to 2005–06 (planned); and if he will make a statement. [91731]

  Ruth Kelly
  National Savings and Investment's administratives costs from 1990–91 to 2005–
  (planned) are outlined in the following table.

  The total interest cost of NS&I products (including Premium Bond prizes) for 2001–02 was £2,447 million. This equates to an average interest cost of 3.9 per cent. per annum.

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the annual saving in each of the last 10 years from borrowing money through National Savings arid Investments rather than through conventional issuance of UK Government debt
  415W
  securities; how much of that saving is due to (a) the term structure of debt and (b) the underlying cost of debt; and if he will make a statement. [91733]

  Ruth Kelly
  National Savings and Investments' Annual Report includes information on "value added", a measure of how cost-effective they are at raising finance for government relative to comparable gilt yields. The measure has only formally been used since 1998–99 so figures are not readily available for earlier years. The figures from 1998–99 to 2001–02 were as follows:

  £ million

  1998–99

  110

  1999–2000

  329

  2000–01

  82

  2001–02

  76

  Office for National Statistics
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of real terms expenditure at the Office for National Statistics in each year from 1996–97 to 2005–06 (planned); and if he will make a statement. [91701]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Colin Mowl to Mr. David Laws, dated 22 January 2003:
  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question concerning real term expenditure at the Office for National Statistics in each year from 1996–97 to 2005–06 (planned). I am replying in his absence. (91701)
  The requested information is shown in the attached table.

  Office:for National Statistics1 spending

  Financial year

  Expenditure2 (£ million)

  1996–973

  126.7

  1997–98

  106.5

  1998–994

  109.6

  1999–20004

  108.5

  2000–014

  156.6

  2001–024

  206.9

  2002–034

  147.4

  2003–045

  139.5

  2004–055

  156.7

  2005–065

  165.7

  1The Office for National Statistics' principal activities are the collection, analysis and dissemination of business, economic, socio-economic, health and population statistics, the production of social surveys, the census of population for England and Wales, maintenance of the National Health Service Central Register and the register of births, deaths and marriages.

  2Figures are in real terms (2002–03 prices). Expenditure is calculated as the total of the resource budget plus the capital budget less depreciation. Figures are actual expenditure to 2001–02 and planned expenditure thereafter.

  3The Office for National Statistics was created as a Government Department and an Executive Agency on 1 April 1996 by merging the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS). During 1996–97, ONS moved most of its London staff from four existing sites to a complex of building at Drummond Gate Pimlico. Most of the cost of refurbishment and fitting out of those buildings fell in 1996–97.

  416W

  4Figures from 1998–99 to 2002–03 include additional provision for planning, fieldwork and initial processing of the 2001 Census of Population in England Wales.

  5 Figures from 2003–04 include additional provision in the Spending Review 2002 settlement for ONS to invest in a programme of modernisation to improve the quality of official statistics.

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what reasons underlie the increase in real spending on the Office for National Statistics, comparing 1998–99 with 2003–04; and if he will make a statement. [91705]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Colin Mowl to Mr. David Laws, dated 22 January 2003:
  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question concerning what reasons underlie the increase in real spending on the Office for National Statistics, comparing 1998 with 2003–04. I am replying in his absence. (91705)
  Office for National Statistics spending1 in 1998–99 was £109.6 million in real terms (2002–03 prices) and is estimated to increase to £139.5 million in 2003–04. Most of the increase in funding is to enable the Office for National Statistics to develop a programme of "Neighbourhood Statistics" to provide better local level data to inform policy and programmes to combat social exclusion. The balance is to support the Office's programme of modernisation aimed at improving and expanding statistical outputs, and enhancing web-enabled access by data users and suppliers.
  1Spending is calculated as the total of the resource budget plus the capital budget less depreciation.

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his latest estimate is of the value of(a) land, (b) buildings and (c) other assets owned by the Office for National Statistics; and if he will make a statement. [91706]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Colin Mowl to Mr. David Laws, dated 22 January, 2003:
  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question concerning the value of (a) land, (b) buildings and (c) other assets owned by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). I am replying in his absence. (91706)
  As at 31March 2002 the written down value of assets owned by ONS was as follows;

  a) Land £6,779,000

  b) Buildings £36,853,000

  c) Other assets £9,372,000

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his latest estimate is of the total value of all the fixed assets of the Office for National Statistics; and if he will make a statement. [91707]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Mr. David Laws, dated 22 January 2003:
  As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question concerning the total value of all the fixed assets of the Office for National Statistics (ONS). (91707)

  417W
  As at 31st March 2002 the value of assets owned by ONS was £53 million.

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his latest estimate is of the value of the Drummond Gate Offices of the Office for National Statistics; and if he will make a statement. [91708]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Colin Mowl to Mr. David Laws, dated 22 January 2003:
  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question concerning the value of the Drummond Gate Offices of the Office for National Statistics (ONS). I am replying in his absence. (91708)
  ONS leases the Drummond Gate office and is therefore unable to say what its estimated value is. However, the refurbishment work undertaken by ONS has been capitalised and its written down value at 31st March 2002 was £21,104,000.

  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many motor vehicles are owned by the Office for National Statistics; if he will list these with the current total valuation; and if he will make a statement. [91711]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Colin Mowl to Mr. David Laws, dated 22 January 2003:
  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your question concerning how many motor vehicles are owned by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and their total current valuation. I am replying in his absence. (91711)
  ONS owns fourteen vehicles. Their written down values as at 31st March 2002 were:

  Vauxhall Astra £1,873

  Ford Focus £4,082

  Vauxhall Astra £3,843

  Ford Focus £5,755

  Ford Focus £5,840

  Ford Focus £5,843

  Vauxhall Vectra £6,302

  Ford Mondeo £7,246

  Ford Zetec £8,033

  Celebrity Scooter £1,956 (disabled wheelchair)

  Ford Mondeo £10,192

  Ford Focus £7,820

  Citroen Zsara £7,805

  Ford Mondeo £9,407

  £85,997

  Office of Government Commerce
  Mr. Prisk
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what savings the Office of Government Commerce has secured in(a) financial years (i) 2000–01 and (ii) 2001–02 and (b) from May 2002 to December 2002. [91936]

  Mr. Boateng
  Value for money gains in the financial years 2000–01 and 2001–02 were as follows:

  2000–01— £414 million

  2001–02— £401 million

  418W
  The 2000–01 gains figure has been adjusted down from the £433 million total reported in the Treasury Performance Report.

  As data on gains is collected in the financial year following procurement action, a figure for 2002–03 is not yet available.

  Pensions
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the estimated cost of income tax relief for approved pension schemes as stated in table 7 of the November 2002 'Tax Ready Reckoner and Tax Reliefs' includes tax paid on all pension payments including the state retirement pension; what the tax take was from pension income netted off in the total cost given in the row; and if he will make a statement. [91743]

  Ruth Kelly
  The estimated net cost of relief for approved pension schemes is the sum of the front-end contributions to these schemes plus the relief on the investment income of funds, net of the tax paid on current private pensions in payment. Since income tax relief is not given on an accruing entitlement to the state retirement pension it would not be appropriate to include current payments from these in the net cost of relief to private schemes.

  A more detailed breakdown of the estimate for 2001–02 is contained in table T7.9 of Inland Revenue Statistics. The latest version is on the Inland Revenue website; http://www. inlandreven ue.gov.uk/ stats/pensions/p_t09_1.htm

  Mr Drew
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of total government revenue is represented by the total public sector pension obligation. [92072]

  Mr. Boateng
  Expenditure on unfunded public service pensions, net of employee contributions, is estimated to total about £13.2 billion in 2002–03. Annual government revenue for 2002–03 is estimated at £400 billion (Table B12 of November 2002 pre-Budget Report, Cm 5664). Funded public sector pensions are paid from the particular pension fund and information on the totals of those payments and the related pension fund receipts is not held centrally.

  Public Services Productivity
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to his answer of 9 January 2003,Official Report, column 360W, on public services productivity, if he will place in the Library a list of attendees for the meetings of the Public Services Productivity Panel for 2000–02; and if he will make a statement. [91745]

  Mr. Boateng
  The Public Services Productivity Panel is a small group of senior business people and public sector managers that was established to identify ways of improving productivity in the public sector. A list of panel members from 2000–02 will be placed in the Library.

  Sustainable Fuels
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what fiscal measures he proposes to encourage the use of sustainable fuels in road vehicles. [91845]

  John Healey
  The Government's taxation plans are announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his annual Budget. In making his judgment, he considers all relevant economic, social and environmental factors.

  Last year, the Government introduced a reduced rate of duty for biodiesel set at 20p per litre less than the prevailing rate for ultra low sulphur diesel.

  In the Pre-Budget Report, we announced a reduced rate of duty for bioethanol, to be set at 20p per litre less than the prevailing rate for ultra low sulphur petrol.

  The Green Fuel Challenge has resulted in support, in the form of duty exemptions, for pilot projects promoting research into the use of hydrogen, methanol. and biogas from landfill sites as fuel for road vehicles.

  Tax Returns
  Norman Lamb
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many self-assessment tax-returns were received by the Inland Revenue, and how many of these that have subsequently been lost(a) in the current financial year to date and (b) in each previous year of the operation of the self-assessment system; and how many complaints were received by the Inland Revenue from taxpayers who claim to have submitted their tax-returns before the self-assessment deadline, but where the Inland Revenue has no such record of such a tax-return being received (i) in the current financial year to date and (ii) in each previous year of the operation of the self-assessment system; [91575]

  (2) if he will make a statement on the loss of self-assessment tax return forms by the Inland Revenue. [91573]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 20 January 2003]Around 9 million self-assessment return forms are received by the Inland Revenue each year. In an operation of this size a very small proportion of returns may be misplaced. But the Revenue do not keep specific 420W
  data about the number. The Revenue do their utmost to keep to a minimum any inconvenience to taxpayers and do their best to help those affected.

  Taxation
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the income tax receipts foregone, since 1 October 2000, as a result of the Government's policy of levying a lower rate of tax on ultra-low sulphur petrol. [91023]

  John Healey
  No income tax receipts have been foregone, but the cost to the Exchequer of introducing, in October 2000, a lower duty rate for ultra-low sulphur petrol (ULSP) relative to that for ordinary unleaded petrol, is estimated to be £1,200 million to December 2002. Complete conversion of the UK unleaded petrol markets to these cleaner specification fuels has been achieved.

  Thermal Insulation
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received on the VAT rate of 17.5 per cent. on the sale of thermal insulation products for private purchasers; and if he will make a statement. [91976]

  John Healey
  The Government has received numerous representations from members of the public, and others from individual hon. members and businesses. Under long-standing formal agreements with our European partners, we are not able to introduce a reduced rate of VAT for energy-efficient or energy-saving materials sold direct to the public. The Government has pressed the European Commission to bring forward, during this year's review of VAT reduced rates, proposals to allow a reduced rate for energy-saving materials purchased for DIY installation.

  Unpaid Tax
  Mr. Laws
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his latest estimate is of unpaid tax by each major category of tax for the last year for which information is available; and if he will make a statement. [91716]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The Inland Revenue's financial account runs from the beginning of November until the end of October. The figures for the period to 25 October 2002, will not be verified until June of this year.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Northern Ireland Boundary Commission
  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Paul Murphy)
  I am pleased to announce that Mrs Joan Ruddock, OBE has been re-appointed as a member of the Northern Ireland Parliamentary Boundary Commission. Her warrant of appointment will run until 31 December 2006.

  Mr Richard Mackenzie, CB is the other Commission member. His warrant of appointment will run until 29 October 2006.

  Foot and Mouth
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Ian Pearson)
  I am publishing today the response to the Price WaterhouseCoopers (PWC) review of the 2001 outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in Northern Ireland.

  The publication will provide details of the Government's response to the review which was published 26 July 2002. Most of the recommendations have been accepted and have either been, or will be implemented. The response highlights a number of areas where work continues to ensure that we are better prepared to respond to a similar animal disease outbreak in the future.

  FURTHER INFORMATION

  A copy of the response has been placed in the House Library. Copies will be sent to stakeholders. Consultation will take place on the revised contingency planning arrangements for dealing with epizootic disease and other initiatives being taken forward in response to the 2001 outbreak of FMD.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Benefit Fraud Inspection (Oxford City Council)
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Malcolm Wicks)
  The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) inspection report on Oxford city council was published today and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.

  The BFI published its first inspection report on Oxford city council in August 1999. The Department monitored Oxford's progress after the inspection but when the council failed to make progress, the BFI carried out a further inspection.

  This follow-up report finds a substantial improvement in counter-fraud work, but serious weaknesses in housing benefits administration.
  12WS
  The council installed a new housing benefit IT system and a document image processing system at the same time as implementing the verification framework. The conflicting priorities were poorly managed. Measures to bring the work under control included unlawfully allowing claims to overrun the maximum benefit period of 60 weeks.

  This report finds a substantial backlog of work and that performance had deteriorated since the first inspection in many areas, including claims processing and verification. The council also failed to ensure that all relevant claims were referred to the Rent Service, and the incorrect DWP subsidy was being claimed in respect of many homeless persons. A new overpayments recovery system proved inadequate and had to be replaced after a year, causing serious delays and rising debts.

  The council has implemented all BFI's recommendations from the first inspection for counter-fraud work, which has improved substantially. However, prosecution of some fraudsters was impeded by the council's policy of allowing claims to overrun.

  A new head of revenues and benefits had just been appointed at the time of the BFI follow-up inspection, and a restructuring of management and staff was under way. The poor performance in housing benefit administration had been recognised by the council and plans were progressing to address the problems, although it was too early for BFI to judge their effectiveness.

  In 2000–01, Oxford city council administered approximately £39.4 million in housing benefits. This is approximately 33.8 per cent. of its total gross revenue expenditure.

  The report makes recommendations to help the council address the remaining weaknesses and to further improve the administration of housing benefit and council tax benefit, as well as counter-fraud activities.

  I am now considering the report and will be asking the council for its proposals in response to the findings and recommendations of the BFI.

  Disability Rights
  The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Andrew Smith)
  Later this year I plan to publish a draft disability Bill with the intention that it should undergo pre-legislative scrutiny, before being taken forward as part of the Government's legislative programme later this Parliament. This will be a further and very major step to ensure we meet our manifesto commitment on extending rights and opportunities for disabled people.

  The draft Bill will include new measures proposed by the Disability Rights Task Force building on the legislation that we have already introduced such as our establishment of the Disability Rights Commission and our new protection for disabled pupils and students. It will also make progress beyond our other plans for extending civil rights protection for disabled people. These include the introduction in 2004 of the Disability Discrimination Act's final duties on service providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled customers

  13WS
  and the laying of regulations later this session to implement the disability provisions of the article 13 employment directive which will significantly extend employment protection for disabled people.

  The new measures in the draft Bill will include proposals that we outlined in our document "Towards Inclusion", such as changes to the DDA affecting the public sector, transport and premises, some widening of the definition of disability and more. The Government also intends to cover membership of larger private clubs in the DDA and will consult widely on how and when the practical changes involved would take effect. I will make further announcements in due course.

  All these legislative improvements together represent the most significant and far-reaching package of legislative change to protect disabled people against discrimination ever seen in this country.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Space Strategy
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt)
  The draft United Kingdom Space Strategy "Space for science, enterprise and environment" is being published today. It sets out proposals to enhance the UK's standing in space exploration, to promote the use of space in government and commerce, and to develop innovative space systems. The public is invited to comment on the draft by 30 April. Copies of the strategy and guidance on how to respond are available on the website of the British National Space Centre www.bnsc.gov.uk. Copies have also been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  Overseas Trade Fairs and Seminars Programme
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt)
  I am placing details of a £20 million British Trade International programme of support for UK company participation in supported groups at overseas trade fairs and seminars in the Library of the House. Sponsor organisations that bid for support to organise groups are being informed.

  These overseas trade fair and seminar activities continue to be central to trade development work worldwide. British Trade International is conscious of sponsor organisations' need for flexibility in the way in which the funding is allocated. The operation of the programme during the 2003–04 financial year will continue to take account of this need for flexibility, within the overall budget provision, and the need for efficient administration.

DEFENCE

  Atomic Weapons Establishment
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie)
  I have decided that, following detailed negotiations, and as allowed for in the announcement of the existing ten-year contract for the management and operation of the Atomic Weapons Establishment with AWE Management Limited, the 14WS
  contract should be extended to 25 years, and that the contractor should, where necessary, have access to private capital. The extended contract will continue to give overriding priority to safety and security. The resultant long term partnering arrangement will allow the optimisation of investment in capital projects and will result in improved facilities, environmental improvements and efficiency gains.

  Aldermaston and Burghfield will continue as nuclear licensed sites, subject to independent regulation by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the Environment Agency. The Ministry of Defence compliance officer will also retain the authority and responsibility to cancel the contract and to instruct the contractor to cease operations if there is a serious breach of MOD's requirements.

  All existing and completed new assets will be owned by the Government. The total value of the contract will be £5.3 billion.

  The AWE workforce and their trade unions will be given details today by AWE Management Limited.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Right to Buy
  The First Secretary of State (Mr. John Prescott)
  The Government fully supports the aspiration of the great majority to own their home (there are now nearly 1 million more homeowners than there were in 1997) and we continue to provide a range of schemes to assist still more people into home ownership.

  The Government is fully committed to the principle of the right to buy, which has enabled 1.5 million tenants to own their house or flat, and has helped create stable, mixed communities, but the scheme must be kept up to date to reflect the current housing market. Right to buy has changed little since it was introduced in 1980, and the Government is particularly concerned about exploitation of the rules, and about the way the scheme is now working in areas of high demand for housing.

  Right to buy imposes a substantial long-term burden on the public purse (last year's sales will, in due course, result in a long run cost of some £850m) so it is vital that it meets its objectives effectively. The Government has therefore decided to act to tackle abuses and to reduce the scheme's adverse impact on the availability of affordable housing, in both urban and rural areas.

  I therefore intend to reduce the maximum discounts available to tenants in 42 areas that are under the greatest housing market pressure, as evidenced by a high incidence of homelessness and high house prices, and where there is also evidence of abuse of the scheme. The areas concerned, mainly urban and all in the south and east of England, are listed below. The maximum discount will be cut to £16,000, the same as the maximum discount available to assured tenants of housing associations under the right to acquire scheme.
  15WS
  We have today written to all the local authorities concerned, and to any housing associations in those areas to whom the social housing stock has been transferred, consulting them on our intentions. A copy of this letter has been placed in the Library of the House. It provides each local authority with the opportunity to provide reasons why the change should not be made in their area. I will consider carefully all representations received.

  An order introducing the changes will be laid before Parliament next month, and will come into effect in March. Any tenant who has applied for the right to buy before the date on which the order comes into effect will be entitled to the current, higher, maximum rates of discount where they qualify for these.

  The Government is also determined to ensure that more local people in rural areas can afford a home. The previous administration introduced constraints on the right to buy in some designated rural areas, all national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, by restricting the resale of homes purchased under the scheme. The Government is now taking immediate steps to increase the scope of those restrictions on resale. We are removing the requirement for the area in question to have 3 per cent or more of stock as second homes and will be prepared to designate areas that include towns with up to 3,000 inhabitants (rather than the current limit of 2,000). We are writing to all local authorities post-transfer housing associations to inform them that we are relaxing the criteria. A copy of this letter has been placed in the Library of the House. We expect more local authorities will take the opportunity this change now provides to protect the stock of affordable housing stock across much of rural England.
  16WS
  The Government will asses carefully the impact of the changes before determining the need for further modernization of the right to buy.

  London

  South East

  East

  South West

  1. Barnet

  1. Chiltern

  Watford

  Christchurch

  2. Bexley

  2. Epsom & Ewell

  3. Brent

  3. Hart

  4. Bromley

  4. Oxford

  5. Camden

  5. Reading

  6. City of London

  6. Reigate &

  Banstead

  7. Croydon

  7. Spelthorne

  8. Ealing

  8. Tonbridge &

  Mailing

  9. Enfield

  9. Vale of White

  Horse

  10. Hackney

  10. West Berkshire

  11. Hammersmith &

  Fulham

  12. Haringey

  13. Harrow

  14. Hillingdon

  15. Hounslow

  16. Islington

  17. Kensington &

  Chelsea

  18. Kingston upon

  Thames

  19. Lambeth

  20. Lewisham

  21. Merton

  22. Newham

  23. Redbridge

  24. Richmond upon

  Thames

  25. Southwark

  26. Sutton

  27. Tower Hamlets

  28. Waltham Forest

  29. Wandsworth

  30. Westminster

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.

Iraq
Lord Roberts of Conwy Lord Roberts of Conwy asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have plans for the ending of a possible war with Iraq.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Amos): My Lords, we have repeatedly made it clear that no decision to launch military action against Iraq has been taken, and military action is not inevitable. Our policy is to ensure that Iraq complies with its obligations and the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. UNSCR 1441 has served notice on the Iraqi regime that it must now give up its weapons of mass destruction or face serious consequences. Should military action become necessary, its precise objectives and endpoint would depend on the circumstances at the time.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Bearing in mind that the present threat of war is arguably the result of the premature ending of the first Gulf War which left Saddam in place, does the Minister agree that a clear statement of the aims and objectives should be made before our forces are committed to any substantial action? Is she aware that there is considerable confusion in the public mind as to the ultimate nature of those aims and objectives?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I repeat that no decision on military action has been taken. However, our aims and objectives are absolutely clear and have been set out in Security Council Resolution 1441—that is, disarmament.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the decision or recommendation of the inspectors to be given more time to complete their work is very relevant in respect of whether we proceed to military action? Does she also agree that the more optimistic views of the impact of any war on Iraq on the Palestinian-Israeli situation are not shared by Her Majesty's Government?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, of course the view of the inspectors would be important and relevant, and the Security Council will discuss their report on Monday. It is also important to remind the House that none of the resolutions is time limited. For example, monitoring does not strop if and when disarmament takes place. It would only stop if and when the UN
690
decided that that should happen. A lot of focus has been put on the date of 27th January, but I remind the House that that is when the inspectors will report to the Security Council, which will then make a decision.
With respect to the impact on wider Middle East questions, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, knows the Government's view very well. We feel strongly that Iraq needs to be dealt with. We also feel strongly that issues related to the Middle East, the peace process and the situation between the Palestinians and Israel need to be sorted out, and we are working very hard to achieve that goal.
Lord Bridges: My Lords, the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, is extremely pertinent. It is of course right for the Minister to reply that the decision to embark on a war has not yet been taken. However, it is also necessary to think about the consequences of such a war and the means by which we might hope to pacify Iraq at the end of it, which is possibly even more difficult than the war itself.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Symons dealt with this the last time she answered a Question on Iraq. If there were a war there would of course be serious humanitarian consequences and serious consequences for the infrastructure of Iraq. Those issues would need to be considered and addressed. Again, I repeat that no decision has been taken with respect to military action.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, irrespective of the consequences, in view of the Question asked by my noble friend, is it not right that the object of the exercise, if we have to go to war, is to destroy the weapons of mass destruction, one way or another, which have not been accounted for? We know they exist but, as yet, no explanation has been given as to where they are to be found.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, in answer to questions yesterday when I repeated the Statement on the UN, terrorism and Iraq, I made it clear that Iraq has obviously not declared everything to the UN because the inspectors have already found empty shellcases which were not declared. I repeat that our policy is to ensure that Iraq complies with its obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Ultimately, of course, the choice rests with Iraq. If it fails to comply, the Security Council will have to think carefully about the action that it wishes to take to secure compliance. Disarmament and compliance with Security Council Resolution 1441 remain our foremost policy objectives.
Lord Clark of Windermere: My Lords, although it is clearly right to go down the UN route, at the end of the day there are other difficulties. Can the Minister tell us about the difficulty of overflying the sites where there may be weapons of mass destruction?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I am unable to give that information, but I can tell the House that we and the United States have shared with the weapons inspectors the information that we feel that we can share to enable them to carry out their job effectively.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, returning to the Question of my noble friend Lord Roberts, did the Minister notice that American policymakers have again been emphasising that their aim and objective is the liberation of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussein? Is that our objective and, if not, are there not some difficulties about planning a campaign in which our allies have one objective and we have another?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, my responsibility in this House is to answer for the policies of the United Kingdom Government and not for those of the United States Government. I have made the UK Government's position clear: we intend to go down the UN route. We have said that our policy is to ensure that Iraq complies with its obligations under UNSCR 1441. There will be a meeting of the Security Council on Monday, and the weapons inspectors will make their report. The Security Council will then make decisions with respect to the next step.

Works of Art: Funding for Purchases
2.44 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley Lord Beaumont of Whitley asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they propose to take to preserve Britain's artistic heritage, in light of the conclusion of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art that "through a lack of funding the system has failed totally to achieve its objective".
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the Government already enable heritage items to be saved for the nation by means of temporary export bars and the acceptance in lieu scheme. Under the scheme, our sponsored galleries acquired works with a tax value of almost £37 million in the past five years. Museums and galleries decide how much of their grant-in-aid to devote to acquisitions. They also use self-generated income, grants from the lottery and donations for purchases.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply and for information of which I was aware. Nevertheless, how does he account for the judgment, quoted in my Question, that the system is not working in spite of campaigns against the escalation of prices conducted by that admirable magazine, the Jackdaw, to which I hope all art-loving people subscribe? I have no interest to declare. Despite the admirable work of the National Art Collections Fund, the fact remains that prices have escalated beyond all bounds and the Government are unable to do anything about it. Have they no strategy to improve on that situation?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Lord will recognise that we have substantially increased the amount of money available to our museums and art galleries. It has gone up by 17 per cent since 1997–98. We are, of course, very concerned about our arts heritage.
The noble Lord has identified the issue. The escalation in values raises enormous problems for this country. For example, the Raphael "Madonna of the Pinks" is a great work of art that is the subject of discussion and an appeal by the National Gallery, which hopes that it can retain a painting that has been on its walls for several years. It has a market value of £35 million and a bid is in from the Getty Museum in California.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, when shall we see the report of the quinquennial review being undertaken by the department into the workings of the Waverley committee, its future policy and whether any changes need to be made?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, my noble friend is right in thinking that we need to keep the situation under constant review. We are aware of the difficulties. He will appreciate the fact that one of the oft-canvassed solutions to the issue—that we should ensure compulsory retention in this country for the Waverley list of exceptional items of national heritage—was considered in 1992 by the then Secretary of State, David Mellor, who considered, for very good reasons, such as the damage to the art market and the problems of enforcing such a concept, that it was not practicable. Therefore, we do not see it as a potential route forward.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, has the Minister considered the fact that large resources are being given to buying those pictures? When Italy was in a low economic state, England bought all those pictures. Should they not be allowed to circulate around the world to whoever can pay for them? Why should the British taxpayer or the lottery pay to keep Italian paintings in England?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Lord will recognise that we take pride in a whole range of artistic objects that we greatly value in this country. We are proud of the range of collections of our museums and galleries. The noble Lord is right in the obvious sense that the market in art is a free market. The issue crops up when the commodity of the arts is not in public ownership in the galleries but in private ownership, which prompts the question whether galleries should bid for it. That is where the rub is. As the noble Lord indicated, a free market operates in the world of art.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that apart from the measures he enumerated for funding purchases of works of art, one further source which has rather fallen into abeyance—if you will excuse the rather old hereditary peerage expression—

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is Treasury grants? Does he visualise any circumstances when, a prime work of art having failed to secure funding under the current arrangements, a Treasury grant may become appropriate?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Viscount is right. The concept of the Treasury grant still exists, although it has not been employed since 1980—a reflection, I suppose, of successive Chancellors of the Exchequer being wary of such supplementary grants, particularly as the number of grants required increased so substantially. It is therefore one potential avenue; however, I leave the House to judge whether, in the case of such very highly priced items, the department would be successful in its bid to the Treasury.
Lord Harrison: My Lords, given that 90 per cent of the holdings of Britain's art galleries and museums are hidden from public view due to lack of exhibition space and funds to show them, would it not be better to spend public money on providing the opportunity to get these works of art out of the cellars rather than competing with rich galleries around the world such as the John Paul Getty?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. The value of these works of art to the nation is measured by how readily they can be appreciated and viewed by the general public. That is why we have seen fit to concentrate our resources not on specific purchases and grants in aid from the Treasury and all of that, but on giving resources to the museums so that they can pursue extended policies of ensuring that the artefacts they have are put on public display.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry: My Lords, one of the key objectives of this council was, I believe, to see that specific British works of art were kept in this country, particularly when there were gaps in the collections of the Tate or the National Gallery. Does the Minister agree that the committee chairman was being perhaps a little pessimistic about what he has achieved? In my judgment, the committee has been very successful in seeing that certain works of art which were needed particularly to fill gaps have been kept here. Because of the time it required should elapse before an export licence was granted, there was the opportunity for the Tate, the National Gallery or the Fitzwilliam to organise a fundraising campaign that enabled the work of art to stay in this country.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the committee is perhaps selling itself short by saying that it has totally failed. After all, it has preserved 50 per cent of the artefacts that it has been concerned to preserve. Those would otherwise have gone abroad. That is not a bad record.

Terrorism Insurance
2.53 p.m.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick Lord Lloyd of Berwick asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are satisfied with the working of the Reinsurance (Acts of Terrorism) Act 1993.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Reinsurance (Acts of Terrorism) Act 1993 has successfully underpinned government involvement in the Pool Re scheme to enable insurers to offer terrorism insurance for commercial property damage and business interruption. Following 11th September 2001, a government and industry working group was set up to examine changes needed to Pool Re, and the remit of the Pool Re scheme has been extended to enable insurers to offer terrorism insurance against a wider range of risks. This has been widely welcomed as an example of partnership between government, the insurance industry and property owners and occupiers.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, is he aware that there is still concern in the City about a gap in the terrorism reinsurance cover provided by the Pool Re arrangements because of the fact that the definition in the 1993 Act is a good deal narrower than the definition in the Terrorism Act 2000? In those circumstances, can he perhaps reassure the House that serious damage to property caused by bodies such as the animal rights movement is covered by Pool Re? Can he give the same assurance in respect of terrorist acts committed by persons not known to be acting on behalf of any known organisation?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I shall, if I may, answer the general question and then the two specific questions that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, asks. Yes, of course there is a gap between the definitions. However, we take the view that is a very small set of circumstances and it does not justify primary legislation. That view was upheld by all the parties in the recent agreement to extend Pool Re.
On the specific point, of course, I cannot make a judgment about particular cases. However, if we talk about the animal rights movement, I think that, in general, it would be accepted that it is seeking to influence government by violence to change the law on animal rights. But, of course, any individual case would have to be judged on its merits. Ultimately, these are questions for the Treasury to determine in accordance with the Pool Re arrangements, with a right of appeal to an impartial tribunal.
As for the question of acting on behalf of an organisation, the definition is explicit in saying that the act must be on behalf of or in connection with the organisation. That is a little wider and may give some comfort to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd.
Lord Newby: My Lords, does the Minister have any sympathy with the argument that the scope of the acts

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might be expanded to provide public liability cover? Does he agree that if there were a terrorist attack, for example, at a football match, the club would be covered for the physical damage to the ground and the loss of future revenue, but not for claims in respect of spectators killed or injured by the attack? Do the Government believe that that is an acceptable situation?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, there are many, many ways—an infinity of ways—in which the protection and the government underpinning could be extended. For example, it could be extended to domestic properties, although it has not been. I think that a line has to be drawn somewhere, both in terms of the definition of terrorism and the degree to which the Government should be underpinning what is fundamentally a contract between insurers and insured.
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, is it not undesirable in principle for there to be two Acts of Parliament on the statute book with two different definitions of terrorism? Will the Minister say a little more about the Government's reluctance to bring the definition in the 1993 Act into line with the definition in the Terrorism Act 2000, which includes references to religious and ideological causes, threats and intimidation, risks to health and safety and disruption of electronic systems—all modern forms of terrorism about which the 1993 Act is understandably silent?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, yes, there are differences between the 1993 Act and the Terrorism Act 2000, but our view is that the differences in practice are likely to be very small. However, particular circumstances could give rise to an act of property damage not being covered. In so far as differences of definition are significant, it is generally the Terrorism Act 2000—the more recent Act—that will prevail.

Asylum Seekers: Induction Centres
2.58 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith asked Her Majesty's Government:
What consultation is taking place with local communities before country houses and hotels receive asylum seekers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Filkin): My Lords, the policy in such cases is to consult the relevant local authority, and, subject to necessary considerations of commercial confidentiality at the time, to take views also from those affected in the local community. We recognise that such decisions are of intense interest to the local
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community. In future, NASS will consult with the local authority throughout the procurement process leading up to contract.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that helpful reply. Can he tell the House who was responsible for the authorisation of agents to seek out such properties?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, my honourable friend the Minister with responsibility for citizenship and immigration would have overall responsibility for pursuing the policy of creating a range of induction centres across the country. That policy was set out in a White Paper which this House considered a year ago. Specifically, the operational practice of the policy would be dealt with by the director of NASS itself. In terms of exactly who said what to whom and at what point in time, I do not have those details here. If the noble Lord would care to specify the question, I would be pleased to write to him.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that induction centres are the first stage in the dispersal policy and that no one is expected to stay in them for longer than 10 days? Yet, by the Minister's own admission, NASS has cocked up the whole process of consultation with local authorities and communities. Is it not time that he took into account the serious criticism by the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux in regard to the work of NASS and involved the voluntary refugee agencies in the consultative process to a much greater extent?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, the noble Lord asked a string of important questions. The noble Lord is absolutely right that people stay in induction centres for no longer than 10 days. That is part of the process of managing the asylum system. Induction centres in the South East are able to disperse asylum seekers to other parts of the country so that the South East does not bear all of the burden. We recognise that the processes that were in place were not satisfactory and that local communities and the relevant MP should have been better consulted. Therefore, we commissioned an urgent review of the situation to decide the best way forward. My honourable friend has also said that she will commission an independent review of procurement processes within NASS to try to ensure that we perform better in these respects in the future. As to the wider point about NASS, a process of regionalisation is under way, as we signalled clearly when we discussed the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord said that the Government were consulting local authorities about what houses, including country houses, were available. Do local authorities have lots of empty country houses and, if so, why?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I am not certain whether the noble Earl was making an offer. To my knowledge, local authorities do not have a large number of empty

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houses although all suitable offers would be seriously considered. Having considered the Sittingbourne situation, we intend to delay sending asylum seekers to the hotel there until we have talked through the issue with local people, the local MP and the local authority. We shall be holding talks for as long as is necessary properly to address the issues.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, would Dorneywood and Chequers be considered suitable?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, to my knowledge, they are not empty.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is there a risk that some people who are considering asylum may be encouraged to think that they will be put into a three or four star hotel?
Lord Filkin: No, my Lords, that is not the case for two reasons: we are not using four star hotels and people who come to this country applying for refuge under the 1951 convention are in most cases desperate to seek refuge in this country. They are in most cases grateful for whatever level of support the country is able to provide. It is a calumny to suggest that we are extravagant or lavish in our treatment of asylum seekers while properly respecting our international obligations.

Undergraduate Debt
3.3 p.m.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Lord Forsyth of Drumlean asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the maximum level of debt they consider reasonable for a British undergraduate to be expected to accumulate in the course of obtaining a degree from a United Kingdom university.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Baroness Ashton of Upholland): My Lords, a reasonable debt for an undergraduate is one that will fund a high quality education, give him or her the opportunity and skills to progress in their career and can be repaid at a reasonable rate over a reasonable time and m a reasonable manner.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, is not the Minister ashamed to be a member of a Labour government who have abandoned the principle of free access to higher education, who plan to saddle undergraduates with debts of more than £20,000 to pay for their degrees and who are undermining the independence of universities by forcing them to change their entrance administration procedures to discriminate against middle-class students of proven ability?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the answer to the question is "No". The noble Lord has asked the most topical of topical Questions as shortly I shall repeat the Statement made by my right honourable friend and we shall debate those issues. I am conscious that most noble Lords have not ye: had the chance to hear the detail of that Statement. However, if the noble Lord looks at the full range of the proposals that we have put forward, particularly in regard to students from poorer backgrounds, he will see that we have introduced grants and that we have increased the threshold at which university graduates will repay the money from £10,000 to £15,000. We are working closely with universities to ensure access for students who are capable of undertaking higher education. We are ensuring that we fund universities to provide that.
The Lord Bishop of Worcester: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the policy of moving from grants to loans, thereby increasing student debt, is shared between the two major parties which have formed governments over the past decade? We should all be concerned about the effect of indebtedness. Has the extensive research conducted at Exeter University on the effect of indebtedness on students' life expectations and view been considered by the Government in arriving at their conclusions? Do the Government feel that they are responsible for the changes in social attitude which are brought about by requiring students to be in debt at an age when they cannot possibly work out what they will be able to afford? Do the Government agree that a whole generation is being encouraged to carry into later life an attitude that debt is absolutely normal? Do the Government further agree that the student debt situation is, frankly, out of control?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, in the course of our deliberations on these issues we have indeed considered all the evidence that has been put before us. We have had many and extensive discussions, some of which have been reported in the media, others of which some noble Lords have been party to. We must recognise who needs to make a contribution and ensure that that is handled appropriately. We believe—we shall debate this matter when we discuss the Statement—that we have found a balance that enables students to make their contribution. They will repay the money when they earn a salary that is sufficient to enable them to make the repayments. We recognise that we need to give our poorer students some support. We believe that our solution is the best that we can achieve.
Baroness Blotch: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that there is increasing evidence that bright, talented young people who come from families with a tradition of going to university, or attending schools of which the Government disapprove, are suffering reverse discrimination in order to widen access? Will the Minister put hand on heart and say that standards

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of entry will never, but never, be compromised in order simply to widen access to young people whose families do not have a tradition of going to university?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, what the noble Baroness and I need to debate is what we mean by standards of entry. I recognise that we must ensure that our universities are filled with the brightest and best students who can undertake a university education. There is no doubt on that point. As regards access we recognise that the concept of going to university does not form part of the background of many of our young people. Their families do not have a tradition of going to university. It is not something that they contemplate. Therefore, we must ensure that we work hard to give those young people opportunities. We must also recognise that, unfortunately, not all our schools give young people the best possible education. Many of our universities have already undertaken work, and will continue to do so, to recognise the breadth and potential of young people. I wholeheartedly agree that universities should accept those young people who will benefit from a university education.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, taking the Question at its face value, what advice has the department received from banks and building societies about the implications of high levels of student debt on mortgage loans? Do student debt repayments take precedence over mortgage repayments? As an unsecured debt would the financial sector regard it as a substantial prior obligation and limit the availability of mortgage lending accordingly?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Baroness details of the bank and building society information that we have received although I am happy to find that out, report it to her and place the information in the Library. Banks and building societies consider the whole question of debt in relation to a person who is applying for a mortgage. As I said, by raising the threshold for repayment to £15,000 for all people who have attended university we are trying to ensure that people get a good start in life. Repayment will not apply while a person's income is below that figure. We are trying to ensure that people are able to lead a full life after university and gain access to mortgages and the other things that they require.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, will the Minister answer the question so far as concerns medical students, who have to spend five or six years in training, bearing in mind that the number of people applying to study medicine has fallen in the past few years?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, as the noble Lord may know, the position with medical students is currently that the first four years of their payment are treated as are those of other students, and that contributions are made from the Department of
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Health. Within the Statement, I will be able to cover that point more fully, but the recognition is that we will again seek to support such students. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health is looking at how, as other government departments do, the Department of Health can support students willing to work in the medical professions and the broader public sector, to ensure that we have the high-quality calibre of people that we would wish to have.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, have the Government taken into account that a university degree is not necessarily a guarantee of a well-paid job on leaving, or ever?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the evidence suggests that on average a university graduate will earn 50 per cent more than someone who has not been to a university. There will be general recognition across the House that university graduates do well in our economy, and rightly so. We have a threshold of repayment precisely so that those people who go to university and do not reach that level of income will not pay.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in the Labour Party that I joined in 1947, the idea of charging university tuition fees and saddling students with a debt of up to £20,000 would have been complete anathema? When was it that the Labour Party dropped the idea that education and training of young people was of benefit to the whole community for a long period, and therefore deserved to be paid for by the whole community?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I agree that education and training is of benefit to the whole economy. Indeed, our access-widening strategy is based on the premise that we need a highly skilled economy if we are to compete in the global economy in which we are now situated. However, what happened in the era that the noble Lord described is no longer the situation. We have more students coming into universities, and rightly so. We have a thriving economy in which many people benefit from a higher education, and in which we wish to see contributions made towards that higher education by those who will benefit from it in the broader sense. It is also true that taking the money out of general taxation means that the people who do not go to university are funding something that they are not able to receive.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, did I understand the Minister to say, in answer to the question from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, that the Government are formulating policy to increase student debt without having resolved how that debt will relate to mortgage interest debt?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: No, my Lords, I did not mean to imply that at all. I said that I did not have information about the specific conversations that will

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have gone on. I hope that by the time we come to the Statement and questions on it, I will have that information and will relay it to the House.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, should £15,000 really be the base level for starting to repay debt? That is about £7.50 a working hour., which is what cleaners are paid in London. Is that what graduates are going to do as jobs?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, gave the game away by talking about cleaners in London. We have to look at what is happening around the whole of the British economy in terms of income rates. He will know that the average income is around £20,000 to £25,000 per annum. We believe that, for starting salaries, that enables people to get into the economy and start work, and that it is a good point at which to introduce the repayments.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, given that the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the present Home Secretary, although then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, all gave absolute assurances that top-up fees would not be introduced for universities, what confidence can we have in anything that the Government say in future?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, noble Lords can have absolute confidence. What my right honourable friends all said was that during the lifetime of this Parliament we would not introduce top-up fees. That is an important point, because we have done what good governments should do. We have stuck to that promise and made our position clear for the lifetime of this Parliament. Electors will make their choice between a government with clear policies and an opposition with none.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the noble Baroness made a great point of pay for graduates being higher by about a half. Does she agree that university academics, on whom the quality in our universities depends, are well below that line and earn much lower pay? Only this morning, a student who had graduated as a scientist was offered £12,000 a year for a scientific job with DEFRA in the North East. He decided to take a job for £15,000 a year driving lorries. How can the Government base their policy on a false premise?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I agree wholeheartedly that there is a real issue around academic pay. When we come on to the Statement, I will say—I am happy to say some of it now—that we are looking to invest substantially in recruitment and retention, to ensure that universities have the resources that they need. The whole formula is based on the responsibility of the individual, the responsibility of the state, and the responsibility of other institutions with which higher education interacts such as industry, to enable the universities to invest in research and in teaching and learning. It is on that that the formula should be judged.

London Development Agency Bill
Read a third time, and passed.

Higher Education
3.17 p.m.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. The Statement is as follows:
"I wish to present to the House this afternoon the Government's proposals for the future of higher education in England. I want to begin by thanking my colleague, the honourable Member for Barking and Dagenham, and my officials at the department for the excellent work they have done in preparing this White Paper.
"I start by stating that our universities are a great success story. Their record on research, on provision of higher-education opportunities for hundreds of thousands of young people, and on linking university research to economic achievement is outstanding. That record of achievement is acknowledged in a financial settlement for the next three years which is better than any in recent years and which I announce today in my letter to the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which I am placing in the Library of the House.
"I want to express my appreciation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for this excellent settlement, which provides an average 6 per cent per year increase in real-terms funding over the period of the settlement. I know that the settlement represents his personal commitment to this vital sector of the economy. The settlement means that every part of the university world will be able to plan for the next three years in confidence on the basis of a secure future funding stream which is substantial and generous.
"However, as we would all acknowledge, our universities need to be able to generate still more resources, whether they come from the state, individual students, alumni or employers. I address these points later on, but it is a central point of this White Paper to acknowledge that students' share of the overall costs of university education will increase.
"That said, however, the House needs to understand, as our universities do, that they exist in an increasingly dynamic and an increasingly competitive world. In our White Paper, we set out the nature of that dynamism and the nature of the competitive challenges we face.
"First, our universities have to make better progress in harnessing our knowledge to the process of creating wealth. Secondly, they have to extend the opportunities of higher education to all of our population, irrespective of their personal and economic background. This White Paper attempts to fulfil both ambitions.

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"Despite the attractions of inaction—which have perhaps too often led past governments to avoid facing up to important challenges—this House needs to acknowledge that coasting along, basking in previous successes and shirking the need for reform offers no robust future for our universities.
"We need to acknowledge that a university system that caters for 43 per cent of the age group will be intrinsically different from one that provided for 20 per cent in 1990—only 13 years ago. We need to face up to the fact that international competition from world-class universities in the USA and the growing competition from institutions in China and India change the terms of trade for the UK's great historic universities.
"The world of one single employment from 16 or 18 to 60 or 65 is gone for ever. Our universities have the principal responsibility for helping our working population to adjust to the future.
"In this increasingly competitive economic world knowledge is all-powerful and so effective working relationships between universities and both private and public sectors are increasingly significant. In short, in a world of accelerating change, we all need to understand that our society's principal weapon in ensuring that we master change, rather than surrendering to it, is our education system and, principally, our universities.
"As a result of that we say that our universities have to identify more clearly than they do now the way in which they address the great missions on the basis on which they were created. Those missions are research, knowledge transfer and, perhaps most important of all, teaching. These are the central themes of the White Paper, and we start from the basis that over the years the emphasis on research has, for understandable reasons, been at the expense of teaching and knowledge transfer.
"So on research we argue that we need still more focus upon world-class research. We state that the funding regime should encourage research collaboration, should promote research concentration and should strengthen the highest world-class research in the country. The White Paper sets out how our research funding regime will meet those aspirations. It means giving extra resources to our very best research departments and world-class universities as well as ensuring that new research will emerge and flourish.
"Although I have decided not to seek to remove research degree awarding status from some universities, it does mean that research evaluations will be increasingly rigorous. And we will create a UK-wide arts and humanities research council to ensure that funding for arts and humanities is given the status it deserves. For knowledge transfer, this approach means an increasingly close relationship between my department and the Department of Trade and Industry. Both my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and I know that we cannot address innovation
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without addressing skills and that we cannot address enterprise without improving the relationship between universities and business.
"That is why my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer established Richard Lambert's review of the university-business relationship and that is why this White Paper commits the Government to setting up a network of knowledge exchanges, primarily focused in universities that are not research-intensive, to develop that relationship.
"We have to crack the real British disease, which is that our world-class intellectual research is exploited by competitors from other countries but not by ourselves, and we must make sure that we lead the process of knowledge transfer from research to business both nationally and regionally. A far closer relationship between universities, the regional development agencies and the new sector skills councils is necessary, and the White Paper sets out ways in which that can be achieved.
"But the main function of universities must be what it always should have been: high-quality teaching. Today, I am pleased to announce that the Government are giving a far stronger focus to teaching, a focus that is reflected in a significant stream of resources within the funding settlement.
"We will publish an annual comprehensive student survey of university teaching standards, overseen by HEFCE and the National Union of Students. We will establish new national professional teaching standards, establish new centres of teaching excellence and target pay resources to those universities that reward high-quality teaching. In addition, we will recognise excellent teaching as a university mission in its own right by making the award of university title dependent on undergraduate teaching degree awarding powers only.
"Let there be no mistake. All universities will, in future, be judged by their teaching achievement as much as by their research attainment. The days of great research accompanied by shoddy teaching are gone.
"So, it is research, knowledge transfer and teaching that are our universities' historic missions. Every single university has to make a frank assessment—and publicise that assessment—of its own strengths in addressing each of those missions. Drift will not be acceptable.
"The real truth is—let us acknowledge it—that some universities are strong in research, others in teaching and still others in knowledge transfer, and some are strong in two or all three. Let us not pretend that all universities are somehow the same. Let us tell the truth to the people of this country who pay for universities and want their children to benefit from them. We already have a multi-tiered university system.
"On the basis of this assessment, we need to decide what proportion of the age group we wish to encourage into university education. I want to

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confirm today that the Government's target remains, as we set out in the department's public service agreement published in 2000 and reaffirmed in last summer's spending review settlement, to increase participation in higher education towards 50 per cent of those aged 18 to 30 by the end of the decade.
"That target is essential because the economic future of the country depends on that level of education and training. We live in an increasingly competitive world, within the European Union and outside. I do not understand those who claim to speak in the national interest but do not acknowledge the importance of this target.
"However, such a level of participation requires us to re-examine the nature and range of degree courses that we offer. We believe that the bulk of the increase in degree student numbers, from its current proportion of 43 per cent of the cohort, should come from two-year vocational foundation degree courses—a major contribution to the skills and productivity agenda of this country. I believe that the further education colleges, which now provide 11 per cent of this country's higher education, have a major contribution to make here.
"I am pleased to tell the House that a range of employers including, in the public sector, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health and the Home Secretary, as well as myself, are ready to make such a commitment in principle as employers. I also believe that major private-sector employers will welcome and participate in this initiative.
"But the guts of my proposals today come in the field of access. The social class gap among those entering higher education is a national disgrace. Thirty years ago, students received full grants and there were no tuition fees. Despite this, students from middle-class backgrounds were three times more likely to go to university than those from poorer backgrounds. Over the 30 years, the numbers going to university have more than trebled but the gulf in access has remained the same.
"This vicious statistic has to be reversed, although we should in truth acknowledge that this is a long and difficult process. The elements are clear—we have to improve dramatically the quality of school and college level education in our most disadvantaged areas. That is the centre of the strategy for 14 to 19 education announced yesterday by my honourable friend the Member for South Shields. We have to transform university access and admissions criteria so that universities make a genuine and balanced assessment of the potential of every candidate. We have to ensure that universities address the access issue.
"I propose therefore to establish an access regulator, working with HEFCE, who will ensure that any university that wants to increase its tuition fee has rigorous admissions procedures, provides bursaries and other financial support and works directly with schools in every part of the country to
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promote the aspiration of a university education. The regulation will be tough and I believe that most universities will welcome that initiative.
"We have to create a diverse university sector that welcomes applicants from all parts of the community, by a range of different routes. That is one of the arguments for a sensitive fees regime. And it is why we are raising the "postcode premium", which gives extra money to universities that teach and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Finally, we have to create a financial regime that encourages access.
"This brings me to the final chapter of my White Paper, which deals with student finance. First, we should face up to the truth that genuine university freedom comes through building endowment rather than any other device. Universities in this country need to build up endowments. There are already substantial incentives for both individuals and corporate bodies to donate to universities but they are not sufficiently understood and used. The White Paper sets out how, as a matter of priority, we will promote this for graduates, institutions and government.
"Promoting endowments is the right long-term strategy but it will take many years to build up substantial funds. The spending settlement addresses the short-term needs but universities must have funding streams that are sustained.
"The Government will remain the major funder of higher education. But the history of the last 50 years or more, under governments of all colours, shows the problems when universities have to compete with other priorities from nursery schools to health. If they have to rely solely or mainly on public sector resources, the result is pressure on staff/student ratios, capital investment and innovation. We cannot risk slipping into that sort of decline.
"As countries throughout the world have discovered, requiring students to contribute to the cost of their education is the only realistic alternative. That has the merit of justice. On average, graduates earn 50 per cent more than non-graduates over their lifetime. I believe that it is only fair for students to make some contribution to the costs of the education which gives them significant economic benefits. The alternative funder—the general taxpayer—is entitled to ask in comparison what financial support they have received from the Government to assist their personal educational ambitions.
"That is why the White Paper that I present today follows this approach. My student finance proposals are as follows. First, we shall allow universities to vary their fees between £0 and £3,000 a year from September 2006 onwards. I remind colleagues that the figures I propose are significantly lower than some of the early suggestions. The £3,000 cap will be in place for the whole of the next Parliament, rising only in line with inflation. Only those universities that have satisfied the access regulator will be allowed to increase their fee.

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"Secondly, we shall restore a grant for students from the poorest backgrounds. From September 2004, students whose families will earn under £10,000 will receive a £1,000 grant, with a proportion of that paid up to family income of £20,000. Thirty per cent of students will get the full £1,000 grant.
"Thirdly, we shall abolish from 2006 the requirement for any student or their family to pay a fee before or while they are studying. Deferred fees will be paid after students graduate through the tax system, linked to a student's earnings and ability to pay. And I can tell the House that, as with the existing student maintenance loan, no interest will be charged on deferred fees. Any sums outstanding will be adjusted only for inflation so that students pay back only the real value of their fee and maintenance loan.
"Fourthly, we shall continue to exempt around 60 per cent of students from some or all of the first £1,100 of fees, in the same way as we do now.
"Fifthly, we shall raise from April 2005 the threshold at which graduates start to repay their fees and loans from £10,000 to £15,000. This change delivers a saving of £450 per year, which will particularly help graduates when their earnings are lower in the early part of their careers.
"Sixthly, we shall review the level of the maintenance loan and operation of the parental means test for loans as part of the next spending review.
"These student finance proposals will affect different students, potential students and their families in different ways. It remains the case that the British system of student support will be among the most generous in the world.
"The fact that we are asking individual students to contribute, albeit after they have graduated, does mean that their potential debt is increased and this could act, without the wider package of reforms I have introduced, as a disincentive. I believe that, taken as a whole, my student finance package is positive for access to universities and that it will reinforce the other measures on access to which I referred earlier.
"As I said at the outset, the White Paper which I published today represents a massive step forward in equipping our universities to meet the challenges of the future. They will take their rightful place in the dynamo of economic progress and social justice. We need now to take the necessary action to put these proposals into effect. I commend them to the House".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.35 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I do not believe that throughout my time in this House I have had to sit through such a depressing Statement. Academic freedom is dead; long live the man in Whitehall. I think
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back—I say this with some feeling—to how this House fought for academic freedom and I see, almost in real terms, my late friend Lord Beloff turning in his grave.
My first question to the noble Baroness is: what is so special about today's information that it warrants a Statement to Parliament, and what was so unimportant about the policy announcement yesterday that it did not merit a Statement in Parliament? For days, Ministers have been cavorting around TV and radio studios, talking to press journalists, putting items in the press and talking about the detail of today's Statement. This morning, Kim Catcheside on Radio 4 talked in much detail and very knowingly about what we heard just now from the Minister. Therefore, imagine my surprise and amazement when we were told this morning that the Minister was not prepared to go to Radio 4 to be interviewed because Parliament had to be informed first. It is monstrous.
On 14th April 1997, just two weeks before the Government came to office, the Prime Minister, no less, personally wrote an article in the Evening Standard. He said:
"Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees".
Within weeks of coming to office, the Labour Government did just that. In the 2001 manifesto, just ahead, surprisingly, of the next general election, the Labour Party said, with the Prime Minister's approval, that Labour had no plans to introduce top-up fees and,
"we have legislated against them".
As my noble friend Lord Forsyth said, how can anyone believe what the Government say, least of all the students, who live on every word of what Ministers say to them?
Perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness a technical question concerning whether the Government have, indeed, legislated against top-up fees. It is true that it is very difficult to charge university students top-up fees. However, my understanding of the legislation—I stand to be corrected—is that the Government cannot legislate against universities charging such fees. Universities are free to do that; they are independent bodies and can charge fees for that purpose.
What the Government did was far more malicious. They said that universities would suffer financial penalties through the HEFCE if they dared to put up tuition fees. Therefore, if I am right about that technically and legally, will the noble Baroness say how the Government will prevent universitiescharging top-up fees? Will they do so by penalising them financially rather than stopping them?
The students have certainly been conned. When the Government came to office in 1997—in answer to a comment from the right reverend Prelate—students from poorer families received a 50 per cent grant and there were no tuition fees. They did not start paying back loans until they were earning at a level of 75 per cent or above the national average wage. At that time, that was about £17,000. That was a vastly different proposition from the one today.

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Will the Minister say whether all the concessions that exist today will continue? Can she also explain an anomaly? Will she say why, when we are so short of teachers in terms of both recruitment and retention, postgraduates receive a concession whereas the B.Ed. students, who do four years' training and form the staff of the majority of schools—approximately 19,000 schools receive B.Ed. graduates—receive no help whatever from the Government? It would be helpful to know whether that anomaly can be addressed and whether the other concessions will remain.
Students who attend six-year courses—they are not only medical students, although those students are included—will have debts of between £40,000 and £50,000 at the end of their studies. It would be helpful to know what will happen to them. Will we see a cap on Scottish universities now, as we understand may be the case, if prospective students from English universities want to escape the English system?
How will top-up fee income be calculated? Does the 6 per cent real-terms increase in funding of higher education announced today take into account top-up fees? If not—it will be a welcome addition to higher education funding—how are the universities to be funded between now and 2006? If the 6 per cent is additional, can we be certain that that will remain constant in real terms and/or better when top-up fees are introduced? I ask that because the Government's word cannot be taken.
During the passage of the Bill when top-up fees were introduced—I hope that my colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches will remember this—we were promised that the tuition fees would be truly additional money into the higher education sector. That has not been the case. What happens now is that students are sharing the burden with government so the additional money into government has not been truly additional.
It is almost unbelievable that there will be an access czar. What will the czar be called: "Ofuni"? "Ofloony" would be more like it. Do we really mistrust higher education so much that we have to appoint a czar to oversee access? How on earth will that work? What criteria will be used? How will a university be judged as to whether or not it can have top-up fees?
The brightest and most talented of our young people should find places in higher education regardless of background. That is felt most strongly. But this is the Government who took the rungs out of the ladder for the bright children from poor homes. Assisted places were taken out of the system. They are against selection on the grounds of academic ability. Ministers have done more to make it difficult for children from poor backgrounds to get into university than almost anyone else I know. If the Government want to make it easier for children from poorer backgrounds to get into university, they should improve school education and give bright and talented young people the best possible academic education that can be afforded.
What assurance can the Minister give the House that we shall not see standards of access into our universities compromised in the interests of widening
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access? We all want to see those who qualify get into university. We all know that more can be done to encourage young people from poorer backgrounds or from those families which do not have a custom of going to university. But universities are already doing a great deal. We want them to continue to work collaboratively with schools, but the Government have done more to make that difficult. The Government will take control over paying universities. I should like to know how that will work.
I conclude by saying that students will be unforgiving. This attack on academic freedom, the madness of Whitehall control by using an access czar and the controlling research and all other higher education activities will do untold damage in our country. Social engineering and socialism are back with a vengeance. Higher education will become a social engineering factory. The sooner we can find a way of freeing our universities to be independent institutions, the better.
3.43 p.m.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, from these Benches I thank the Minister for repeating the interesting Statement, some aspects of which we welcome. We share with the Government the view that with 43 per cent of the 19 to 30 age cohort now going through university we need a different university system from that which grew up in the last century in the post-Robbins era. However, looking at this White Paper, the Government have neither the right balance now nor the plans to get the right balance.
We welcome a number of aspects of the White Paper. We welcome the emphasis given to research and to high-quality teaching at universities. However, we feel that perhaps both are better achieved by light-touch inspection regimes rather than the heavy-touch regimes threatened. We are worried by such threats.
We welcome the conversion of the Government to the need for some form of maintenance grants for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. But why only £20 per week—£1,000 per year—when those who are 16 and 17 and staying on at school or college are given £32 per week under the educational maintenance allowance? That seems an odd anomaly, particularly given the substantial risk aversion among those people towards taking on debt. We feel strongly that the system pioneered by the Liberal Democrats through the regime in Scotland has been successful. We are delighted to see the Government borrowing that; however, they need to think through how it will be done.
We remain highly sceptical about whether the Government have come up with a definitive answer in the White Paper. I echo the words of the noble Baroness. We do not know precisely what will be in the kitty between now and 2005. All the extra money from top-up fees is promised from 2006 onwards. We have the promise of 6 per cent extra from the Treasury under the CSR. I cannot make head nor tail of the figures but imagine, with a little help, that I shall be able to in due course. Can we be assured that we shall

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see that money? How do we know that it will go to the universities? When tuition fees were introduced under the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, we were promised that that money would be earmarked for universities and it was not. Over the past four or five years the Government took somewhere in the region of £700 million out of the budget of universities. That money should have gone to universities. It is one reason for the current crisis.
Given their stated aim—indeed, their highest priority aim—of increasing access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, do the Government really think that the way to do that is by trebling tuition fees? When tuition fees were originally introduced after the Dearing report, we were told by the Government that they would have no impact on access. Their own statistics have been carefully worked through, but work at Exeter University and by Claire Callender at South Bank University clearly shows that it is precisely the students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are worried about taking on debt. It is not debt itself but the perception of debt which is important here and which will deter disadvantaged students from going to university.
Surely, this will create a two-tier system. Students from poor homes will be worried about applying for expensive courses. Therefore, as predicted, there will be a two-tier system of universities, one for the rich kids and one for the poor kids. That is not what we want. What about differential fees between subjects, as forecast? What about science and engineering? That is one of the more expensive subjects but one to which we are desperate to attract more students. Will differential fees not put off students from studying science and engineering?
How can the Government prevent a system emerging of rich universities getting richer? Today, on the "Today" programme, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Derby made clear that those who can charge top-up fees are already the richer universities. As he put it, the richer universities will get richer and the poor will get poorer.
Another matter which worries us—it was mentioned also by the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch—is the sheer bureaucracy of the system. It is riddled with means tests for this and for that. Has there been any calculation of the extra costs in the bureaucracy of means testing, of "Oftop", as we call it: the office of top-up fees, the new regulator or the new czar? How much will all that cost?
Has any thought been given to part-timers who I believe are the Cinderellas of the system? If we expand the system as is wanted, they would play an important part.
Finally, have the Government thought about the impact of their policies upon women? On average, the earnings of women in full-time employment are 38 per cent below those of men. As a result, they will be landed with debt over a long period of time. Yet this Government are supposedly committed to
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encouraging women to try to break through the glass ceiling and to apply for a higher level of jobs. Have they really thought through their policies carefully?
Before the 1997 election this Government promised that if elected they would never introduce tuition fees. We now have promises that they will not introduce top-up fees. In a letter to vice-chancellors in August 1999, just after they had introduced tuition fees, they said:
"The Secretary of State has made it clear that 'top-up' fees play no part in the Government's plans. Ministers believe that they would restrict access for students from less well-off backgrounds and hence be detrimental to student choice. The Government shares the Dearing Committee's view that access to popular programmes should continue to be determined by academic merit and not by ability to pay".
These Benches take a somewhat different view from that of the Government. We believe very strongly that the opportunity for a university education should be according to ability and not according to income. And we take the view that—in this present day and age when, as the Secretary of State stressed, the knowledge-based society is an imperative for us all—education up to graduate level should be a birthright. We find it amazing that, as Ted Wragg, in yesterday's Guardian, said:
"Labour will still be charging a colossal sum for what should be a birthright".
3.51 p.m.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I am conscious of the time requirement laid down in the Companion. I hope that noble Lords will allow me to run over that requirement slightly in order to answer as many questions as possible.
I begin with the questions of the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch. She talked of the importance of the 14 to 19 strategy, which was outlined in the House of Commons yesterday. I passed on the comments of noble Lords concerned about that matter to my right honourable friend.
However, I want to focus on the importance of today's Statement. There has been a great deal of press speculation. Ministers have tried to lay out their proposals, but this subject needs to be aired. I believe that most people recognise that by airing it we have created the necessary quality of debate.
I have dealt with issues concerning the manifesto. I do not feel that I need to repeat them at this stage. The noble Baroness asked about the legislation. The mechanism is through the HEFCE letter. Powers are given to the Secretary of State whereby not charging top-up fees may be made a condition of grant, which is the standard way to place requirements on universities. We shall consider as we frame the legislation the basis for future limits on top-up fees.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Blatch and Lady Sharp, spoke of their concerns for poorer families. I believe that when noble Lords look at the package we have created they will see that we are very conscious about the need to ensure that poorer families can send their sons and daughters to universities. That is why the package is so important.

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The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, talked about the potential for the perception of debt. We are very alive to the possibility that that could put young people off going to university. It is also true that if universities work closely with them to explain the opportunities that university will create for them we shall begin to balance out that equation. That is why this whole package is so crucial and so important.
We are in discussion with our colleagues in Scotland to ensure that we have an appropriate system. We shall continue that dialogue. We shall be publishing what we describe as a "technical document" a little further down the track, which will set out precisely how these schemes will operate.
The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, asked whether the "top-up" fees would be separate from the 6 per cent funding? They are. Rather than my going through the figures, if noble Lords turn to page 19 of the White Paper, they will see the spending settlement from now until the end of this spending review period. I trust that noble Lords will feel able to hold the Government to that detail in the future, which I believe is very important.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, that we are not trying to take control of pay. We already have a fund for universities with good human resource strategies. Indeed, we want to make sure that all universities are developing the kind of strategy that will enable them to provide excellent teaching alongside excellent research. The White Paper proposes that, when universities have put this strategy in place, that money should become part of the general settlement. We believe that that is an appropriate way to ensure their independence.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, asked about means testing and whether that would create bureaucracy. I sensed a ripple across your Lordships' House. We already have means testing to help students with fees. We will be able to use the same forms and systems for both the grants and for help with the fees under the new system. We are trying to improve and simplify the way the system is run with a single IT system for all local education authorities, which will roll out in 2004–05, and which I believe will help to support our desire to reduce bureaucracy wherever we can.
I was pleased with the welcome given by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, to our proposals. I recognise that education maintenance allowances are £30 in most places and £40 in a couple of other places. But we are trying to balance keeping students from very poor families in education who will benefit from that where that is the only resource that might be available. For higher education there is a grant plus a loan system to enable them to carry on. So it is not equating like with like in that context. It is about a balance within the resources that we have available. I make no apology for that.
I wish to say something about the regulator. This is a very important move. It has been discussed by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills with a number of vice-chancellors. The post
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will be located within HEFCE and will have two aims. One is that universities should be able to demonstrate that they have good access strategies and policies. The regulator will be able to spread good practice and to help universities address this issue, which many universities have sought to do for some time.
I also believe that it is a kind of protection, because an independent regulator can point to the work of universities and to their desire to ensure that they have a good intake of students, and that they have undertaken that task in the best way possible.
3.57 p.m.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood: My Lords, I welcome a number of points in the White Paper but I raise two questions about fundamental premises in that paper. The points I welcome will not be much otherwise noticed, and I think that the record should be straight on that. First, the proposals for an arts and humanities research council went through tortuous routes, but I am delighted to see that now in place.
Secondly, I welcome the move that the proposed earnings threshold of £15,000 before repayment of loans, which although in my view is still too low, will also apply in Scotland.
Thirdly, I refer to the point for shadowing matching funding to encourage external fundraising. I look forward to the Government's detailed proposals on that matter.
The two premises I question, however, are very important. The first, which was highlighted in the Minister's speech, is the assumption widely made that in research-strong universities, this is achieved by a funding transfer from teaching to research. I should like to see the data on which that assumption is founded. That is a minimal question. My view, on the basis of having worked in a number of universities with excellent research records, is that the transfer is often the other way. The data would be very welcome.
The second premise, however, is a rather more important one in view of the highlight given to it. It relates to the problems of access. I support entirely the Government's aspirations. I come from a low-income family and I had the benefit of government support. But the assumption in the paper is that the problem of access will be dealt with in two ways: first, that universities will be threatened in order to ensure that they admit on the basis of location; and, secondly, that access will be encouraged largely by work not directly related to the wider community.
My questions are: first, can I have the statistics that show the basis on which the assumptions are made that transfer of money takes place from teaching to research; and, secondly, will the Government consider more widely the fact that many communities that have low access to universities also have very poor health and low housing quality?
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, many of your Lordships have a keen interest in this Statement. Perhaps I may respectfully remind your Lordships of what was recently reconfirmed by

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the Procedure Committee: this is not an occasion for a full debate but simply for short questions, preferably to the point.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I shall be brief. I was not trying to imply—although I understand that this is the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland—that the transfer of funds is somehow negative for universities. I was trying to allude to the fact that universities have different strengths. We are keen to ensure that the quality of teaching is high throughout universities, but that those for which it is an area on which they have a particular focus have the opportunity to become centres of excellence in teaching, able to spread that practice. We feel strongly about that. If there are statistics such as the noble Lord describes, I shall of course send a copy of them to him and place one in the Library.
The issue of access is the nub of developing a system that will enable us to provide for all our young people who are capable of getting into university. As ever, the scheme is put together in an attempt to deal with all the different issues. It will not be entirely to the taste of all noble Lords—of that I am sure. But I hope that it will be recognised—it will certainly be monitored in this way—as a way in which we can put together our university sector to enhance its research, teaching and knowledge transfer skills, and provide a sound financial basis for years to come on which we can grow our education system and university sector.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, I have three brief questions. The first is procedural. Does the Minister agree that pre-selection of Statements should go wider than the Official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats on such occasions? There is a huge amount of frustration about that in the House—I certainly speak for my brother Bishops.
I have two further brief questions. How can an access regulator be conducive to academic freedom—without employing the language of the Royal Navy about a long screwdriver? Secondly, with both a graduate tax and top-up fees, are we not returning to the lamentable days that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and I remember—we have Edinburgh University in common—of that rather old-fashioned English false hierarchy of higher education?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House will consider the wider issue of Statements. For my part, I was glad to give the right reverend Prelate a copy of the Statement before I began, although I should have preferred it if he had been able to read it beforehand.
On the regulator and the question of academic freedom, I tried to make the point that the regulator presents an opportunity. We have talked to a number of vice-chancellors who have welcomed the proposal for universities to work alongside a regulator who can support their initiatives to widen access. The regulator will be someone who can work with the universities to develop their strengths across the sector. As we all
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push towards wider access—an ambition for many universities—the regulator will ensure that they are able to achieve that together and separately.
The regulator will also provide protection that is wanted by other noble Lords who are concerned that universities may simply treble the fees and take those who feel that they are able to pay a high fee because of their parental background. The White Paper is about ensuring that we have a basis on which to address those questions.
There is a fundamental difference between our proposals and a graduate tax, which is that people pay a graduate tax continuously once they reach the income level; our proposals concern paying back what people themselves have borrowed to attend university.
Lord Carrington: My Lords, I declare an interest as chancellor of a university. The proposals are partly due to the underfunding of universities. How and when will universities get their money? Will they have to wait until students pay?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: No, my Lords. The Government will give universities the money at the students' point of entry. The loan relationship will be between the student and the Government, not the university. Universities will receive the money up front, which I am sure will please them enormously.
Lord Winston: My Lords, in describing the missions of universities as being research, knowledge transfer and, perhaps most importantly, teaching, have not my noble friend and the Government forgotten something extremely important? Universities are also about the general culture of our society, the wellbeing of the people who live in it and the process of personal expansion. The accent on wealth in society may do great damage to university education.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I am sorry if my noble friend feels that in presenting the Statement I placed too much emphasis on wealth—I did not mean to do so. Our universities play a critical role in the wealth-creation and economic standing of our nation. We should recognise and applaud that, as we have tried to do in many ways. I fully accept what my noble friend says about universities being a broadly based set of institutions with a deep impact on the cultural—and, I would argue, spiritual—life of our nation. We cherish that and want it to grow and expand.
Lord Rix: My Lords, I must declare an interest as Chancellor of the University of East London, a university that follows the criteria apparently favoured by the Government. It has many students from poorer and non-academic backgrounds, from ethnic minorities and mature students. However, being a new university, it receives approximately 50 per cent less funding than universities that are only a few years older. Does the White Paper address that anomaly?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Lord must forgive me, but because I do not have the

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details of the funding structure of the University of East London in front of me, I cannot answer his question in the detail that I would want to.
On a more general point, we are trying to recognise that different universities have different strengths. I applaud the work of the noble Lord's university in ensuring that it reaches out to students, but to ensure that we recognise universities' different strengths, we must place our resources and emphasis on enabling them to rise to their challenges and develop the skills that they know best.
If I am able to help the noble Lord further with his question about the detail of his university, I shall of course write to him.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, why should the Minister believe that her access regulator will better know how to judge the potential of candidates for making effective use of a university education than universities themselves? Would it not be a national disgrace, to use her words, if the system were to penalise well-educated young people from good schools in order to assist the possible but unproved potential of others who come from bad schools, where standards need to be dramatically increased—again, to use her words?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, it would be completely wrong for the regulator to be considering the detail, as it were. We want the regulator, who will work alongside the universities, to have a strategic approach to the issue of access. When I say "detail", I mean effectively sitting in on interviews. That would be wholly inappropriate.
We want to recognise the potential of our young people—and, indeed, of some of our older people—and enable them to access higher education. We do not want to penalise young people because of their background, in whatever way, but, rather, offer opportunities to enter university to young people who would benefit from it—and benefit the nation.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I welcome the White Paper. Can my noble friend reassure me that the drastic 40 per cent cut in unit of resource per student that occurred under the previous Conservative government will now be reversed, and that universities will be better funded because this Government have at last tackled the problem of university finance?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, we are trying to tackle that. There are detailed figures that I hesitate to give to your Lordships' House without the benefit of having them in front of me. What I can say is that we calculate from an index of 100 in 2002–03 a rise to 106.8—an almost 7 per cent increase in that unit of funding.
Lord Butler of Brockwell: My Lords—
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords—
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches, I think.
Lord Butler of Brockwell: My Lords, I declare an interest as Master of University College, Oxford. At
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present, students make a contribution of £1,100 to the average cost of a degree course of £4,400 per year and the Government pay the rest. Can the Minister confirm that the Government intend to continue that level of support, if a university raises its fee to £3,000?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, for students who receive the £1,100, in the context of their family income, the position will remain the same. Students who come from a family with a total income of £10,000 or less will receive an additional grant of £1,000.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, to cut through the spin, would it be a fair summary of the Minister's new policy that the hard-working classes in this country whose children are now 14 or younger can expect them to be saddled with large debts in return for their tuition at university? Universities will be entitled to raise that money on the basis that a regulator will make it harder for such children to get into universities in the first place. Is not that a disgrace?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, that is not the Government's position. We recognise fully that the programme we set out today will lead to university graduates having to pay back an increasing amount if a university chooses to put up fees on a particular course or throughout the institution. Universities must make that decision on the basis of several factors.
We know from talking to many people about the issue that one of the key factors is finding the money upfront. At present, students' parents or the students themselves must do that. That situation will go. Instead, there will be a loan that students can pay back at a suitable point in their career. That will be demonstrated to be an important move.
The purpose of the regulator is to ensure that universities are working to develop access and widen participation in higher education. I congratulate all universities that do that. As a nation, we need such development if we are to have the thriving economic base that we want. Universities must continue that work and must be supported in doing so by the regulator. That is the purpose behind the Government's strategy.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe: My Lords, I am pleased by my noble friend's recognition of the success of UK universities. I declare an interest as chief executive of Universities UK. We are also pleased at the specific amounts of new money that the Government have agreed to make available for higher education. I am relieved that the Government have dropped proposals for withdrawing research degree-awarding powers.
Can my noble friend reassure me that it is the Government's intention that teaching in higher education institutions should continue to be offered in a context informed by research and that new centres of research will still be able to flourish?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I am happy to confirm that for my noble friend. We must

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recognise that teaching is of paramount importance in what a university offers. But we must also recognise that research is fundamental. What we are looking for in our university structure is for different universities to recognise their skills and build on them.
I am sure that my noble friend and Universities UK will examine closely our proposals on research. We are considering how to develop research so that universities providing innovative research at the cutting edge move forward—whatever their basis in the current assessment—and are supported in doing so. We also want universities to work together in what I might call a cluster to develop the expertise that enables them to compete internationally.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I note from page 75 of the White Paper that the regulator will have the power,
"to withdraw approval for variable fees or impose financial penalties".
Does that mean that the regulator must approve a proposal for variable fees?
Does the document apply to universities in Wales? I understood that higher education was a devolved matter.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, what the noble Lord read out about our proposals in respect of the regulator is correct. However, what it means is that part of the decision on whether a university can put up its fees will be whether it has satisfied the regulator on access. Many universities are already considering the issue, so it is not a hardship for many of them. We are keen to ensure that any increase in fees goes hand-in-hand with universities developing their relationships with schools and examining their admissions arrangements.
In Wales, discussions continue. There have been press reports that we have devolved student support to Wales; they are incorrect. We are having discussions with our colleagues in Wales on how the systems might work closely together. I am happy to keep the noble Lord informed about those discussions.
Lord Morris of Aberavon: My Lords, I declare an interest as Chancellor of the University of Glamorgan. Have the additional costs of a postgraduate professional qualification—such as for law students—been taken into account in the debt that is envisaged?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the individual student will have his or her debt calculated on the basis of the kind of degree, the fees and the maintenance allowance, which, as noble Lords will know, is different in London from elsewhere. We have considered different examples of what the debt might be. An individual student will have it calculated in that way, and there is no overall debt figure that will apply to students studying a particular course for a particular period. Family circumstances will vary.
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There may be examples in the White Paper. I am happy to lay in the Library examples of individual cases, which may help noble Lords to grapple with the issues.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, can the Minister explain how the reform of the postcode premium will relate to mature students, who form one half of the student population? The new criteria include not only parental income but the performance of a student's school—which seems a bit irrelevant for a 35 year-old—and the level of their parents' education. That seems very odd.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I cannot answer the first part of the noble Baroness's question, as I do not have that information. I shall write to her. I apologise.
In examining the factors that determine whether a young person goes to university, we have tried to isolate the most critical factors. Noble Lords will not be surprised that one of those factors is the level of education of the parents. Many families in this country have no history or tradition of university education and, therefore, no expectation that their child or children may attend a university. That is well understood, and we wish to bear it in mind for those students. In households for which university is part and parcel of life, going to university will be talked about. In other households, it is often simply not a subject for discussion. Unless the schools and universities talk to such students, they may not aspire to university, even though they are capable of going. That is particularly true in areas in which the schools do not encourage that aspiration.
There are well-documented cases. Noble Lords will know of anecdotes and other evidence that demonstrate how important it is to ensure that students raise their aspirations and recognise university as something that is for them.

House of Lords Reform
4.18 p.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion that this House takes note of the first report from the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, it is a privilege to open the second day of this important debate. I follow noble Lords who spoke yesterday and congratulate the Joint Committee on its excellent report. It has reinvigorated the reform process.
I particularly welcome the degree of cross-party consensus, which the report emphasises. As the opening paragraph says, it is now possible to speak of,
"broad agreement on the roles, functions and powers of a reformed second chamber".
There is also broad agreement about the creation of a statutory appointments commission and the future sitting rights of the remaining hereditary Peers.

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Overall, the explicit common aim is to increase the representativeness of the second House. We have certainly moved a long way since 1998.
I know that we have heard that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, who will reply to the debate this evening, thinks that only a genius can resolve the current, apparently intractable reform issues. However, I hope that my noble and learned friend, as one who struggled with me through many days of debate on some of the points that now appear to be commonly accepted, will agree, in his winding up speech, that the Joint Committee has helpfully formalised and crystallised a basis of positive consensus. Above all, the report has broken the log jam.
The fulcrum of disagreement is now how to achieve a more representative second Chamber. Here, too, it seems that the parameters of debate have shifted recently quite a long way. I am sure that noble Lords of the Official Opposition will forgive me if I do not explore the reasons for the change in their party leadership's stance. Having listened to and read yesterday's debate in this House, the policy does not appear to be widely supported by Conservative Members here.
I am more concerned with apparent changes in the views of Labour Members of Parliament. I shall give an example. When the Labour Party was preparing to submit evidence to the Royal Commission, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, it was agreed, following nationwide consultation, that the primacy of another place required that there be no possibility of a challenge to the elected Members of the House of Commons by an elected second Chamber. Once the Wakeham commission had reported and raised the idea of the hybrid House, the possibility of some elected Members was discussed in policy forums and in 2000 at the Labour Party conference. A figure of about one-third elected Members was generally accepted, although I acknowledge that this small number was not agreed by my noble friend Lord Richard and other party colleagues.
However, the 2000 conference position became the basis for the Government's general election manifesto in 2001. The manifesto spoke of,
"effectively implementing the Wakeham conclusions and maintaining the primacy of the House of Commons".
Apparently, a significant number of Labour Members of Parliament no longer support that position. As my noble friend Lord Richard said yesterday, the game has changed.
If the game has changed and it becomes the settled and consistent majority view of my right honourable and honourable friends in another place that only a,
"wholly or substantially elected second chamber",
satisfies their understanding of a "representative body", ultimately, as on many other issues, I would accept the decision of the popularly elected House. However, I hope that the present mood may be diluted—or may even pass—and that Commons' Members will reassess the dangers to their supremacy
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and the impact on the constitutional balance if in future they were to be powerfully challenged by another wholly or predominantly elected Chamber.
Personally, I stand by the Government's 2001 manifesto commitment on the next stage of reform. How does the report help advance that commitment? We have before us seven options for the future composition of the Chamber. At first glance it seems an almost indigestible choice. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Carter is happy that he was a member of the recommending committee rather than the Chief Whip trying to facilitate the process of choice.
Nearly all noble Lords who spoke yesterday declared their voting intentions. So let me say a t the outset that my personal first preference is for Option 5; that is, 60 per cent appointed Members and 40 per cent elected Members. I remain convinced by the arguments of the Wakeham commission that there is great value in a critical mass of authoritative, expert nominated Members, a point well illustrated yesterday by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and other speakers.
On the other hand, I have been persuaded that in the 21st century some elected Members will give a future second Chamber greater legitimacy and help to achieve better representation in particular categories. I am certain that the appointed Members should be selected by an independent statutory appointments commission, as proposed by the Wakeham commission, by the Government's election manifesto, and by the Joint Committee.
I also agree with the committee's report that all Members should serve for a limited term. The committee proposes a tenure of some 12 years without giving explicit arguments for this particular period of time. Personally, I prefer 10 years as an adequate term to indicate independence and to generate experience, but I do not regard this as a significant difference from the committee's position.
I am, however, concerned that there are what I see as regrettable gaps in some of the committee's proposals which undermine our ability to make a completely informed choice now, or in the near future. From my perspective the most important omissions are the questions of how to achieve a workable size of the new House; questions of cost; questions of how any elected Members should reach the House; and whether they, or any nominated Members, would have a link with the peerage. I recognise that all those problems are acknowledged in the report and will, apparently, be the topics of future committee work. My concern is that if we are to make a guiding, if not necessarily a final, choice on composition in two weeks' time, it will be more difficult to do so without having the results of some of that work before us.
I turn to some of the omissions that I regret, in no particular order of importance. I have long argued that the character and nature of the second Chamber would be changed at a stroke if membership were decoupled from the peerage. In my view, the award of a life peerage should continue to be a high honour, but should not automatically confer a seat in Parliament.

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During the passage of the 1999 House of Lords Act we discussed at some length whether ML was a suitable designation for appointed Members to this House. Indeed, the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, who I am delighted to see in his place, has continued charmingly to chide me about the Government's decision to vote against that proposal at that time on the basis that it was irrelevant to that particular Bill.
Now the time has come when we can all cheerfully join hands and agree that all should be MLs. It would be particularly anomalous, and no doubt constitutionally improper, if anyone elected to serve on an external franchise was elected to a peerage.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt. I am absolutely delighted that we can all be at one together on something—I am not quite sure what. But what is the point of making a person a Peer and then saying, "You can't be a Member of the House of Lords"?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am afraid that my double negatives may have failed me. I was not saying that he or she could not be a Member of the House of Lords; I said that it did not automatically confer a seat in the House of Lords. It would be an honour which might lead to an appointment as a Member of the second Chamber, but would not do so automatically. I apologise to the noble Earl if that was unclear. I am sure we agree on ML.
Secondly, whatever the Members are called, how and by whom will any elected Members be elected? In my experience, this has been one of the most complex, sometimes arcane issues faced by every forum that discusses reform. Again, at this stage, the Joint Committee does not give clear guidance. The tentative preference in paragraph 69 seems to be for some form of indirect election. Personally, I am attracted to this potential solution. The idea of allying an indirect election system with regional representation could be a useful method of improving representativeness. The Royal Commission helpfully described in some detail what it called "elected regional members". The Labour Party put it well in its evidence to the Wakeham commission when it stated that,
"the Second Chamber should become the place where the UK unites".
With respect to all the eminent committee members, I feel that it is hard to reach a conclusion on the value and size of an elected element of membership without more work and perhaps more firm conclusions on electoral systems.
My final regret is that the Joint Committee has avoided—I realise temporarily—the knotty problem of transition to a different Chamber. How do we get from here to there? The committee does not give us a map beyond saying that there should be about 600 Members and that the transition process may be very long and drawn out.
Paragraph 55 states:
"At this stage we have concluded only that we are not attracted by the idea of compulsory retirement for existing life peers".
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At the risk of inviting some robust answers, in that case I shall ask the question personally. What is to be done with people like me? I am now in my eleventh year of membership as a life Peer—I knew there would be robust answers, if not necessarily from a quarter of the House I might have expected—and I have served on both the Opposition and the Government Front Benches. As I reach my mid-sixties, I suppose I could acquire the senator status comfortingly described by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, yesterday. However, the report proposes that tenure should be for 12 years; so under the new system I would be on the verge of retirement. But I assume that this proposal cannot and will not be made retrospective.
"Compulsory retirement" does indeed sound harsh and redolent of bad industrial practice—I state clearly that I am not advocating ermine-lined retirement packages—but if we are to avoid the embarrassments of a House which gets considerably bigger before it gets smaller or takes a generation to reach the optimum membership, tough decisions about us, the increasingly elderly life Peers, need to be taken sooner rather than later.
In conclusion, I hope that we will hear that the Joint Committee is determined to produce recommendations on all these issues in a consensual way. As I said, my main enthusiasm for this work is that it has kick-started what I had come to believe was a stalled reform process. Now the time has come to accelerate. It would be a sad historical judgment on this generation of parliamentarians if a future generation could fairly accuse us of wasting decades between one stage of reform and the next.
4.31 p.m.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in the debate and a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, the former Leader of the House.
In the course of the long-running saga on Lords reform, it is important to distinguish two issues. The first is the question of what should be done about the hereditary element. The second is the proposal that there should be a wholly or partially elected element. As regards the first, I deeply regret the departure of the hereditary Peers and I pay tribute to the substantial work which those remaining undertake in this House. If anything is to be done on this issue, yesterday's speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, as Convenor of the Cross-Benchers, with regard to what he described as Option 1A, deserves careful consideration.
As regards the possible move to a wholly or partially elected House, the central argument is that it will make the parliamentary system more democratic. I believe that that is a profoundly wrong and superficial view. We have a democratic system. It rests on the House of Commons being elected, in Burke's famous words, as "representatives not delegates". It is vital that the House of Commons should remain supreme and having elected Members in the Lords would inevitably call that into question.

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Yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that this is not a "zero sum game", an expression I was intending to use. It is a zero sum game. If the elected Members are to be given greater authority, that inevitably reduces the power of the other place and we must oppose that most strongly.
Having listened to yesterday's debate in this House and read yesterday's debate in the Commons, I am struck by the extent to which there is a difference of view between the existing Members of the House of Commons and its former Members who sit in this House, the majority of whom are not in favour of an elected element. That is an important issue to consider. Why are the views of those two groups so different?
The enthusiasm of present Members of the House of Commons for an elected element in the House of Lords, which was not apparent some years ago, reflects a disillusionment with the situation in the Commons and a frustration with the overwhelming majority there.
A second reason is the almost unthinking and superficial view that election is good and appointment is bad. That was somewhat qualified yesterday because one of the few unanimous views which appeared in the debate in another place was that candidates for this House as elected Members were likely to be the export rejects who failed to enter the House of Commons.
A third reason is, frankly, ignorance. I find that from my own experience. In 33 years in the House of Commons, apart from State Opening and an occasional visit to this Chamber to see whether Mrs Thatcher's government would be defeated, I rarely visited it. I strongly suspect that the knowledge of this place in another place is appallingly low. Perhaps the Joint Committee should organise an "overseas" visit and cross the gulf between one Chamber and the other. That should ensure that those in another place understand what happens in this Chamber. It would be a marvellous advantage—irrespective of what one does about having a Mr Speaker—if our Question Time were transferred to the other place. I fear that its Members do not understand and those who vote next week will not understand that the situation in this House is a tremendous advantage to our democratic system. We must not undermine it or undervalue the important contribution which we in this House make.
Hybridity would be the worst of all possible worlds. Yesterday, some noble Lords argued that we already have a hybrid House because some Members are hereditary and some are life Peers. That concept is completely different from a hybrid House in which some are elected and some are not. That would be wrong. However, it is curious that those who argued against hybridity of the first kind seem to be in favour of hybridity of the second kind. I do not understand why that is so.
The crucial point about a hybrid system is that, whatever the percentage—20/80, 60/40, 50/50—it would not be stable. The first time the unelected Members defeated the elected Members there would be increasing
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pressure to have more elected Members. We would slide steadily towards a wholly elected Chamber with all the disadvantages which many noble Lords have raised.
This House is not here to be democratic; this House is an effective revising Chamber. Yesterday, the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, in the course of a series of good rhetorical questions, asked whether we want the legislative scrutiny in this House to be like that in the House of Commons. My Lords, I hope not. It is appalling. "Modernisation" and the introduction of programming in another place has undermined its central role properly to scrutinise legislation. It no longer does so.
That is why it is vital that the situation in this House should be preserved. I give as an example the Tax Credits Bill in which I was much involved. It arrived in this House in a totally unworkable state, apparently having gone through all stages in another place. We had to rewrite it line by line from beginning to end. Clearly the Minister in another place did not have a clue what was going on. We must exercise our expertise and, if I may say so, our enthusiasm for scrutinising legislation, if we are to offset the deterioration which has occurred in another place.
If we were to have either a wholly or partially elected House, in scrutinising legislation we would have less expertise and it would be less representative than a House in which appointment was made by an independent commission which could take into account issues of gender, race, regional representation and so forth. Moreover—this is a point made by many noble Lords and is vitally important—there would be far greater pressure from the Whips in this House than is presently the case. We are vastly better carrying out our task of scrutiny in our present form than we would be if there were an elected element.
Of course the present situation is not perfect—the status quo is not perfect—but we are in a position where, with comparatively minor changes to the House, we can resolve this long-running saga in a way which will preserve our democratic system rather than undermine it. I hope that those in another place will gradually understand that. Time is running out before the votes take place in a few days time, but I notice that in another place Mr Forth—whose views I fundamentally disagree with at the moment—said that he would listen to the debates in this House. Despite the inadequate knowledge of this place in another place, I hope that its Members will at least study carefully what has been said in this debate.
4.41 p.m.
Lord McNally: My Lords, speaking on the second day of the debate feels a little like being invited to join a Roman orgy half-way through. Yesterday was certainly an orgy of self-congratulations, self-delusion and not a little arrogance. I therefore welcome the more constructive approach adopted by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the momentum she urges to our proceedings.
Some facts did emerge. We are, in the main, a group of elderly, white, middle-class south-easterners. We do some things rather well and we can draw on a great

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deal of experience and expertise. We are a House which encourages less partisan debate and encourages some old courtesies and customs. We scrutinise legislation rather better than the Commons. We do not challenge the authority of the democratically elected House and we perform a worthwhile role as a revisory and advisory Chamber. "It works, so don't let's try to fix it" was an underlying theme of many of yesterday's contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, even claimed to have looked for inspiration to the debate on the Great Reform Act 1832 and then made a speech arguing against introducing an element of democracy into this House worthy of the Member for Old Sarum.
I remind the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, of a meeting we both attended in 1979. It was the Labour Party manifesto drafting committee. Mr Benn wanted a commitment to abolish the House of Lords. The then Prime Minister—now the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan—resisted. He did so because he believed that manifestos should reflect what parties intend to do in government, and he had no intention of abolishing the House of Lords.
Fast forwarding 18 years, in 1997 I served on a committee of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats under the joint chairmanship of Mr Robin Cook and Mr Robert Maclennan. The result of those deliberations was the Cook/Maclennan report, which was published as a joint manifesto on constitutional reform which both parties submitted to the British people.
To the great credit of the Labour Government, much of the Cook/Maclennan report has passed into law. But in 1997 both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats said to the British people in regard to reform of the House of Lords that,
"a joint committee of both Houses should be established…This body should produce recommendations for a democratic and representative second chamber".
The noble Baroness has put the 2001 manifesto gloss on that commitment, but perhaps the Lord Chancellor will tell us where and when the Labour Party changed its commitment to a democratic and representative second Chamber?
Let us be absolutely clear that such a second Chamber could fulfil all the criteria set out in the first report before us today and not carry with it the stigma of cronyism and patronage which would stick to a wholly appointed House. Legitimacy, representativeness, no domination by one party, independence and expertise could all be delivered given the kind of voting systems, regionally-based constituencies and term lengths envisaged.
Cook/Maclennan recommended retention of the Cross Benches at about 20 per cent of the reformed House. I see merits in so doing. But let us not get too carried away by the mystique of the Cross Benches. You do not have to call yourself a Cross-Bencher to have independence of mind or integrity of action. To listen to some speeches yesterday, you would think that there could be nothing so shaming as to be a party politician. It took the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester to speak up for party politics, and those and other of his remarks about the health of our
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democracy are well worthy of study. Party politics is the life blood of our democracy. Mine is a real commitment. Like Elizabeth Taylor and marriage, I have tried more than one.
The other self-delusion expounded yesterday was that things are not what they used to be in another place, a point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, today. Speaker after speaker bemoaned the falling standards, lack of expertise and lack of experience now to be found down the Corridor.
I can speak only from personal experience. Part of my job as Deputy Leader on these Benches is to attend the weekly meetings of the parliamentary party. Listening to Dr Evan Harris on the health service, or Professor Steve Webb on pensions, or former headmaster Phil Willis on education, or the former chief economic adviser to Shell, Dr Vince Cable, on trade, or Dr Jenny Tonge on child health in developing countries, I do not find the present Commons so lacking in experience as some would have us believe. It is true that our leader, Charles Kennedy, entered the House in his early twenties, a handicap that he shares with William Gladstone and William Pitt.
As for the fear that an injection of democracy would simply bring into this House failed MPs and political retreads, I think I can recognise that description. In that self-recognition, as I look around the Chamber I do not feel particularly lonely.
My view is that the system, tenure and job description would bring in a whole new range of people, including some of those terribly eminent people who are unwilling to run for elective office at present. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that Peers elected on a regional basis for long tenures by a system of fair votes would be little different to life Peers. In some ways he is right. I would hope that the system would give them some of the attributes for which this House is rightly praised. But it would also link them with the people, and, like the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, I have a long-standing trust in the people as the final arbiters of power in a democracy.
But we are told that reform is awash with dangers. We are told, for example, that hybridity would produce first and second class Peers. There is no evidence that hybridity would produce the kind of problems which the Lord Chancellor simply asserts. On the contrary, my fear is that the elected Members would show undue deference to those appointed on grounds of eminence, forgetting that a former president of the Royal College of Surgeons might talk the most awful tosh when not talking about medicine, or even that an ex-Lord Chancellor—and we all become "ex" one day—might be considered a legal dinosaur by the modern legal profession.
The truth is that a hybrid reformed House would soon settle its own relationships and get on with the job. The most authoritative source of opinion in the other place—Mr Tony Wright's Select Committee—shows no fear about either hybridity or a reinvigorated second Chamber.

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Neither are we talking about stand-alone reform. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Birt, that we must press on with wider and more fundamental reforms of our constitution and governance, including contemplating the written constitution which the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, finds so shocking.
The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, asked what historians will make of our deliberations. I suspect that they will wonder in amazement that a Labour Government, with all but 100 hereditaries gone, with their largest ever representation in the House of Lords and two successive landslide majorities under their belt, should settle for so timid and conservative a solution as the one now being advocated by those calling for a wholly nominated House. It would be a supreme irony of history that a Conservative Lord Chancellor, at a time when this House was packed to the gunwales with hereditaries, produced more radical proposals than those now being leaked and spun from No. 10.
When I saw this Motion for debate, I looked forward to it being concluded with a final flurry of radical Welsh oratory from the Leader of the House, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn. But he is silent. Instead, casting his long, dark shadow over this debate is the Darth Vader of British politics: the Lord High Chancellor himself, ready to deliver the coup de grâce to radical reform.
The historian Janet Morgan wrote these words about this House and reform:
"On Summer evenings and Winter afternoons, when they have nothing else to do, people discuss how to reform the House of Lords. Schemes are taken out of cupboards and drawers and dusted off. Speeches are composed, pamphlets written, letters sent to the newspapers. From time to time the whole country becomes excited. Occasionally legislation is introduced. It generally fails".
The Lord Chancellor could not have put it better himself.
But I believe that there is still time for this House to move to an historic compromise between itself and another place which would pave the way for genuine reform. If it were to approve a hybrid House with a majority of elected Peers, that would produce a result not far different from the Commons. But if the Labour Party abandons its firm and settled commitment to introduce a democratic element into this House, then we on these Benches will take our case for wider constitutional reform back to the hustings. Then the electorate will remember that the clearest and most solemn pledges on reform made by the Labour Party meant nothing when it came to delivery.
This morning, a wise old colleague said to me:
"The Tories don't stand a chance against this lot. They are more conservative than the Conservatives".
So they are, my Lords, and those on the Benches opposite should be ashamed.
4.51 p.m.
Lord Elder: My Lords, in rising to add my views to the debate, I am conscious that I shall not receive an enormous amount of support for my basic position. Although there are seven options in the Joint Committee's report for the future membership of your
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Lordships' House, I find myself without an option to support as my first choice, because I remain a holder of the view that in an ideal world we should have a unicameral system and I fear that there would be little chance of the one House being this one.
Unicameralism is dismissed by the report as having little support. Perhaps so, but I believe that it would be the best final outcome, and that belief defines the way in which I examine the available options. Indeed, because of it, I cannot bring myself to support the idea of two elected Houses. There would be bound to be a clash—not least because, as the report fairly points out, a second elected Chamber would have some representative role. There would be hound to be challenges to each other's mandates and authority. The result would be inter-House rivalry, at the expense of fulfilling the main task of the legislature; namely, holding the executive to account.
Already, given the limited reform that has taken place in this House, there have been moves by the House into previously banned territory. Much has been made of the Commons' control of supply, but with your Lordships' Economic Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, already authorised to examine the detail of tax changes in the Finance Bill in the coming Session, I have no doubt that were there to be a second elected Chamber there would be further encroachment on the activities of what is at present the one elected House.
All these problems would be exacerbated if, as some wish—it would, I fear, be inevitable—the second Chamber were to embrace proportional representation, with claims and counter-claims as to which House had the greater legitimacy. Perhaps I may point out, as a Scot, that were there to be an election for a second Chamber, I would person ally opt for an open list system, for the simple reason that we should then have the full set in Scotland—first past the post for Westminster; additional member for Holyrood; closed lists for Europe; open lists for this place; and, if the Liberals have their way, STV for local government. If nothing else, my noble friend Lord Carter would be able to add to his list, of explanations as to why so few people turn out to vote.
If we believe, as I think is common ground, that we must preserve the primacy of the Commons—which arises because it is the sole elected House—the best way of doing so is to limit the tasks of a second Chamber to its role as a revising Chamber: not the upper House, not the senior House, not Lords rather than Commons, but a revising Chamber pure and simple, whose prime function would be to assist the elected House in doing its job, without challenging its fundamental rights, or threatening its mandate.
There will always be difficulties so long as this Chamber appears the more historic and senior House. Presentation matters. My noble friend Lord Desai suggested that the Queen's Speech should be made, not here, but in Westminster Hall, before both Houses, perhaps with the Prime Minister reading the Speech to both Houses and presenting it to the monarch. It is an

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idea that I strongly support. The idea that the Commons, who are elected, should be called to the Bar of the House of Lords is ridiculous, and looks that way. And looks matter. If we are to be a revising Chamber, no more and no less, then all that flummery must go.
Much has been said in the debate about legitimacy. I believe that legitimacy comes not from direct election but from appointment by a directly elected body. No one would doubt the legitimacy of the Cabinet of the United States, but it is, of course, unelected—being appointed by the elected President. The legitimacy of the second Chamber comes from the legitimacy of the first, elected Chamber, and the definition of its role as subservient to the first Chamber. In the interests of clarity, I should like to see a Queen's Speech made in Westminster Hall after every general election, and a formal appointment by the executive and by the Commons of the second Chamber for the period of that Parliament, to fulfil the task of assisting the Commons in its work.
I must make it clear, however, that having an unelected Chamber should not mean keeping the Chamber as it is. Of course there must be reform, and a great deal more imagination must be shown as to composition. We shall need to avoid a re-run of the "People's Peers" system—which is now, I fear, wholly discredited. A potentially important initiative, it was in fact a badly disguised way of rounding up some wholly predictable candidates—all entirely worthy—who have added much to this House but who in all likelihood would have arrived in the Lords in due course. There was nothing new or imaginative in the system; by pretending otherwise much damage was done.
I myself would be in favour of a much more open approach to membership. I cite as an example of what I have in mind the case of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, who has made an outstanding contribution to this House, based in part on his knowledge of and contact with Mencap. We have been very fortunate to have him here. We need to find ways of getting such organisations and such individuals representation here, to improve the quality of our work. However that is done, I fear that it will not be done by further elections.
The committee points out that in recent years the House of Lords has developed its role as a revising Chamber—and, I would say, whether as a result or not, at the same time the Commons has apparently lost interest in scrutinising legislation. Someone must do it. And in the absence of interest in another place, it must be done here. But that is to assist the elected Chamber, to allow it better to fulfil its role.
The recent reforms of the Commons timetable have not been encouraging to someone who supports the idea of a single House. With MPs having more time to spend on constituency business—and I do not play down the importance of their representative role—they have, perforce, less time to spend on the scrutiny of legislation.
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I have no illusions that, were there to be only one House, the Commons would need to be much reformed. But I do not doubt that with further changes and the proper resources the Commons could fulfil the role that is required. I reject the argument that a second Chamber is essential to provide checks and balances; that somehow the Commons, left to its own devices, could not be trusted. I believe that, precisely because it has been able to leave scrutiny to us, little has been done by it. That could easily change were the option of "Leave it to the Lords" not available. Some constitutional backstop would have to be built in to any new system to replace the present role of this House.
Whatever happens next, interim arrangements will need to be in place as a new House is established. Had we a written constitution, the changes that we are talking about would require a re-writing of that constitution; and I have no doubt that there would be a wide debate in the country about the way forward. There is, frankly, no such debate. But that should not encourage us to think that this is not a matter of the highest importance. The case for caution is considerable. Perhaps the constitutional settlement has been "settled" for too long; but we need to move with care before we introduce a wholly new, necessarily untried, set of arrangements.
Without a realistic possibility of a one-House system, when faced with having to vote, I shall support the idea of a much reformed but wholly appointed second Chamber.
5 p.m.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, the Joint Committee has already achieved a remarkable degree of consensus, judging from yesterday's debate and what we have heard from the noble Baroness, in particular. It has been given an almost impossible task so, not surprisingly, it is asking us to dig it out of a hole and will ask us to do so again. But the absurd range of options should serve as a warning to all of us that the time is up for stage two. Elections will not work, and common sense should now replace experimentation.
I have had the privilege of serving this House and the country for nearly eight years, during a fascinating period of change. Why do we need more change? We should feel content with what we have achieved. Abolishing a whole system of inherited power, obvious as it may seem, is no small reform; it is a historic landmark. We need to move beyond it.
I hold no brief for the continuation of the hereditary Peers or the hereditary principle. But the interim House has worked well, and I know the House recognises the contribution of hereditary Peers and the dedication shown by many. The House will miss the remaining younger Peers, in particular, and the random effect that has made some hereditary Peers from different professions seem closer to the public than distinguished life Peers. I do not, however, see how that can be perpetuated, even under the interesting version of people's Peers suggested late last night by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, or the vision

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presented by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester. The election of 1999 may have given us respite, but the prospect of the guillotine still leaves us in limbo, a transitional state that will have to be brought to an end sooner or later.
I am glad that enough time was taken during stage two for the Joint Committee to recognise the difficulties of transforming this House root and branch. The whole Parliament is being educated by the process, which has helped us all to appreciate the value of the House and to understand the subtleties of parliamentary checks and balances.
Having started out, after Wakeham, in favour of a 20 per cent elected House, I no longer think that the principle of even a partially elected Chamber is right. Regional balance can be achieved without it. In any case, the southern English regions are still a fiction. An elected Chamber would cost at least four times more. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, David Clelland and George Foulkes in another place and many more have said that an elected Chamber would only create more politicians, whose names, like those of Members of the European Parliament, would be almost meaningless to the public, at least after their election.
We cannot move from a high-bred House to a hybrid House. A hybrid House would be unequal and unworkable. It would jeopardise the important principles mentioned many times of independence, expertise and experience. Kenneth Clarke says it would be a betrayal of the oldest democracy not to have a n elected second Chamber. I disagree profoundly. I have seen democracy in many forms in many parts of the world, most recently in Uganda and Mozambique, and I am impressed by one fact: each society must make its own arrangements. There is no longer a Westminster model or an absolute system of democracy—we did not even invent the word. It would now be a mistake to expect our democracy to translate into the same constitutional principles around the world. It will not. Nor should we copy or envy any other system. So it is not a betrayal.
We need to preserve and improve our own version, not to at tempt an approach hitherto untried simply on grounds of apparently popular representation, when we already have our elected Chamber. I agree with many others that we should not shadow another place. It is unimaginable that we would send home our present life Peers and expect them to be returned in an election. They would not. The elected, professional, political Peer, as other noble Lords have said, would be a different animal. Such Peers could never develop the expertise in this House at present, nor could they work in committee with technical experts as some clever people have suggested.
More than that, I am anxious that we preserve the principle of independence, for which this Government have reaffirmed their support. The noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, and others have spoken about the need for independent Peers to give an undertaking that they do not feel any hidden loyalty to a political party, which would comprise their independence. That may
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be difficult to achieve. But, as the son of a Conservative Member of Parliament and a Liberal mother, who ultimately went separate ways, I have come to admire the ability of Cross-Bench Peers to examine all sides of a problem before reaching a decision.
The expertise available to this House, mixed with the political experience of the parties, provides just the right recipe for a revising Chamber. We should build on that rather than throw it out because of some notional idea of democracy, as the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, has said. Independent Peers can also represent a broader spectrum of this country's professional life. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, helped us with the phrase, "second-order legitimacy".
At present, it is pot luck whether an appointed Peer—the noble Lord, Lord Rix, has just been mentioned—speaks for his or her profession. But, as the Joint Committee implies, a strengthened independent appointments commission could seek nominations more formally from the recognised professions. Acclamation could be another way. It may not be possible to represent birdwatchers, furniture restorers or bee-keepers, for example, but the commission could look more systematically at the balance of professions and invite recommendations. Those could come directly from associations and interest groups, rather as the Honours List is developed today only more visible to the public. The appointments would not be delegated or even indirectly elected. I do not go as far as my noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, although he is very imaginative, but they would be more transparent and seen to be more representative of the professions than at present.
The commission would be much more proactive than the present one. It would have more authority, taking soundings and receiving nominations from a wider constituency as well as Parliament. It would be independent of Downing Street, which is very important, especially for our acceptance in another place. But I cannot see why the Prime Minister should not make recommendations, provided that neither he nor the governing party had any power of veto over decisions by the commission.
In conclusion, I believe that this House has already made up its mind and will vote to retain its present composition—not out of complacency, but from a conviction that it is working well and suits our present constitutional arrangements in a way that directly benefits the people of this country.
5.8 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, on the first list of speakers issued for this debate, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and I were down to speak twice. That seemed to betray a laudable desire for a theological input and to reinforce the case for the Bench of bishops having a place in a reformed House. I support that case, not least because it was with considerable eagerness that I awaited the arrival in this House of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop

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of Worcester, who was once my bishop, and, I hope, is my friend, although not politically speaking. I was not disappointed by his contribution last night, which was radical and extremely interesting. But I am afraid that I cannot follow his conclusions. He is too enthralled by the admirable theological concept of realised eschatology. We must live a little more in the fallen world when we are in a position such as the present one.
I speak this afternoon not on behalf of my party, which may well be horrified by what I say, but as a Peer who has served in this House longer than all but four or five of your Lordships. I find it difficult to keep in touch with all the obituaries. I am seeking a short-term solution. Indeed, I take the view that if something is bust, you mend it, but you do not then think it necessary to replace it entirely to stop it breaking in other ways.
Parliament has had a serious fracture since at least 1906, when my grandfather won the Commons seat at Eastbourne as a Radical on a platform for abolishing the second House. We have more or less mended that fracture. I see no need for reconstruction.
The glory of this House is its expertise. When I first entered it, the Liberal Front Bench suggested that I make my maiden speech in a general debate. It so happened that I saw an opportunity in an Unstarred Question on primary schools in Hong Kong, on the grounds that I was probably the only Peer who had been the chairman of a primary school in Hong Kong and it was good to keep up the traditions of the House of having an expert on every subject. It may not have been an earth-shaking maiden speech, but I do hold that expertise, both major and minor, is our best contribution. For this reason, I will be voting straight down the line for an appointed House.
5.11 p.m.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, speaking on the second day, it is extraordinarily difficult to find something to say that was not already said on the previous day. However, even if it has been said many times over, I wish to express my gratitude to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for moving the first report of the Joint Committee and the way in which he did so. I say that as a member of the committee. He is making a significant and influential contribution to the committee's work, as well as being a most congenial companion. His advocacy of a 100 per cent appointed House of Lords takes some matching.
As we heard last night, the noble and learned Lord has won over at least one former PPS, who is also on the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. But as yet, so far as I know, he still has not made a great deal of impact on his other former PPS on the Joint Committee, the right honourable Kenneth Clarke. As I know from conversations with many noble Lords opposite, Mr Clarke is, as they see it, their only hope of reconnecting with the people. Given the Conservative Party's record in recent years of getting
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it rather wrong on constitutional issues, I suspect that Mr Clarke wants to avoid his party making another constitutional misjudgment here. There may be some points here on which to reflect.
In fairness to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, before I stood up, one of my colleagues behind me said, "I hope you're now going to make a formal announcement that you have also been won over by his arguments to support a 100 per cent appointed House." I regret that that is not so. I believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, argued yesterday, that the game has changed and moved on.
My fear is that my party—or, to be more precise, my government—is at risk of making the same kind of mistakes as the Conservatives have done. As I said, I am on the Joint Committee and, in favouring elections, I am in the minority. I was persuaded by the force of the Royal Commission's findings and its recommendations that we should have elected Members to represent the nations and regions. Its report, in my opinion, is the most comprehensive and compelling document with evidence that exists on the subject. If, as my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said, we are to avoid making ill judged decisions, it is important to turn, wherever we can, to hard evidence rather than relying on assertions.
The Royal Commission identified our strengths; we have heard a good deal about those over the course of the past 24 hours. We have many, and I am proud to be a Member of this House. But we have our weaknesses too, and it is important, in a changing world, to recognise and address those wherever we can. To remedy them, the commission gave us a range of options. I maintain, even though it is almost three years since it produced the report, that the principal lines of analysis still stand and have not, in spite of all the argumentation, been fundamentally refuted. In my opinion, they provide a basis for a settlement that will last. I favoured option C, which would have given us a House that is around 35 per cent elected, with a substantially appointed majority. Some problems will arise from having a hybrid House, but if the will is there, they are not insurmountable.
I accept that some of the Royal Commission's recommendations, particularly in relation to finding representatives from the nations and the regions, could be addressed through a revamped independent appointments commission. I gather that that is what senior members of the Government favour. I shall introduce a number of new elements here in analysing the problems of the appointments system to some degree. We should make no mistake—there will be problems, and I leave aside entirely the influence of the media and the part that they will play. Do all those who have spoken in favour of a system of 100 per cent appointments really think, in their heart of hearts, that having some obscure body in London selecting people in secret and then foisting them on Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and the North East, will work without problems?
I regret that not as many of my colleagues on these Benches are here to listen to me as were here to listen to the noble Lord, Lord McNally. I remind them that we

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have already had some dress rehearsals when it comes to trying to impose people selected in the centre on other parts of the country. We tried it with the leadership of the Welsh Assembly; we tried it with the Mayor of London; and we have dabbled with mayoral elections around the country. Even if the Conservatives are quite incapable of moving themselves, surely we can learn lessons from our recent experiences of falling flat on our face. I also gently ask my colleagues to consider whether there will be trouble for us if we are seen as abandoning a manifesto commitment, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, pointed out.
Do colleagues believe that a settlement based on 100 per cent appointments will hold? I know the Labour Party pretty well, and my view is that we will not get a permanent settlement within the party on these terms.
I regret that all the good work that the Government, especially the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, have done on constitutional issues is likely to be overshadowed by this. If, as the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, indicated from the Liberal Democrat Benches yesterday, we end up with an impasse, which is a distinct possibility—I believe that all the hot money is being put on an impasse—Labour Peers, including members of the Government, will find themselves in extraordinary difficulty with the party further down the line. I recognise that I am making a party political speech and that it is primarily addressed to colleagues here. If that proves to be the case, we must bear it in mind that the ambitions of the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, will be met. The hereditaries, as we see increasingly when there is an impasse, will stay with us.
The speech made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, as the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, indicated, was an important contribution to yesterday's debate. If noble Lords did not hear it or have not read it yet, I suggest that they do so. I shall give a short quote, because it goes to the heart of some of the difficulties that we have in this House. He said:
"As Convenor, I am extremely dependent on—indeed, I could not function without—the willing and totally voluntary assistance of a number of Cross-Bench hereditary Peers in discharging my responsibilities, including keeping the obligatory detailed accounts for our Cranborne money. Departure of all the remaining hereditaries in one go would leave a very, very considerable gap indeed—a gap that could affect for some time the ability of the new House to perform as well as does the present one. It would be perverse if stage two were to end in a debasement of the present capability of the House to carry out its roles and functions".—[Official Report, 21/1/03; col. 589.]
Why does the noble and gallant Lord make that point so strongly? I tried to raise it in the context of some of our discussions in the Joint Committee. We were given details about who attends the House, how frequently, who votes and in which way, but regrettably those details were not included in the report. However, they are worth having a look at and they are illuminating in several respects. As I mentioned before to the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, it casts some doubt on whether 100 per cent appointees attending on the present patterns would enable the House to continue to discharge its principle responsibilities.
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As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, said yesterday, our first and abiding duty is to commit ourselves to the,
"tedious, boring and absolutely essential job of scrutinising legislation".—[Official Report, 21/1/03; col. 585]
In addition to examining the House's role and powers and moving on to finding the people to discharge those functions, we should first find out who is doing what in this House. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, yesterday conceded that the Joint Committee had not really addressed the issue of how a hybrid House would work. Nor have we given detailed attention to how the House as presently constituted would perform in a changed set of circumstances. We should now do that.
In the light of what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, said, I shall give noble Lords a few figures about how we are working.
Noble Lords: Time.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, I apologise, but I thought that I had a quarter of an hour. I shall be brief.
Hereditary Peers make a substantial contribution to the work of the Cross Benches and the Conservative Party opposite. Withdraw them and there will be serious difficulty in maintaining the functions of the House, because there will not be sufficient people coming in on a daily basis. If we had elected people, we would get them in, but under an appointments system I do not believe that there is any more guarantee that people who have accepted appointment to the House would necessarily come in and do the daily grind of work that is required. Will the Lord Chancellor give his opinion on how that difficulty might be solved? In the next debate, on 4th February, I shall endeavour to give your Lordships some further figures.
5.24 p.m.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: My Lords, by this stage of the debate, it is inevitable that one is going to repeat arguments already heard. However, if the debates in both Houses this week are to be considered from the point of view of how people will vote at a later stage, I want to make my contribution so that where I stand is known. I shall speak more from the point of view of practical experience than constitutional theory.
I have three main points and two preliminary ones. The first is on legitimacy or, as the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, put it, "acceptability". Some have dismissed the entire issue with the simplistic and sometimes glib assertion that the only method of establishing acceptability is by election. I speak after having spent 40 years either involved heavily in, or standing for, election. I have no doubt that the electoral system and standing for election is an important part of our constitution.
I wish to take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, when he quoted the opinion poll

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that Charter 88 commissioned. In my experience—throughout my political life—few people out in the country have ever raised with me the question of House of Lords reform. I suspect that when people were asked that question, they had not thought about any of the issues before, so they had to give a quick response. The quick response was, "Well, if it is a Parliament, there must be an election process". We should not give much weight to that because I do not believe that they gave any weight to the consideration of the issues. Therefore, the weight that we give in considering the arguments is much more important than an opinion poll.
I also question what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said yesterday. She said:
"Election today is almost the only way in which people acquire respect for their authority".
She went on to refer to people in positions of authority. I agree with her that,
"position no longer attracts the deference it once did".—[Official Report, 21/1/03; col. 585.]
However, it is not self-evident that most people today give that degree of respect to those who have been elected. I say that most sadly, because it represents a very detrimental stage in our political life, but it is a fact. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford made some relevant points on that matter yesterday. We may choose the system of election that has been chosen for the European Parliament, but that heavily centralised party-dominant system does not give the authority or attract the respect of the electorate.
More important than that is the question of fitness for purpose. Like the noble Lord, Lord Carter, I used to argue in another place and here that we should consider role and functions first and then composition. However, I want to turn the argument the other way round. The interesting thing about the Joint Committee's report was that people who came from different points of view as to composition agreed on role and function. That was Part 1 of the report. If that is the case, it is extremely important to the question of composition.
If this House tried to duplicate the House of Commons or did not accept that the House of Commons was wholly dominant, the question of election would be important to this place. That is not actually the position, however, because we all agree that the role and functions of this place are secondary to the House of Commons. The election point applies to the composition of the House of Commons and how its Members are elected and to the composition of the Government that comes through the election system. The roles and functions of this place mean that we need other methods of appointment to this place to ensure that we have both the necessary range of expertise and the time that the House of Commons can no longer give to scrutiny of legislation, and so on.
My second preliminary point is that I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, who said that some of the issues that the Joint Committee had not yet addressed
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were very important. My noble and learned friend Lord Howe agreed that those points were important. The pattern, methods and timing of election are as important as decisions that we might take about composition. I referred to the legitimacy of the MEP election system, but it is also important in relation to the tenure of elected Members, if there are to be elections to this House.
I shall now briefly make my three main points. Part 3 of the Joint Committee report refers to the qualities required in the make-up of a reformed House. I have already referred to legitimacy. The other four are: representativeness, no domination by any one party, independence and expertise. The paragraphs in the report discussing those matters lead inevitably to the view that a House that was composed by more than 50 per cent—or even more than 40 per cent—of elected Members simply will not produce those qualities that were unanimously agreed on by the Joint Committee. I do not have the time to go through them. However, I urge noble Lords who have not read them carefully to do so, and to ask themselves whether, if this House had a substantial majority of elected Members, it would ever produce the composition required by those five qualities.
I turn next to the implications of having a number of elected Members, and first to the implications for the Government and the House of Commons, especially if more than 50 per cent are elected. I think that it is almost inevitable that Members elected to this House would feel that they had a democratic legitimacy, and that the dynamics of politics would entail that the role and the function of this House would be challenged. They would wish this House to have many more of the powers possessed by the House of Commons. After all, they would be elected like Members of the House of Commons. There would inevitably be that sort of demand. I am constantly surprised at the number of Members of another place who do not take that argument on board. I do not believe that the implications for the House of Commons or for the Government have been fully thought through. I have never seen them thoroughly analysed.
The implications for Members of this place also seem fairly clear. As Members elected to this place would be elected by constituencies, there would be constant challenges in those constituencies to the Members of the House of Commons. One need only look at what has happened to Scottish MPs and their difficulties with MSPs to see that that would inevitably be the case. One could argue, of course, that if there were a limited tenure of 15 years or less, the scope for challenge would be reduced because it would not be necessary to fight for re-election. If that were the case, I would question the legitimacy of the election. If they do not need to go in front of the electorate again, they would effectively become appointed Members to this place. Unfortunately, however, because of the type of system that might be chosen, they would be appointed Members appointed by the central parties and not by the electorate as a whole.

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So we would end up here with a large number of elected Members who did not fear returning to the electorate, who would become bored with the fact that they did not have the powers of the House of Commons and the same ability to enter the Government, and who would then start to argue for the same type of powers. I think that, in many respects, we would have the worst of all worlds. It seems inevitable that that would happen, and it really would challenge the democratic legitimacy point. If such Members had a fixed tenure but then could not stand for election to another place, it is fairly clear that they would not always respond to the electorate. It is also much more likely that they would be party cronies. I feel that, in most cases, those who were willing to put themselves forward for such a post would themselves come to the conclusion that they were unlikely to get into the House of Commons. Therefore, it would be the second line of politicians who came to this House.
I believe that the arithmetic of a substantially elected House would simply squeeze out the Cross-Bencher element and many of the independent Peers. If people had to give up their career, in mid-career, to be a Member of this place for 12 or 15 years—in what is effectively not a full-time job—would we really attract the range of expertise and quality that the Cross-Benchers and appointed Members currently bring to the House? That element would inevitably decline.
Thirdly, I have long regretted that Parliament is increasingly composed of professional politicians who have done nothing much other than politics in their working lives. I believe that, if we had a substantial or even a 40 per cent elected element, that danger would be reinforced. I urge noble Lords who share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, to look at the arithmetic of what they are arguing. Unless we have a very long transition period, the arithmetic would inevitably entail that the Cross-Bench element and the independent element are squeezed out.
For all those reasons, I am clearly in favour of Option 1. However, the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, made the point, both yesterday and in his Royal Commission report, that any solution must have a significant element of compromise. I wish to consider, between now and when we vote, whether one should vote for Option 3, for a 20 per cent elected element, not that I find it attractive—I hope that I have made that clear—but in a spirit of compromise. However, I make it clear that my first choice—although we are not able to indicate the priority which we assign to our votes—would certainly be for Option 1.
5.35 p.m.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I am an anorak of the House of Lords reform debate. I first spoke on the issue in 1996, and I have spoken about it several times since then. Six years ago, I even wrote a pamphlet about House of Lords reform, pointing out that I favoured an elected Chamber. I do not think that I have heard anything in the last two days, or the last seven years, to change my mind. I am very glad that I find myself firmly behind the leader of the Conservative Party. Every leader needs at least one follower, and here I am.
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The argument for why we need an elected Chamber was put very succinctly by my noble friend Lord Richard. It has nothing to do with our expertise, our wisdom, or how handsome we all are, but with the fact that the executive in this country has far too much power. While the House of Commons has traditionally been a good check on executive power, due to various circumstances it is no longer such a check. Our House, which could be such a check, is unable fully to exercise its limited powers. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, pointed out yesterday, we do not even use the powers that we now have. We do not do so because we are self-constrained by our lack of legitimacy. I have even heard several noble Lords make that statement after legislation had been returned to us and the House of Commons had rejected our amendments. I heard noble Lords say, "We know that they are wrong and we are right. Of course we are right—we are wiser. But, as we are an unelected Chamber, perhaps we should not push it so that they have to use the 1949 Act".
The 1949 Act has been used very few times in the last 54 years. It has not been used because this House lacks legitimacy and knows that it lacks legitimacy. It has therefore failed to use its limited powers adequately. If it is to use those powers adequately, it will need greater legitimacy. That is one of the reasons why I have always thought that this House should have an elected element.
All the nice functions that we perform would not end. It is unimaginable that no other body of people could revise legislation as we do. If they were not so capable, they could learn. When I first came to this place, I did not know how to revise legislation, but I picked it up. It is not a difficult thing to do. It requires only the ability to read and write.
Noble Lords have pointed out many difficulties with elections. In the pamphlet which the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and I wrote in 1997, we said that there were two possible routes to membership. The first was a regional seat based on European Parliament constituencies, and the second was indirect election whereby each local authority elects a Member to come here. There are advantages to such a system. Disastrous policies such as the poll tax would never have been implemented if this House had properly represented the different regions of the country. Because "The Great and the Good", as they call themselves, live in the South East, the outlook of this place is focused overwhelmingly towards the South East. We could do much better if local authorities were represented here more widely. However, that is a matter of detail and I do not want to dwell on it.
When the White Paper was published and suggested that there be 120 elected and 120 appointed Peers, I suggested that we should reduce the size of the present Chamber to 120 in total. I am perfectly willing to contemplate collective suicide; I have no fear of that. Just as we reduced the hereditaries from 750 to 100, we could boil down the life Peers from 600 to 120 by an election procedure. Then we would have proportions of 120, 120, 120. As the life Peers died off, they would be replaced by properly elected persons. To begin with

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only one-third would be elected but eventually two-thirds would be elected. In that way we would transit to a substantially elected House rather more slowly than under the current proposals but we would solve the problem of the size of the House at the same time as that of transition.
I do not want to suggest only those figures. It is quite possible to adopt proportions of 200, 200, 200. In the first instance we might have 200 elected members and 200 appointed members. That would make it possible to transfer the entire block of the Cross-Benchers to the appointed element. We could reduce the party hacks in your Lordships' House to 200. That would be a good starting point. Once that process had started, we could transit to a two-thirds Chamber. That process would not be difficult.
I am not a fan of the Joint Committee's report. It is dull and reveals nothing that is new or that we have not heard before. It makes an awful muddle of the options. The proposed voting procedure is the daftest I have seen in a long time and will not result in a decision being arrived at. It is almost an elementary proposition among people who write about voting theory that if people answer yes or no to seven options, a consistent position will not be arrived at. As the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said yesterday, how would we decide what the House had chosen if a majority was reached on four of the seven options? I could vote for all seven options. I might say yes to all seven options just to wreck the procedure. Why should I not do that? Nothing prevents me from doing so.
The right way to approach the matter is to ask all of us to rank the seven options from one to seven and then add up those rankings. If one's most preferred option is ranked one and one's least preferred option is ranked seven, once the rankings are added up, the option with the lowest total ranking is the preferred option. As the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, said, we may not all obtain our preferred option. We may have to compromise. That compromise may be our second or third most preferred option. The present system of voting does not allow for that at all.
Given that we are all grown-up people, we still have time to rethink the method of voting. I hope that the Joint Committee will rethink the matter. If its members do not believe me, they can ask an expert on the matter. I could tell them which experts they could ask. There are many such experts and they all say the same thing. We really ought to use a system of ranking alternatives, adding up the rankings and reaching a decision on the rank order criterion. I hope that that will happen; otherwise, another 90 years will pass before this issue is decided.
5.43 p.m.
Lord Rix: My Lords, I suspect that the thrice made speech has the edge on the thrice told tale when it comes to the competition for the wooden spoon of tediousness. However, this issue is both too important for the country, and too close to my own heart for me simply to sit and listen, valuable and pleasurable
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though that has been, particularly hearing the kind reference made to me by the noble Lord, Lord Elder. On behalf of people with a learning disability I should like to thank him, but I must tell him that nothing on God's earth would persuade me to join him climbing the Munroes. To return to my speech, if I cannot avoid repetition, at least I can avoid prolixity.
Historical anomaly this House may be but, like other historical anomalies such as the Church and the stage, and, dare I say, the monarchy, it has moved with the times and does a credibly decent job. Our national life would be infinitely poorer without it, as it would be without them. Much as I enjoy the writings of W S Gilbert as both farceur and librettist, I do not share in 2003 his perspective at the end of the century before last that the House of Lords does nothing in particular. I might want to associate myself though with the second part of his comment that what the House of Lords does, it does very well.
Should, regrettably, the desire for radical change trump the desire for continuity—a desire for "festina lente", if I am to continue quoting from "Iolanthe"—I have a set of detailed proposals for a hybrid House, including indirect election, retirement, semi-retirement, appointment etcetera, etcetera, in which the figures and the logic both seem to add up. I find myself regularly fine tuning them when I cannot sleep, which is often, and if the dread day arises when change becomes inevitable, I hope to share my proposals with the Joint Committee. For the moment, though, I am mindful that at the other end of Whitehall I used to raise many a laugh by losing my pants on stage. A lengthy dissertation from me at this stage of the afternoon would, no doubt, reverse that process and I have no desire to bore the pants off your Lordships, especially in view of the mixed company present.
For the nonce, I want to do no more than suggest some principles—principles tinged with assertion, but I hope not wholly unpalatable, and, I am sure, already clear and voiced by the majority of noble Lords. First, while it helps no one to have a second Chamber which is guaranteed to be at odds with the other Chamber, it also helps no one to have a second Chamber which is merely a pale reflection of that other Chamber.
Secondly, while some federal legislatures have a very proper base for two elected chambers elected by different constituencies, I doubt that in this country, at this time, knowing our electoral record, we do. Thirdly, it is a great attraction of this House that it has Members who know what they are talking about rather more than they know what they ought to be talking about. With all due respect to the Whips, that can be no bad thing. If I may give an example, on disability related matters Members of this House without, or irrespective of, party allegiance have done great things with education, civil rights, social services—recently securing an annual report to Parliament on implementing the White Paper, Valuing People—and a wealth of other crucial issues. I want to avoid Mrs Malaprop's "invidious caparisons", but we have sometimes had the edge on another place in this respect.

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Fourthly, I suggest that we need a phased approach to change. In the 17th century the portly gentleman whose statue stands, for some rather obscure reason, outside the Palace of Westminster reckoned that driving everyone out instanter was the best approach to reform. That seems unwise. We would do ourselves no favours if, in a determination to modernise, we both lost the distinctive array of talents that we have in this House and created something so modern that 10 years later it had become old-fashioned. Therefore, at this stage of the debate I find myself attracted to what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, proposed as his Option 1A; that is, a fully appointed House including, where appropriate, those hereditary Peers who still serve your Lordships' House so loyally and so effectively.
It was the American comedian, George Burns—whose retention of wit and verbal ability well beyond their allotted span must greatly encourage the older ones among us—who said: "Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs or cutting hair". I suspect that there are those among us who have done either or both of these things. There are certainly ladies and gentlemen among us who have succeeded in most branches of human endeavour. It would be sad, indeed, if only their nearest and dearest benefited from their accumulated wisdom and experience.
This dear, anachronistic, cumbersome, awkward, good humoured and often very wise old House still has a great deal to offer to the business of government. Of course, like all ancient institutions it could do with a bit of tidying up and spring cleaning, but it would be a tragedy if, in pursuing change for change's sake, all that was to disappear from the Mother of Parliaments. What a Pyrrhic victory that would be for political dogma and the Fourth Estate.
5.50 p.m.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I too welcome the report, which has justified the appointment of the Joint Committee even if that commit tee dragged its feet for two rather wasted years. The committee could be accused of ducking or glossing over too many difficult issues, and it would be wholly unsatisfactory if the committee effectively abandoned the rest of its agenda once the composition of the House had been chosen, whatever that may be.
There is a danger about a momentum of complacency, if I can adapt that familiar aphorism of the late Lord Whitelaw. If noble Lords can allow me to say so, I thought that there was a whiff of smugness about some of yesterday's debate as time moved on. Perhaps I put it rather more gently than did my noble friend Lord McNally who was more robust.
The role of secondary legislation, whether the judicial function of the Lords should be in or out, and the spread of regional experience are important matters, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, reminded us. Then there are the bishops, who have been attractively vigorous in this debate, and the place for representatives of other faiths. I have
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some doubts about that if there are to be delegates with a mandate. There is also a case for a wholly secular House, and that should be examined.
The committee was right, however, to put forward as soon as possible a series of options, and these seven are as good as any. At first, I was puzzled about the future of the residual hereditary principle, after the Weatherill amendments. I could not find any explicit statement in the report, but I assume that paragraph 34, which refers to,
"the departure of the 92 excepted hereditary peers",
is the answer. I take it for granted that the hereditary principle, by common consent, is coming to an end, whatever may be agreed about the existing Members. I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will say so in as many words.
It is difficult for Members of the House of Commons to have a rounded perspective about the second Chamber. I can make no personal claim about virtue during my 20 years in the House of Commons. I barely listened to a debate in the Lords, and seldom read the Official Report. In Cabinet, the Leader of the Lords—this was in the 1970s—was seen sitting round the table but seldom heard, except when the Lords defeated the government in a Division, which would cause surprise and anger, especially on the part of the losing Minister. I found the existence of the hereditary Peers offensive within a parliamentary system. The dominance of the Conservative Party was wholly unfair.
Time is moving on. The hereditary principle is coming to an end and, as I understand it, there is agreement about a proper balance between parties on the lines of Command Paper 4183 of four years ago, Modernising Parliament. There are already many more outstanding life Peers on the Labour and Liberal Benches, even if too few additional Peers have been appointed to be my noble friends yet.
We are sometimes rather too pleased to show that the quality of debate is high—so much higher than in the Commons—and to point to the experts and specialists whose knowledge is outstanding. We are proud of our Select Committees, impressed by the Cross Benches and glad that party loyalties are relaxed. We boast that, for the most part, we reach decisions through consensus and without needless rhetoric. All that is good, and I wholly share the enjoyment of that record of achievement and its character.
Sometimes we overplay our hand, however, and mislead our colleagues in the House of Commons. Yes, the House of Lords is a rather good place, but the essence of the House—its core, its real justification—is its legislative role. That important role is advisory and persuasive—not less, but no more than that.
As we have frequently been reminded, the Government have been defeated in 165 Divisions since 1997, but on only two occasions have the Parliament Acts been invoked. In a rough way, there is a successful dialogue between the two Houses about legislation. Either one side hacks down or they reach a compromise. However, the final word is the

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Commons, which is absolutely right. The House of Lords is very influential, but it does not finally decide.
I find it hard to set aside my long-standing instinct for an elected House. I like the campaign, the vote, the ballot box and the choice. I am still attracted by a radical, far-reaching constitutional settlement stretching through both Houses, regional government and very much besides. I have no song in my heart about an appointed second Chamber, but I now think that that fits best into an advisory and persuasive legislative role.
I have tried hard to believe that an intermediate, halfway, hybrid House would work better than the House today. However, having two classes—elected and appointed—could do more harm than good, at least until the natural growth of regional opinion demands a place in a second Chamber.
I am uncomfortable about my conclusion, but I shall vote for Option 1, abstain on Option 2 and vote against the others.
5.58 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, let me begin on an apparently facetious note. The other night I had a dream in which I was in the audience at a production of "The Mikado"; I am glad to come so swiftly on the heels of the noble Lord, Lord Rix. The cast kept coming up on stage and disappearing. Unusually, there seemed to be some kind of interchange between stage and audience, and as we all applauded at the end I kept seeing fellow Members of this House. I saw the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, even though the play was not "Iolanthe". Then the noble Lords, Lord Ampthill and Lord Goodhart, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, appeared. Finally, I saw the noble and learned Lord the Lord Privy Seal, who walked past me but then suddenly had a beard. Was I confusing one Welsh Williams with another, the new Archbishop of Canterbury?
I do not offer that dream for psychological analysis, still less for the counselling expertise of my colleagues, which in some cases would be as uninviting as it would be underwhelming. Perhaps it was the dream of a bishop who had enjoyed watching "Topsy-Turvy" on television after Christmas, who was already deep into his three-month sabbatical but who was getting ready for a two-day exeat from it in order to take part in this debate. However, the significance of the dream is clear. As we sit here, we are participants, players and spectators in the evolution of our national life and the development of our democracy, with a libretto that, like the demise of the D'Oyly Carte copyright many years ago, can now vary. That brings me to the focus of the debate: how to change that libretto and narrative in the context of an evolving democracy.
In thanking the members of the Joint Committee for expediting their thankless task so well, particularly in relation to role and functions, I want to look at this changing narrative libretto from my perspectives as a working bishop, a theologian and an historian.
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As a bishop, I want to underscore what my colleague the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford said yesterday: we on these Benches would like to take part in a subsequent discussion of the development of the Lords Spiritual. I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, said about mandated Members from this place; we have given thought to that. No one can tell me how to vote; certainly not the General Synod and least of all God Almighty, the noble Earl, Lord Onslow!
More generally, I want to explain why the debate about our democracy is so important to us. It is because hardly a day goes by in the working life of a bishop without questions of representativeness and participation being raised in one form or another, whether that involves appointing a new vicar or negotiating SRB funding. That is the case at a time when the "democratic deficit" is a more pressing and harsher reality for our political life than in relation to many other aspects of our life together. The Churches are deeply committed to working alongside local networks and partnerships in the burgeoning new styles of democracy, about which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford spoke yesterday. It was interesting to note last year at mayor-making that the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, who is Jewish, began her formal speech of thanks by singling out the work of the Churches and faith communities in helping to create community in a city that is very far from the sociological and settled character of Barchester.
The Churches and faith communities may not always speak with one voice or always get things right but we take very seriously the political and social structures around us and we want to be seen to be trying to help to revitalise them in the way in which it is agreed in a modern democracy. We are not clinging, for example, to our position here but we want the discussion to be serious and the right things to be done for the best reasons. Sometimes, hard things need to be said. What is now Portsmouth Anglican Cathedral began life within two decades of Thomas à Becket's death in the 1180s as a dockyard chapel dedicated to the martyred saint, who was, in the words of T. S. Eliot, a "troublesome priest". Sometimes we do our job properly only when we are being awkward; and, for some of us, that comes rather naturally.
In the context of democracy, accountability is at a premium, whoever we are. It is just as important that we are seen to deliver and to keep delivering as it is to know and to be comfortable collectively with how and why we got here. In that regard, I echo the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester last night.
Secondly, as a theologian, I refer briefly, if I may, to Richard Hooker and his Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, written in the closing years of the 16th century. He developed a dynamic view of order as an evolving libretto—a narrative—based on natural law conceived in terms of the heavenly, the cosmic, the earthly and the domestic. I know that many in this place may not view these things as heeded and that others, more confident than myself, would want to limit them solely to the earthly and the domestic—or, in the parlance of

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today, to the central and the local. However, in order to help a symbiosis between them, a key part of the equipment for the theologian is institutional self-criticism, which is mighty difficult, either because we swing between flagellation and complacency or because historic institutions are being publicly deconstructed by the day in an overreaction to the time of deference, which was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, yesterday. It seems that I am called My Lord" only in the House of Lords or by an awkward church warden on the Isle of Wight who wants to be difficult with me.
Institutional and conceptual self-criticism are about debunking the bogus and stripping away layers of tertiary and secondary importance to first-order issues. That leads me to my third observation. As an historian, I say how unhelpful I find both the use of the term "hybrid"—this House has been a mixture from its very inception, and these Benches were hybrid in the Middle Ages, when two quite different groups of people, bishops and abbots, sat here—and the apparent polarisation. which is a real gift to the media, between elected and appointed Members. Here I draw attention to the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, yesterday, which I found ground-breaking as well as debunking. Much more work needs to be done on the many methods of election, which can veer towards appointments, and methods of appointment, which can likewise veer in practice towards election. I do not want to get into a legal tangle with some noble Lords but in practice bishops are elected—not by the Crown but by the Crown Appointments Commission.
The subtleties of these kinds of distinctions have yet to be explored sufficiently for a final decision to be made about the future composition of this House, including the many ways of reforming the appointments process, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, yesterday, and the different kinds of electoral colleges, which were referred to so eloquently yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh.
I am not opposed to election to this House; nor do I believe that that is the only form of legitimacy. I hope, by the way, that if there is a mixture, we are all paid. The bishops would have that docked off their stipends—that is how the Church Commissioners treat us—but other noble Lords would benefit. I am aware of having offered some rather agnostic comments; perhaps they are even "Eeyore-esque", in the style, if not entirely the substance, of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who spoke earlier.
This whole debate needs to be widened and deepened. It also needs to include the other end of the Corridor in terms of its work and composition. We are not the only part of the problem. I refer to some of the things said in the recent Dimbleby Lecture by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, who, I can assure noble Lords— because he said this to me—is looking forward to coming here. He is also, I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Rix, a keen Gilbert and Sullivan buff. I am sure that he will make a valuable contribution. We need to think wider and deeper if we are to avoid going
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around on what feels like a rather self-regarding merry-go-round which, with the best of intentions, can give way to slogans and ideological trench warfare, disguised, at this stage, as a series of mathematical options.
6.7 p.m.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, when the 64th contributor to a debate rises to speak, noble Lords may not be anticipating a startlingly original contribution. I can confirm that expectation.
Unlike the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, my dreams are of the future and of undergoing a rather searching television interview. When future historians write about the process in which we are now participating, they may wonder how we came to hold this debate. Usually, those who discuss constitutions identify a specific function that requires to be addressed. Then they ask themselves what kind of institution would best perform it and what kind of people should compose that institution. Then they proceed to ask themselves: what process of selection would best identify the people with the qualities that are needed?
We have reversed that process. We already have an institution. We then proceeded to ask ourselves what its function should be; but that is not all. We might at least have tried to define the functions before we discussed how to select those best able to perform them, as the committee did. However, as the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, pointed out, we are discussing what the selection process should be before we are necessarily agreed on the functions—"Decide the route first and choose the destination afterwards". That may be because we are a country that mistrusts blueprints and prefers to build where it can on what is there already.
The report of our committee—pace my noble friend Lord Desai—was constrained by our terms of reference. Those who formulated them were the prisoners—or the beneficiaries, depending on one's point of view—of past history. Perhaps the major lesson which emerged in the committee, as my noble friend Lady Jay pointed out, was the wide spectrum of propositions on which there was broad agreement. The first was the need for a second Chamber—pace my noble friend Lord Elder. That is a thread which runs through virtually all the debates that have taken place about reform of this House.
Historically, of course, the House of Commons exists because there was a clear need for a second Chamber. This House was there first and the House of Commons was the second Chamber. The need for that second Chamber was that this House could not meet the requirements for a first Chamber. It has never been suggested that it might or that it should. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, pointed out yesterday, we are not here to duplicate another place. Your Lordships' House is here in its own right and it would be a mistake to redesign it as a poor relation of another place.

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I went back to what Sir John Marriott wrote in 1910 in his classic on second Chambers. He discussed the experiment, following the Civil War, of the Barebones Parliament—a model for unicameral government. The conclusion of the portly gentleman, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, was:
"By the proceedings of this Parliament you see they stand in need of a check or balancing power".
That is us.
What compelled us to undertake this exercise was the clear demonstration that the House, as formally constituted, lacked legitimacy. That is why, when in Part 3 of our report we listed the qualities which the composition process would need to deliver, the very first was legitimacy.
As important as legality is the need to be widely recognised as worthy of being taken seriously. The reason why the House lacked legitimacy in that sense was the total absence of political balance. Any reform had to address that, and that—certainly now, I believe—is a further area of unanimity.
But legitimacy is not synonymous with what we called "representativeness", and certainly not necessarily with an electoral process. General recognition of being worthy to be taken seriously may arise from a whole spectrum of qualities: expertise; integrity; common sense; transparency; and a rapport with our contemporary world. Those are all part of the recipe. If any of them is lacking, legitimacy will be endangered, and it will not necessarily be restored by introducing elections.
One quality that will contribute to legitimacy is representativeness, and that was the next quality that we listed. A major reason that the House had previously lacked legitimacy was that it was perceived as—and clearly was—unrepresentative. It came as a surprise to me when I checked and found that the word "representativeness" was in the Oxford dictionary, although I doubt whether it would earn us the Nobel Prize for Literature. But it is a useful word, provided we recognise that it is easier to detect its absence than to agree on a remedy.
I remember a lady urging upon me that we need a third House in our Parliament because the two existing Houses consist of politicians and we need a House to represent ordinary people, who are not politicians. When I objected that Members of the existing Houses had become politicians in the process of representing ordinary people and that Members of a third House would become politicians in their process of representing ordinary people, she gave up the argument as too complicated.
That experience impressed upon me that there is more than one pattern of representation, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford reminded us yesterday. Another place—our first Chamber—consists to an increasing degree of those whose careers have progressed through a hierarchy of elections from local councils and party committees. As some of your Lordships have said, they have made electoral politics their careers. I mean no disrespect; we could not do without them, but, like figgy pudding, they need an element of diluting.
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Representations for some interests—particularly minority interests—are more likely to be achieved, and to be seen to be achieved, not by replicating general elections but by a process of selection. As we emphasise in our report, that process should be undertaken not in obscurity—pace my noble friend Lord Brooke—but by a balanced and objective appointments commission.
It may be found that the concerns to which many people attach greatest importance, and in respect of which they would most wish to be represented, are not necessarily where they live but are apparent from the causes—the societies, the clubs and the NGOs—which they support. Those are more likely to be reflected by a system of appointment than in direct elections.
Of course, it does not follow that appointments should account for 100 per cent of the membership. Perhaps I may do a deal with my noble friend. I am proposing to vote for a degree of hybridity, but perhaps he and I can settle on a formula. However, the appointed sector will need to be large enough to make provision for representing the interests which do not necessarily emerge from an electoral process. In Mr Balfour's Poodle, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead quoted a well-known hymn:
"There is room for new creations
In that upper place of bliss".
The third requirement is that the House should not be dominated by one party. That, again, I imagine, is unanimously accepted, and I comment only that an electoral process cannot guarantee that outcome. That, again, can be achieved only by a substantial proportion of appointed Members.
The fourth quality which we list is independence. Since time is against me, I say only that this House should be able to afford, and could afford, that a substantial number of Members are not dependent on party affiliation in order to pursue a career of elections and certainly should not be dependent on political appointments, which is why we recommended the commission.
The final item on our list is expertise. Those of us who came to your Lordships' Chamber after a period in the other place are probably agreed that noble Lords who participate in this Chamber bring a spectrum of experience and expertise which is not likely to be achieved by an electoral process. I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am not saying that elections never produce someone with expertise—there are those in this Chamber whose biographies prove otherwise—but no electoral process can ensure that any particular expertise is present among its composition.
Before our work is completed, we shall need to address a whole number of other issues. We shall have to ensure that the qualities which your Lordships' House already contributes do not go out with the bath water. Therefore, we shall need to leave room to build on existing practices and conventions, where they serve a purpose. Free elections are a vitally important way of choosing governments but, at this moment, I do not believe that I detect a very wide demand for even more elections.
6.18 p.m.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, if one were looking for an example of clear public policy decision-making, one probably would not choose the recent history of House of Lords reform. But no one can argue that the House of Lords itself has not been extremely diligent in considering the minutiae of all the arguments for and against an elected Chamber and for and against nominated Peers.
We have made limited progress. To my mind, that progress is primarily in that the previous option put forward by the Government in their White Paper for a minority elected element in your Lordships' House has received very little support during this debate. It was seen fairly quickly as being unworkable and as using the veil of democracy to conceal the truth—that is, that it would still be a nominated House. Like many noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has himself said that the arguments have become further polarised.
The first thing that struck me, not only in listening to the debate today and yesterday but in reading the beauty of the written word in Hansard, was how many Members of this House who are former Ministers, Secretaries of State, Chief Whips and other office holders in another place have almost to a man criticised the current operation of the House of Commons as a mechanism to hold the executive to account. I do not believe that I have heard one defend the Commons as it is now. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, certainly defended the quality of the people there, but I am not sure that he was making a case that the House of Commons is necessarily an effective Chamber at present for scrutinising legislation.
Surely, only one conclusion can be drawn from that; that is. that neither House can be considered in isolation and that by far the greatest priority that we face as a Parliament in looking at our procedures must be to look at how to improve the effectiveness of the House of Commons.
That Chamber has been modernised—a word totally hijacked by the Government as code for an attack on any potentially challenging organisation—to the point where it no longer functions realistically as a body for scrutinising legislation. I really do not believe that the implication of the guillotine Motion has been fully explained and understood outside the Westminster village. If the public discovered, for example, that safety inspectors were invited to have only a quick look around an untested and highly criticised new type of nuclear reactor before being pulled off the job by power company bosses, they might be somewhat alarmed. But that is how legislation is handled in another place. Surely, that is not sustainable. That is not the fault of democracy and an electoral system but of weak or non-existent constitutional safeguards, ruthlessly exploited by a Government with little value for Parliament.
When this process was embarked on we were assured that the 1999 Act would be merely the precursor to more decisive change. There has been a feeling by many noble Lords who spoke in the debate today and yesterday towards the acceptance of a
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nominated Chamber. I believe that that is reflected in an acceptance of the quality of the work that this House currently undertakes. By implication, that acceptance must also be of the work that was carried out by the House before the 1999 changes. Few Peers who have spoken today have stressed any change in effectiveness following the removal of the bulk of the hereditaries. Many have stressed that the House has a different image and perhaps some different practices, but essentially it performs the same job.
Strong arguments have been put forward for an appointed House. I would be the first to agree that the strongest possible argument that could be deployed today is that the current House works. It is effective at scrutinising legislation and, indeed, in holding the Government to account. Similarly, the degree of independence is highly unusual, as is the breadth of expertise. I listened carefully to the remarks of my noble and learned friend Lord Howe when he referred to a recent debate on human cloning and the degree of expertise that probably, or incontrovertibly, would not be replicated within an elected House.
There is a further argument: to whom are the arguments put forward in your Lordships' House addressed? When there is a confrontation between the two Houses of Parliament, we do not here ask the public to think again about their choice of Government or Home Secretary; we ask the Commons to think again about its decision. As long as the Government, and, indeed, Members of the House of Commons, can point to this Chamber and say, "They are merely nominees", our view is weakened, no matter how great the expertise here.
We saw that perfectly illustrated during the debate on the anti-terrorism Bill. No matter that this House as currently constituted is the model of the Government—we are made in the Government's image at present; this is what they wanted to see: the 1999 Act was their piece of legislation and the House as currently constituted is the Government's responsibility—when the House disagreed with the Government, fingers were wagged at us. There are only nominated people here; we are not elected; therefore our views should be discounted.
Surely, at least as important as the question of who is sent here is what arrangements exist to govern numbers. I find that the greatest shock to my guests who visit the House of Lords and want to know about how people arrive here and what is the constitution of your Lordships' House is that, if they feel they are losing votes, the Government are perfectly capable of introducing a few more people to pull on their side of the rope until they overcome the Opposition. I simply do not understand how a nominated House with no check on numbers or structure can be sustainable. Surely, if there was to be a move to settle a nominated House, the issue of constraint on numbers and therefore on patronage would have to be at the top of the agenda.
None the less, I have a feeling that the arguments about the quality of work undertaken in your Lordships' House and about the undoubted fact that nomination brings to your Lordships' House people of

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unrivalled expertise run better in Westminster than outside. Explaining publicly to the electorate that elections are great and a magnificent institution on which our country is based, but that the public cannot be trusted to elect the right kind of people to your Lordships' House, would certainly be a tough sell and not one which I would want to have to put forward.
Therefore, my belief is that we are moving inexorably towards a majority elected House. Such a Chamber, with electoral arrangements, as described by many Peers, of long single terms need not be a clone of another place. There has been much said that such a House would be a challenge to the House of Commons. But I do not see why it should not be enshrined in a constitutional settlement that the two Houses have different roles, with the House of Lords acting as it does currently as a revising Chamber. Members would be elected to this place on that basis and not on the basis that they would be able to challenge the pre-eminence of the House of Commons. The same goes for the procedures. It cannot be that the weakness of the House of Commons, as currently constituted, is a damning indictment of democracy as a whole.
Although this must be the most trodden ground on the political lawn, this debate has been helpful in telling us that our positions are as far apart as they ever have been and that the ground for compromise is extremely slim. I do not envy the work of the Joint Committee.
6.27 p.m.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, if one talks to people outside, the ordinary people of this country who we are here to serve, it is hard to find many who do not want a significant elected element in this House. We would have to be careful before claiming to know better than the people we serve in that respect.
Perhaps I may both congratulate the Joint Committee and be critical of it. It seems to me that seven options is an unmanageable number. As my noble friend Lord Desai said earlier, there is no easy way in which we can sensibly decide and give a pointer to the Select Committee as to what are our views. It will take a genius to interpret the votes on seven options. I wish that the Joint Committee had given us fewer and more manageable options.
Having said that, I suppose that it is impossible, because we are too conservative an institution, to suggest that we should vote on paper and put down our preferences. That is the only common sense way to do it. However, I suppose that years of tradition will prevent us from moving in that direction.
Every solution for reform of this place, including doing nothing, has significant disadvantages. We have to consider a solution which minimises the disadvantages and reflects the mood of the present century. There is no disagreement that by and large our present functions are sensible as a revising Chamber. At the margins we might want to change
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those, but on the whole they reflect what we do well, and is accepted that we do well. The argument should be about who is to carry out those functions.
In the end the Commons will decide the composition of this House. I hope that we do not enter into a conflict with the Commons. It would not do this House any good if we thought that we knew better than the elected Chamber.
I think that we should have a smaller House. When the Commons debate the matter that will probably be their view. If we are to have a significant elected element in this House, any move towards reducing the size of the House will take time. So we must accept that it might take a number of years before we get to a size that would probably be desirable.
I want to put the case for elections. I do not think that we shall move to an all-elected House, but that we shall have a significant elected element. The case is one of accountability. If elected, we need to be answerable to the people about whose lives we make decisions. Even as a revising Chamber, we are making decisions about the lives of people in this country. It is right that we should be answerable to them for decisions that we make on their behalf that affect their lives. In a nutshell, that is the argument for election. It is also why it is not enough to say that they are elected for 15 years and then that is it, because the need to face people and to stand for election again is surely salutary in terms of what we would call a democratic process.
Paradoxically, I believe that being elected gives one strength and, up to a point, independence, because one can claim to one's party Whips and so on, "I am departing from the party line because I represent the views of my constituency" and/or perhaps "my local political party" as well. That is why I think that the Government are wrong in that respect. It is a point of strength, not of weakness, and it is a way of showing one's independence.
Noble Lords laugh, but anyone who has been in the Commons knows that to be the case and that that is how it works. I am reluctant to give way because of time, but I shall this once.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, but could he say a little about reselection by constituency committees that have been telephoned by party headquarters?
Lord Dubs: My Lords, there are different methods in different parties. I am happy to debate the matter with the noble Lord outside the House. I do not have time now.
In the debate yesterday we heard a great deal about the experience and expertise in this House. We do have that, but we also have significant gaps. There are some occupations that are well represented; we have some kinds of experience in abundance. That is good and positive. But there are many aspects of life in this country which are not represented at all. I do not

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suppose that there is anyone in the House with experience of special needs education or who knows much about cleaning—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Dubs: My Lords, there are not many, if there is one. We do not have many people with experience of cleaning the streets or of emptying the dustbins. I shall give way, but I am not going to meet the time limit.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. There are four members on the Cross Benches to my particular knowledge and two on the Labour Benches, and probably more, who know a tremendous amount about special education.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, I said, "special needs education", which is more limited. My proposition is still that there are many occupations in this country that are not represented in the Chamber. Before we talk about the experience and expertise in the House, I think we should be aware that there are significant gaps.
My other proposition about elections is that individuals who are elected—and we are all politicians, whether or not we like it—become different kinds of politicians from those who are appointed. One's mindset as a politician is different; the way that one responds to issues; and the input of knowledge one gets from one's constituency makes one a different kind of person and, in some respects, a more informed person. There are some issues that arise in this country that take a long time to percolate through the system, but if one holds a constituency surgery on a Friday evening one has that information. I simply point that gap out because we ought to be aware of it.
For the reasons that I have given, I do not like indirect elections. If there is going to be an elected element it should be directly accountable to ordinary people. An indirect election blurs the accountability question.
I do not believe in unicameralism because no one in the Commons has yet suggested how it should be reformed in order to deal with our functions and to make us unnecessary.
It is important that if there is a conflict between the two Houses the Commons should always win. There are anxieties about that in another place. But, it is important that we make clear that, even with an elected element, in cases of dispute the Commons would win. Having said that, there is nothing unhealthy in a democracy where there is some tension between two Houses. After all, we are here to protect the rights of individuals in this country, and sometimes those rights are not that well protected. If the two Houses have a little argument with each other about how best to work on behalf of ordinary people that is no bad thing, provided there is no impasse and that there is a way to resolve it. However, in the end I believe it is right that the Commons should win.
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We tend to be a little monolithic in our attitude that we should not challenge another place, that devolved assemblies should not challenge the Government, that local government should not challenge the Government and so on. That is not healthy. It is right that there should be some conflicts and arguments provided they can be properly resolved.
I think that this House has an enormous contribution to make. Changing its composition would not lessen that contribution. If anything, it would enhance it and give us more legitimacy than we now have.
6.36 p.m.
Earl Peel: My Lords, in welcoming the report of the Joint Committee, it is fair to say that there are only two clear messages that have evolved from the discussions, both of today and yesterday. First, there is a wide and differing range of opinion as to 'what form your Lordships' House is likely to take; and, secondly, that the need for a second Chamber is compelling. I am certain that that view can only have been enhanced recently by the deeply unsatisfactory way in which the Scottish Parliament has developed.
Whereas the primary role of this House has been as a debating and revising Chamber, it seems to me that this position has been increasingly challenged in recent times, largely because of the lack of proper legislative scrutiny in another place. I have noticed during my time in this House that this situation has increased. I believe it is not helped by what I can only describe as the increasingly slapdash habit of government introducing important amendments to Bills, often long after the legislative process is under way. That has resulted in your Lordships' House having to take on a greater mantle of responsibility for the whole legislative process.
I regret that. I regret it because it puts additional responsibilities on this House, which are over and above its principal purposes. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it undermines the role of the elected Chamber. My noble friend Lady Blatch was absolutely right when she said that we cannot look at reform of this House without looking at another place as well.
It would be quite wrong for the second Chamber to try to usurp the supremacy of another place, and so the role of your Lordships' House should remain secondary, but, at the same time, it should play a full and integral part in the whole process of democratic government.
I appreciate that to many the term "democratic government" can only be interpreted in one way—and that is through the ballot box—and the very idea of a legislative Chamber made up of members who have not been subjected to the electoral process is anathema. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, yesterday implied that if Members of this House are not elected they are not respected. I do not take that view, and in recent years when your Lordships' House has fought on issues that have had public support the respect for this House has grown enormously.

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I would argue that there are two crucial elements to the democratic process. One is clearly to ensure that the final legislative decisions rest firmly with the democratically elected representatives of the electorate—another place. But also, in coming to such decisions, there has been a full, diverse and honest debate in which all arguments have been explored and all interests thoroughly examined, which helps to ensure that another place can come to a better informed judgment. It is because I attach so much importance to that latter point that I remain fully committed to a wholly appointed House of Lords.
I do not propose to discuss in detail how such a House should be appointed—that is a difficult question, as many noble Lords have already pointed out—for I regard that as being of secondary importance to the principle. However, in addition to having as wide a representation of interests as possible, there should always be a percentage of political appointees—especially of those with experience from another place, whose political wisdom and skills have been so invaluable not just in helping legislation through your Lordships' House but in advising another place on decisions. I am sure that their role will continue to be important.
I cannot for a moment imagine that my noble friends Lord Brittan or Lord Jopling, having already been through the electoral process, would want to do so again. So we must bear in mind that their position in this House could arise only by the method that has been decided on until now. However, I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend Lord Selborne, who said that equal importance will be attached to the make-up as to the remit of the appointments commission.
My reasons for believing that the whole process of debate and legislative scrutiny is enhanced by this House being appointed are intrinsically simple. As many noble Lords have already pointed out, the existence of two elected Houses would almost certainly lead to conflict, with elected representatives from both Houses seeking supremacy on behalf of their constituents. I feel sure that that would lead to the conventions of this House, which have served your Lordships so well for so long, being undermined—a point acutely noted by the Joint Committee.
I remain convinced that the revising Chamber is best served by the independent spirit brought about by Members who are not encumbered by either constituency responsibilities or, more importantly, constituency commitments. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, was amused by the fact that many Conservative Members were taking a different view from our leader, but that simply illustrates my point. In this House, we have a greater degree of independence, and a free spirit flows accordingly.
Only the other day, I was discussing an especially controversial issue with a Member of another place. Out of curiosity, I asked him why he had taken the view that he did on the subject. He looked at me and said, "It is quite simple: if I took a contrary view, when I went back to my constituents, I would be lynched". I suppose
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that such an attitude is inevitable in the democratically elected House of Commons, but the unelected second Chamber can and does act as a healthy antidote to such a position. As such, it adds to the democratic process.
The two Houses of Parliament have two distinct roles. As such, there is nothing wrong with the fact that they have a different type of membership. Apart from anything else—this point has been made by several noble Lords—this country is sick of elections. We have parliamentary elections, European elections, local elections and—heaven forbid—there is now a prospect of regional government elections. The fact that the second Chamber is not subjected to an electoral process is a real positive towards enhancing informed debate, enacting better legislation and, therefore, enhancing the whole process of democratic responsibility.
6.45 p.m.
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, now has a new horse to add to his crazy carousel, because this is the first time I have taken part in any debate on Lords reform. However, it seems the right time now that we are debating the Joint Committee report so brilliantly introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe.
I welcome many things in the report, such as its recommendation that the reformed House should retain its existing conventions and constitutional long-stops. I agree with the five desirable qualities listed—legitimacy, representativess, no domination by any political party, independence and expertise. I follow the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and others who would add experience to expertise. I hope that with experience comes common sense, of which this House is not short either.
I am delighted that the committee recognised that we have the latter three qualities, that it wants not only to preserve but to increase our independence and non-domination by one political party and that it considers that it may be possible to achieve legitimacy through increased representativeness. What the House does is fine; the question is who does it and, just as important, how do we decide on that "who"—which is almost exactly how I heard the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, express it when I entered the Chamber. However, he will not be surprised to hear that from that point on, we depart.
I should like to speak briefly about the importance of Cross Benchers and how best we can preserve the independence, expertise and experience that they—and some members of political parties—bring. It will be an individual view, because almost everything has been said by now and the case has been well made by many noble Lords—notably my noble friend Lord Bledisloe, but by others, and not only Cross Benchers.
I came to this place by chance of birth 33 years ago having, again by chance, acquired an interest: disability. Like many members of the public, I am totally uninterested in party politics. Unlike them, I did not have to join a party or pressure group, because this is, I believe, the only chamber of government in the

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world in which one can survive and operate effectively without the backing of a political party. That is precious and must be preserved.
My noble friend Lady Mar for 10 years conducted a campaign against organophosphates and finally got the Government to admit to having used OPs in the Gulf. She was brave and persistent in her campaign, but perhaps she was also more successful because she had no political axe to grind. I know from experience that that freedom is a definite plus when negotiating with a Minister about an amendment or helping an outside organisation. You build up trust over the years. I glimpse here a parallel with what the report states at paragraph 43 about a new legitimacy developing naturally if the existing qualities, bolstered by greater representativeness, can be transferred to the reformed House.
I shall say a little about representativeness. Yes, this House is seen as too male, too old and too much from the south-east of England, with insufficient ethnic diversity. Here, I mention disability, to which my noble friend Lord Rix also referred. It is important to mention it as a marker, because when discussing balance of ethnicity, age and so on, none of the reports mentions disability.
Contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, special needs and special educational needs are well represented at present, but some of us will go with reform and we are all getting older. I am glad that my noble friend Lady Masham and the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, seem to be in fine form, but issues of equality and discrimination will be with us for many years to come. There is no doubt that the experience of noble Lords with disabilities or disabled families has had a marked influence on legislation directly connected with disability and, to some extent, on connected issues with which this House deals so well, such as embryology, genetics and so on. It would be a pity to lose that expertise.
As an ardent Cross-Bencher, I started by being against an all-elected. House, because independents would not stand. The report recognises that fact, which is also true of many with specialist knowledge who belong to parties. Furthermore, it recognises that an appointments commission would be the easier way to ensure representativeness. I find myself increasingly favouring an all-appointed Chamber. It has been said many times that it is essential that the appointments commission should be independent and respected to counteract the view that unless someone is elected they are not legitimate. As the noble Earls, Lord Peel and Lord Selborne, said, the membership of the commission is important, and it is vital that it includes members who have first-hand experience of this House and others who really understand what we do here.
An elected House would be more political and have less expertise and experience. It would be less easy to ensure that it was representative; it would be more challenging to another place; and it would be more expensive. Paragraph 59 of the report says that it is,
"essential that some detailed work be done on the costing options".
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Why are we voting on the options before we know the cost implications? Will we know them before 4th February? I understand that elected Members would expect better facilities and financial support, but, unlike the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, I have problems with the idea of having two groups of differently remunerated Members.
At the weekend, I conducted a mini straw poll after Mass. The potential voters were not exactly representative: they were white, middle-class, young to middle-aged and Catholic to boot. However, I guess that the result was not untypical. Two were for an all-appointed House; two were for 20 per cent elected; and two were for 50 per cent elected. 'There was also a totally uninterested 15 year-old. More interesting than the percentage of votes was the fact that the two who had visited the Lords were the two who went for all-appointed. The two for 20 per cent elected would accept an all-appointed House if they could have confidence in the appointments committee. None of them, including those in favour of a 50 per cent elected House, wanted to vote for it in a general election. They wanted some group of voters to vote for whoever was to be voted in.
We have been our own worst publicists. People outside Parliament do not know what we do; those who do tend to approve. The report has confirmed that what we do is good, as is how we do it. We must get across the idea that legitimacy can be secured by greater representativeness and that that can be achieved by having a respected, independent, knowledgeable statutory appointments commission and that that will mean a more independent, less political, less whipped second Chamber. That would appeal to the public, and they would have confidence in it. Not only are many people disenchanted with the thought of more elections; I think they are, at heart, Cross-Benchers. I shall vote for an all-appointed House and against all other options.
6.53 p.m.
Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon for the courtesy that he has shown in sitting in his place listening to all the speeches on the boring subjects that, from time to time, are raised. As a tribute to him, I remind your Lordships that he and I were at the same school—I was a lot younger—and I learnt many things there.
The Greeks and Romans always drank their wine mixed with water. Your Lordships will recall the lines:
"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.".
Homer and Horace were good alcoholics and messengers of the gods, but Bacchus was a minor god. I once thought that philosophy meant "love of knowledge"; later in life, I was reminded that it meant "love of wisdom". I never understood what

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PPE was, so I did not do it. However, I realise that we are having a PPE debate today—philosophy, politics and economics have all been raised.
Enough of that. Let us talk about cricket. I would like to go back to 1958, when I first met the noble Baroness in the house of the Flag Office, Malta, where we played charades. She will have forgotten that, but she was always a wise and witty lady, and I was pleased to remind her today that she is the 23rd longest-serving Member of your Lordships' House. Back to 1958 and cricket: in 1958, I was proud to be elected, at a young age, a full member of the MCC. I regret the subsequent decline in cricket and our record in the Ashes. Strangely, I always wanted to be good at cricket, but I never was. Occasionally, I was sent in to knock the fast bowling off its length. Usually, I was soon out, but, occasionally, I stayed in, and those of your Lordships who sit to the right of me may have noticed that my nose is not as straight as it should be.
Back to 1958. What a remarkable year that was. We had the first reform of the House of Lords—long, long overdue—and the introduction of life Peers, who breathed new life into the House. Was not that a remarkable achievement? I think that only one of them is still alive. I was not here then; I came to the House five years later, never having been invited to play cricket for the MCC. Some of your Lordships will recall that I did not really want to come here. I did not like politics. Now, I find that I am No. 11 in the batting order in that, after 40 years, I am the 11th longest-serving Member of your Lordships' House. That disturbs me.
I was told that I had to come here. In fact, I was severely leant on by the father of my noble friend Lord Goschen. I was told that I had a duty to be here and that I should speak only when spoken to. I was told that I should not say anything until I felt that I knew something about the subject. I was told that one was not allowed to speak with notes or read a speech because that demonstrated that one did not know one's subject. I was told that, when one asked a question or spoke at Question Time, one was allowed one and a half lines in Hansard, not the 10 or 20 lines that the Liberal Party has, from time to time. I was told that one had a certain time to speak. I intend to speak for approximately 12 seconds for each of the years that I have been in your Lordships' House.
After 1958 came 1968 and a wonderful opportunity for reform. The Labour Party's proposals were voted through this House with a majority of 190 or so, and through the Commons with a majority of 116. They were then rejected. I thought that the Labour Party's proposals were rather good, so, in 1999, I proposed them as an amendment to a Bill. The only person to spot that was Lord Longford, who asked me what on earth I was doing promoting Labour Party policy. The proposals were that life Peers would be here for life and
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hereditary Peers would remain here for life, because value was given to their knowledge and background, but not be allowed to vote. I do not know why, but the current proposals for reform make me think of that wonderful chap Tommy Cooper. He once said:
"I backed a horse at 20 to 1. It didn't come in until a quarter to six".
We have not got anywhere.
We must go back to the "Pierian spring" and ask ourselves, "Do we know who we are?". Today, I look around and see the PCs' Bench. When I read the list, I thought that "PCs" was something to do with the number of people who had portable computers, but there are only three. How many Privy Counsellors are there in your Lordships' House? There are 191. That is too many. How many former Members of Parliament are there in your Lordships' House? There are 178. That is too many. How many QCs do we have, on top of the PCs and all the rest? There are 46. That is too many. How many "bees' knees" do we have? Your Lordships will know that "bees' knees" are CBEs, MBEs and so on. There are 147. A "bee's knee" must have done something outside for that award. We can go on and ask, "How many Conservatives are there?" or "How many different nationalities?".
The other day, I found, to my horror—or, perhaps, to my pleasure—that I am an "IUP"—an "Independent Unionist Peer". When I first joined the House, I signed up and wrote out a banker's order for £25 for life membership. Then, I found out that I was not allowed to vote for our leader because, technically, I am not a Conservative. Many of your Lordships on these Benches might want to look at that again. I always wanted to be independent, and I thought that I could speak with an independent voice.
I do not want to throw a spanner in the works, but I believe that this House should be fully elected. I said that in the early days. In 1968, I was involved with a research company that was employed to look at House of Lords reform on behalf of the Labour Party. I have kept that information up to date. I put together a report which had a rather good title, but nothing else. It was called Towards A Peerless Future. I have updated it constantly. I can tell you who was born when and who lives where.
I should have liked to have been genuinely elected. It would be rather fun to take on the Commons, and this House can be democratic only if it is fully elected. But, what are the alternatives? There are not many. There can only be two—either/or. Either we are democratic or we are representative. If your Lordships were to scratch the surface, we would find how extraordinarily representative we are. As one gets older, one becomes more and more representative. I speak at No. 70 in the batting order of the speakers' list—back to cricket. I find that I am still way below the average age. I would so like to be in your Lordships' House when I reach the average age, although I know that I am desperately below average.
I turn to the bishops. Who are the most representative people in your Lordships' House? The bishops. There are 25 bishops who represent, directly

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or indirectly, 34 million people with 8,000 parishes and 10,000 churches. I ask your Lordships to think of the parish council; think of that route. Can those Benches genuinely say that they represent the parish council from the bottom up to this House?
How regional are we? I tried to obtain that information from the accountant's department, but there was a reluctance to tell me who claimed expenses from their principal place of residence. However, we know that most Members claim expenses at the address furthest from your Lordships' House. That would be natural because more time is spent there at weekends.
Are your Lordships aware that there are 72 DLs in this House? I thought they were D.Lits at first, but these are deputy lieutenants. How many counties are there in the United Kingdom at present? The deputy lieutenants do not double-up, but they are regional. When looking at Members' addresses, we can see that we are, indeed, regionally representative.
Perhaps we may return to who we are. I believe that I know. We are an amazing collection of people, who do not yet know who they are and do not know who they represent. It would be nice if we could issue a mandate to ourselves, advising each of us who we represent. I am not sure that we represent anyone at present. Certainly, when anyone writes to me, I write back. However, I am told that that is not the correct procedure if one is a Member of Parliament. Let us not forget that the Labour Party has got rid of one-third of all Members of Parliament in the past two years, and that a Member of Parliament cannot write to the constituent of another Member.
We have strange rules. I suggest that if we want to be representative, we must be all appointed. If we want to be democratic, we must be all elected. However, if we are to be representative, let us work out who we are meant to represent.
7.3 p.m.
Lord Gordon of Strathblane: My Lords, I join with virtually everyone who has spoken in congratulating the Joint Committee on the report, which I have read with interest. There are some significant gaps—issues which, perhaps rightly, have been parked for the moment. In particular, I pay tribute to the introduction to the debate by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and to all other members of the committee who spoke. For those of us who have just had a chance to read the report, it was interesting to obtain the flavour of the discussions and some of the between-the lines discussions.
I do not want reform of the House of Lords to be hijacked as a term by those who think that the only way forward is election. I believe passionately in the reform of Parliament; it is a mess at the moment. I may alienate some in the House by saying that, if an idea were put forward to bring this House into the same time zone as the rest of the country so that we no longer greeted each other in the afternoon with "Good morning", I would not regard that as the end of civilisation as we know it.
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More importantly, it is vital that we reform the way we work in this House. The pre-legislative days could be put together to permit more people to accept a peerage other than barristers, those who are fully retired or those who live within the M25. Members have paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Winston, who in the debate yesterday alluded to the fact that he had to leave in order to perform surgery. That is fine because he is here in this House. But would the noble Lord be here if he were in a Scottish university or in a university remote from London? That is a serious drawback. We must be more representative, not in an egalitarian sense but simply making it more possible for people to play a part in the House.
However, more important is the issue of how we interact with the House of Commons. There have been reports on reforming the House of Commons and reports on reforming the House of Lords. I am amazed that no one is looking at Parliament as a whole. The way that we interact with each other affects the quality of our legislation and the way in which the public are served. To that extent, I echo some of the more iconoclastic remarks of my noble friend Lord Elder. I, too, think that there is a wide disparity between the appearance and the reality of Parliament. Having the State Opening of Parliament once every five years in Westminster Hall has much to commend it.
To be honest, it looks as though we are the Upper House. Even the Prime Minister and others are summoned as though second-class citizens to the Bar of the House to hear the Queen's Speech. That is wrong. I do not think that anyone has taken drastic offence so far, but it is only a matter of time before someone does. Let us change such practices.
However, the reality is that the House of Commons virtually ignores the House of Lords. I read with distress as much as I could of yesterday's debate in the Commons. That was one of my reasons for speaking today rather than yesterday. Some good points were made, but generally there was an appalling ignorance of how this place works. It is amazing that—with the exception of noble Lords who are former Members of the House of Commons, who, interestingly, are almost universally in favour of an appointed House—very few Members of this House know exactly how another place works. We need to learn how it works and we need to work together a lot more. I wish that a committee would be set up to look at that issue, instead of tinkering about with composition.
There was a given to the committee that the House of Commons remains supreme. I am open to the concept of election. If the House of Lords is changed dramatically and it is given more power than the House of Commons—there is no reason why it should not be—election must be considered. For the exercise of power, a democratic mandate is needed. However, if it is a given that the House of Commons will remain supreme—realistically, there is no way that this issue will pass through the House of Commons unless that is true—there is no case for election whatever.
If the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, will forgive me, I shall raise another PC—parliamentary conflict. I believe the committee recommended that elections

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should be carried out at a different time from the general election. Arguably the franchise on which Peers would be elected would be more up to date, giving them greater democratic legitimacy than the House of Commons. A different system of election could be introduced, with perhaps proportional representation. In that case, it could be argued that there would be greater legitimacy than the House of Commons.
Another misleading concept appears in the report, which is otherwise very good. People are talking about election and accountability. Election does not give accountability. As my noble friend Lord Dubs pointed out, only re-election and seeking re-election give accountability. If Members are to be elected for long periods, or there is no obligation to seek re-election, there is no accountability. The job may be carried out well, and I believe that the report refers to greater independence of thought. But do not pretend that there will be accountability, because the electorate are not being asked to renew the mandate. The same would be true of any system other than one that virtually replicates the House of Commons, and, as my noble friend Lord Dubs said, seeking re-election on a regular basis.
The problem is that if we take up that system, there will be exactly the same outcome as in the House of Commons. I hope that we are all humble enough in this House to admit that if we were representing a constituency in the same manner as an MP, as well as looking after their best interests as best we could, we would also be ensuring that we should receive a re-endorsement at the next election. We would be just as distracted from the business of parliamentary scrutiny as they are. As a whole, the public would be much less well served.
It is also a recipe for yet another PC—public confusion. My noble friend Lord Elder referred to the different electoral systems that we would have in Scotland, which is one form of confusion. However, there is also the confusion surrounding who does what. Noble Lords who have been MPs know that half their post bag related to local government matters. They are brought to MPs because a letter from an MP on House of Commons notepaper is more likely to receive a reply than a letter from a constituent. People do not know who is responsible for, say, housing; what Westminster is responsible for; or what Brussels is increasingly responsible for. There is considerable confusion.
In opening, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, suggested that the committee did not greatly address hybridity. That is true. It could be said that we are a hybrid House because we have two genders or because Members come from different parts of the country, but none of us believes that that is hybridity. I hope that I cause no offence to hereditary Peers in expressing the belief that we are not a hybrid House just because we have hereditary and appointed Peers. After all, hereditary Peers are simply people who were appointed ante-natally—in some cases with the removal of several generations.
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The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, made an important point. If there is a partially elected House and the government of the day win the vote among the elected Peers but lose it overall, the government of whatever political persuasion will do exactly what this side of the House did in the run-up to the hereditary vote and say, "We would have won the vote had the hereditaries not voted". The recipe will be clear—to create more Peers.
The report states that elected Peers would probably demand more office accommodation than we have ever demanded. It is not that we have never demanded more; it is just that no one has ever given it to us! Furthermore, although there was no definite decision from the committee, it recognised that paying Members might be important. Even so, no one has said how much. And shall we really attract the best people by saying to them, "We want you to stand for election to this House. You are clearly inferior to us as MPs and we don't want you to defy us. We are not terribly certain about your pay and conditions, and as to the business of a title which these guys used to get, we are not sure. We will call you something, like Member of the Lords"? That will bring people out in droves to stand for election, will it not?
Moreover, what legitimacy is conferred by election? Would the Joint Committee have been more legitimate had it been elected by each House, with members having a rock-solid mandate from one House to abolish the House of Lords, or at least make it wholly elected, and Members from this House having a mandate to make it all appointed, with no one having an opportunity to change one's mind and listen to arguments? I suggest not. At what point is legitimacy created in the institution rather than in the individual? Does one elected Member make the whole House legitimate? I am reminded of the negotiations of God with Abraham over whether he would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if 40 good men could be found. Perhaps we will not get 40—perhaps we will get only 30—but at what point will we get legitimacy?
If 20 per cent elected Members gives some legitimacy, undoubtedly 40 per cent gives more. The truth is that the only thing that will give full legitimacy in some people's eyes is 100 per cent elected Members. Therefore, do not let us pretend that any half-way House will stop short of that. It will inevitably lead to election.
My objection is that there are things which need to be done in Parliament and the composition of the Lords is an unwelcome distraction from the important and neglected task of reforming Parliament as a whole.
7.14 p.m.
Lord Butler of Brockwell: My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, by starting from a feeling of unease, as I suspect most people do, about any House of Parliament being constituted by a means other than election. I spent my Civil Service career feeling that Members of the House of Commons had a particular authority precisely because they were elected. Some of the Ministers I served may be surprised to learn that I felt like that, but I did. So my

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starting point is that if we are to depart from the principle of election, the case must be made for doing so.
I can also understand it if a feeling exists among Members of another place, in particularly the younger ones, that those of us in your Lordships' House have it pretty easy. Members of another place have first to be selected, then to win and to keep on winning their place in Parliament. It is evident that those in your Lordships' House who have been through that experience are not anxious to repeat it. As the noble Lords, Lord Higgins and Lord Rodgers, said, Members of another place may not know much about this House but they know that. They know that we are given a place in Parliament without having to fight elections and are appointed for life. It is understandable that they should not feel very warm about that aspect.
Thus far, I go along with those who argue that, as a matter of principle, places in Parliament should be gained only by election. But I then follow the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, and many others in saying that a fully elected House would so closely replicate the House of Commons that the question would have to be answered why we need a second Chamber at all.
If the House of Commons worked effectively in holding the executive to account and scrutinising its legislation, there would be a very real question whether Britain needs a second House. I could easily be a unicameralist. But on this question, I was very struck by the evidence which the Royal Commission received as we travelled up and down the country.
That evidence was overwhelmingly that Britain needs a second Chamber because the House of Commons' control over the executive is inadequate. It was not argued that the second House should usurp the supremacy of the elected Chamber, but it was argued that it should provide a means of subjecting the executive to additional scrutiny.
I believe that this House does serve the nation well in this respect. I also believe that the task needs a greater degree of independence than could be achieved if the House were fully elected. No one has suggested any plausible means of having a fully elected House which would avoid the domination of the existing political parties.
There are those who argue for a large element of election, not just on the argument of principle but, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, in this House and Fiona Mactaggart in another place did yesterday, also on the proposition that opinion polls show that the overwhelming majority of people want a wholly or mainly elected second Chamber. I suggest it is not very surprising that if you stop someone in the street and ask him which he prefers between election or appointment by politicians he already mistrusts, he will choose the former. Even if the question is asked in the form which the noble Lord, Lord Norton, had it—whether they would prefer an expert or someone elected—he is likely to choose someone elected. If, however, he were to be asked whether he wanted a second Chamber which is similar to the House of Commons, what then do we think his answer would be? I suggest that it would be very different.
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I am struck by the fact that many of those who have argued for election in this debate have said or implied that they would like to retain an independent element and have recognised that the independent element could be achieved only by appointment. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that explicitly and it has been implicit in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, the noble Lord. Lord McNally, and many others.
A part-elected/part-appointed House must be hybrid, and many have talked about the difficulties of that. But the point I want to make—and it has also been made by others—is that the greater the elected element, the greater the difficulties for the non-elected minority. To take just one illustration, let us envisage that on a controversial issue the government of the day and the opposition parties are in conflict, but one side has a small majority which is overturned by the votes of the minority of appointed Members. If we have accepted election as a necessary condition for legitimacy, where is legitimacy then? I do not believe that such a situation would be allowed to survive for long.
So if a degree of independence is needed, to say nothing of the other qualities correctly identified by the Joint Committee, and a hybrid House is difficult and unstable, the logic points ineluctably to an appointed House. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has already followed that route on the way to Damascus—or, perhaps more correctly, on the way from Damascus—but the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, spoke of compromise, as did the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham.
Human animals—and perhaps particularly political animals—have a tendency to split differences. Sometimes it is right to do so and sometimes it is wrong. One of the tasks given to the Central Policy Review Staff in 1971— perhaps on the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Howell—was to advise the Cabinet in situations where one department, one Cabinet Minister, was right and another was wrong that the issue should not be settled by splitting differences.
In this case I believe it would be wrong simply to split differences. If there is to be a compromise, it must be a compromise which has a rational justification and which, most importantly, would not destabilise the subsequent operation of this House in the way I have described. I supported—I still support—the compromise reached by the Royal Commission that an element of the House, with the function of injecting regional opinion into our debates, should be elected. I liked the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, yesterday, "appointed by the people". But to avoid the problems I have described, I was, and remain, in favour of that being a small proportion of the House—that is, not more than 87 Members, or roughly 15 per cent of a reconstituted House, Model B in the Royal Commission report. So when it comes to the votes on 4th February, I shall not support an option with a higher proportion of elected Members than 20 per cent.

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One final word. Although Cross-Benchers are never whipped, or even concerted, I am attracted by the suggestion in the speech of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, that those remaining hereditaries who have served this House with such distinction should stay on in the new House for the remainder of their lives. So I would like the noble and gallant Lord to put me down as a supporter of his Option 1A, or possibly 3A.
7.23 p.m.
Lord Rees: My Lords, I congratulate the Joint Committee on the admirable work it has done and on the way it has refined the options open to us. I also congratulate my noble and learned friend Lord Howe for his comprehensive and powerful introduction of the debate on the basis of the Joint Committee report.
At this stage of the debate there have been so many penetrating and illuminating speeches that I felt it only remained for me to mark my card in regard to the votes in February and sit down. But that would be perhaps a slightly too perfunctory discharge of what I perceive to be my duty, so perhaps I may be allowed to offer a few general observations.
As to the question of legitimacy, like many noble Lords I have perhaps slid from legitimacy as an elected representative of the people to illegitimacy. I was not over conscious of a difference in the discharge of my duties—except perhaps for a slight reduction in my labours and the burdens that I carried in my first role—and it is slightly misleading to suggest that, because in our roles as Members of this House we do not commune with the electorate from time to time, we are in some sense illegitimate and therefore not properly equipped to pontificate on the important political issues of the day.
I shall disclose my hand on Option 2 in a moment but, if there is any merit in that distinction, it follows that the moment this House has a large, predominantly elected membership—and therefore, presumably, moves to legitimacy— the possibility, indeed the probability, of friction between the two Houses, both at Westminster and, perhaps more importantly, in the constituencies, becomes much more acute and cannot be disregarded.
A slightly unfortunate phrase crops up in the Joint Committee report and in the White Paper about the "pre-eminence of the elected Chamber". I am the first to concede that historically it is a long time since this House provided the forum for the Prime Minister of the day or, indeed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Of course one recognises that there has been a gradual drift in power, in many regards, down the Corridor to another place. But, that said, I do not like to think that another place is pre-eminent. Predominant maybe, but not pre-eminent.
The truth is that both Houses have slightly different roles which call for different qualities, different experience and different expertise. The position of both Houses should be respected in that regard if one supports a bicameral constitution. Interestingly, the only noble Lord who has touched faintly on the possibility of a unicameral constitution
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is the noble Lord, Lord Elder. I take it therefore that it is common ground in this House—I have not studied the debates in the House of Commons so far—that, up to this point of time, we all believe in a bicameral system. It follows therefore that each House has an important role to play, which must be respected. This calls for different kinds of people, with different qualities and different experience.
Against that very broad opening, may I turn to the options before us. I could not vote for Option 2 for various reasons, some of which have been touched on most ably and, most recently, by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. His training must have been quite different to mine, enabling him to view the political process with a different eye, although quite as closely as I was able to do even sitting alongside him. We have to recognise what are and should be our functions; we have to recognise that we do not want to put ourselves in a position where there is likely to be constant disharmony and friction with another place.
There is also the practical question of what kind of person would be attracted to a position in this House if we went for a totally elected Chamber or a Chamber with a majority of elected Members? If noble Lords were to reflect on their circles of acquaintances and friends, could they identify anyone who would be drawn into coming here for 12 or 15 years, with no possibility of re-election, and self-evidently being dominated by another place? We can discuss what they should be paid and other vulgar practical details, but I wonder whether we would end up with anything little better than a rather limp, aldermanic bench. I do not intend any offence to my friends in local government, but I do not see the kind of quality, drive and stamina that we expect in this Chamber being reproduced against that kind of background.
The point was touched on by many speakers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, that that would reintroduce into this Chamber a much stronger partisan approach than we are used to. Of course, we have our party differences in this House; but on the whole we debate problems with a much greater degree of detachment than we experienced at the other end of the corridor. Therefore, as I said, I could not vote for Option 2. I should vote for Option 1.
There are difficulties, and many practical problems, on which the Joint Committee has not touched. I do not blame the committee; it had sufficient responsibilities. We can reflect on an appointments commission as one solution. But who will draw its parameters? Who will recruit for it? How would such a commission carry out its duties?
It has been said that these matters can easily be resolved. Before we take this matter much further—depending on the outcome of the votes in February—we must reflect to some extent on these points and reassure the country as a whole that, if that were the preferred option, there would not be a strong element of political patronage. That said, there is a strong element of political patronage even in most electoral processes. It would be naive to imagine that politics will not play a considerable part. But we must devote a considerable amount of thought to the matter.

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I now turn to the question of hybridity. My noble and learned friend Lord Howe said that it was a critical issue. I am not certain that as the debate has developed it has turned out to be such a critical issue. Some noble Lords have drawn attention to it and have produced their own solutions. I suppose that we could survive with a very small elected proportion of Members. But, like many noble Lords, I feel that that would merely add a further element of complication to what might well be a delicately balanced solution. I rather doubt whether it would add very much. If the elected proportion were to be 80 per cent, a great deal of what I and other noble Lords have said about the virtues of a nominated Chamber would go by the board—because the nominated element would be insignificant and would, I suspect, carry little weight in debates.
If the figure for elected Members were 50 per cent or 40 per cent, all kinds of extremely delicate political issues could arise. I do not believe that at the end of the day the country as a whole would be greatly impressed by a hybrid solution. People attracted by the argument about legitimacy would say that we were not legitimate—half of our Members might have an element of legitimacy, having communed with the electorate from time to time, but on what basis would remain to be determined. At the end of the day, I doubt whether we should achieve very much in terms of our own status and political power.
My conclusion—depending on how the debate goes, and there may be some further dimensions before the matter comes to a vote—is that I am disposed to vote for Option 1. That said, I was extremely attracted by the cogent and practical arguments of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig. He impressed on me the number of questions that have to be resolved before we can conceivably put this into operation. I refer to such matters as the number of Members—by whatever route they are brought to this Chamber. One is inclined to say 600, because, give or take a few, that is the number at present and, practically speaking, a certain number is necessary. My instinct is to say that, if possible, it would be better to have fewer. At the risk of offending our colleagues in another place, I believe that the House of Commons is dramatically overstaffed at present. It could well consider a reduction in numbers—and I venture this observation. To think that one can determine the future of this place without a very serious look at the composition and powers of the House of Commons is ridiculous. We interlock. Therefore, I hope that the Commons, too, will reflect on this point. Matters of tenure arise and all kinds of delicate questions, such as what people should be paid. We have to devote much more thought to these kinds of questions before reaching any firm conclusion.
At the end of the day, I strongly believe—as I hope do most noble Lords—in a bicameral system. On that basis, the position and role of both Houses have to be carefully analysed and respected.
7.36 p.m.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, I came to this House in July 1998 with a completely open mind as to its effectiveness and its modus operandi.I am
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appointed for life, and as I have heard nothing during the discussions on constitutional change to lead me to believe that whatever is eventually agreed life Peers will be forced to stand down, I believe that I come to the debate from a completely independent position, without the slightest vestige of personal interest or indeed the baggage of having been in another place. To hear my noble friend Lord Dubs say that unless you are elected you do not know the problems of ordinary people is, at the very least, surprising.
In life, I think that I have been a pragmatist over the years and, in a sense, a do-it-yourself practitioner. I am a firm believer in the philosophy: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". So does the House of Lords work?
My experience since coming to this House is that it works extremely well and does the job that it is designed to do of scrutinising, revising and improving legislation sent to this House from another place.
The House is also in my view an effective check and balance on what has been described by others as an "elective dictatorship". With a massive majority, a government of any persuasion can have their way, and there is little incentive to win by good argument something that can be won by the simple expedient of the application of a strong Whip.
That is what happens in the "democratic" Chamber, and we see some pretty awful Bills being passed through to this House for remedial treatment. That is not a criticism of another place. Its Members are busy, and that is the nature of democracy. But you can have too rich a mix of democracy. Quite often, opposites attract. Something sweet goes well with something a little sour. I return to my point—it seems to work.
I do not suggest that there should have been no change. Obviously it was difficult to justify the hereditary principle for people involved in legislating—although I tend to believe that their demise could have been arranged with a little more tender loving care. There were, and indeed are, some excellent parliamentarians among our hereditary colleagues, and I pay tribute to them. But they had to go; and of course there is the mechanism, which has been used, of bringing back as life Peers those felt to be indispensable to this House. I hope that it will be used where appropriate.
On a further, not insignificant point, the public have an interest in all this. Politicians, like journalists and estate agents, are not held in very high public esteem. The noble Lord, Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market, and other speakers have referred to that lack of respect. But when I go to public meetings and make after-dinner speeches, or even when I make speeches in this House, people do not seem to see me as a politician but still as a policeman. The same applies to many noble Lords who come to the House after 35, 40 or 45 years of distinguished service in other professions such as the military, medicine, the Church, business or even, dare I say, the law.
I realised the depths to which I had plummeted in people's esteem by getting mixed up in politics only when someone asked me the difference between a party politician and a supermarket trolley. When I said

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I did not know, he replied that a supermarket trolley has a mind of its own. He added that you can get more food and drink into a party politician! Although humorous, such comments made me think that we could raise the ante in earning respect for what we do.
The tabloids continually exploit the concept of "Tony's cronies" and patronage by all or any parties. It is essential to have an independent appointments body that selects, not for partisan reasons, but according to merit, service and commitment to the job. It should be divorced from the honours system and patronage. Whenever I put the point to the public, at meetings or in speeches, it is invariably met with unqualified agreement, which surprised me at first.
So, by all means, let us change, but without throwing out the baby with the bath water. That way lies constitutional disaster.
7.41 p.m.
Lord Armstrong of Ilminster: My Lords, I pay tribute to the hard work of the Joint Committee. I do not know whether it has kick-started the process, as some noble Lords have suggested, but at least it has cleared the way with its analysis of the reform issues.
I have always taken the view that one should not address the composition of the House of Lords unless and until one addresses its functions and powers. Since it appears, no doubt realistically, that we are not to look for any significant increase in the powers and functions of the House of Lords, we can proceed to the discussion of composition on that basis.
I share the view of the Joint Committee that, if the existing qualities of the House—namely, lack of domination by one party, independence and expertise—can be bolstered by a greater representativeness, a reformed House can and will develop a new legitimacy.
So the question is: how to arrive at this greater representativeness? It is tempting to suppose that that can best be achieved by having a fully or partly elected House. But there are other ways of achieving greater representativeness than by direct elections. There are two objections of principle to a fully elected second Chamber. First, such a Chamber would be less likely to have any of the three qualities in the present House that the Joint Committee favours—at any rate, in the same measure. Secondly, a fully or even partly elected House would challenge, to a greater or lesser degree, the democratic supremacy of the House of Commons. By supremacy, I mean that the will of the House of Commons must prevail. In our system that would be a serious disadvantage.
The arguments of principle are buttressed by practical considerations. First, will men and women of the quality and calibre we seek be willing to submit to the effort, trouble and expense of standing for election to a House with powers as limited as those of the present House, particularly if it were only partly elected? Secondly, I suspect that British voters already suffer from election fatigue, as the noble Earl, Lord Peel, said. They are already called to vote in elections for this Parliament, local government, sometimes
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mayors, perhaps the Scottish Parliament or the National Assembly for Wales and the European Parliament. I doubt whether there would be great public interest in elections to the House of Lords, even for a fully elected House, and still less for a partly elected one. We could end up with a House elected on a turn-out so small as to call in to question its representativeness.
So, on 4th February, my vote will be for a fully appointed House and against any of the other options. In that respect, as Chancellor of the University of Hull, I am delighted to line up with the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, my colleague at that great university. I like to think that what the University of Hull thinks today, the rest of the world will think tomorrow.
That leaves us with the problem of achieving greater representativeness. Our present constitutional arrangements require the Sovereign to act on the advice of his or her Ministers, so, ultimately, the Prime Minister should remain responsible for all appointments to membership of the House of Lords. Apart from any other consideration, we should reflect on the possibility of what the noble Lord, Lord Carter, referred to yesterday as gridlock. The Prime Minister may need, even in the 21st century, to reserve the right to recommend, or to threaten to recommend, new creations if there is no other way of ensuring that the will of the House of Commons prevails in the last analysis.
There are probably other circumstances in which it is appropriate for a Prime Minister to make recommendations on his or her own motion. For instance, the Prime Minister should be able to recommend a peerage for someone whom he wishes to appoint to a ministerial post. It will also continue to be advantageous for the leaders of the main political parties to be able to submit to the Prime Minister nominations for a limited number of representatives of their parties in this House. And can we be confident that, in its wisdom, an independent commission without guidance from Number 10 would ensure the continuance of the apostolic succession of former Cabinet Secretaries elevated to the House of Lords?
If greater representativeness is to be achieved, and to be seen to be achieved, there will have to be a system that ensures that, for most recommendations to the Sovereign, the Prime Minister gives effect to a nomination from an external body. There will be a great role, therefore, for an independent commission that puts forward nominations upon which the Prime Minister will in no circumstances be expected to act. That commission will be charged with the duty of making nominations that produce greater representativeness.
We already have an independent commission to provide the Prime Minister with nominations of independent non-political candidates for membership of the House of Lords. Some such arrangement should continue. It would not be difficult to devise a system whereby that commission or the "new" commission also received nominations from other bodies for the appointment of representatives of various groups and

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interests. It would be for those groups and interests to decide how to arrive at their nominations. It could be by indirect election or by the choice of the governing body of a professional association or institution. In that way, there could be nominations for representatives of teachers, doctors, nurses, industry, trade unions, financial services, universities, consumers, the Churches—not only the Church of England—and so on.
It would be the duty of the independent commission in submitting its nominations to ensure a suitable regional balance in membership of the House. The Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly could have the right to nominate representatives through the commission. So could local authorities and regional assemblies in England if, or when, we have them. Time does not permit me to go into greater detail now. Much work and discussion would be required to set out such a system in detail. But it is not beyond the wit of man to devise workable arrangements on these lines to ensure greater social, economic and geographical representativeness. Complicated legislation would not be required if there were general agreement in principle on a system along the lines that I have tried to adumbrate.
When one is 75th in the batting order of speakers, to return to the cricket metaphor, it is difficult to suggest something new. I have another modest proposal which has not been suggested in this debate before. It has long seemed to me that it would be advantageous for the Standing Orders in this House to be amended so that a Cabinet Minister or Minister in charge of a department who is a Member of another place could be permitted, by leave of both Houses, to attend and speak but not to vote in this House when business warranted it; for instance, the Second Reading of an important Bill. By the same token, the Standing Orders in another place could be amended so that a Cabinet Minister or a Minister in charge of a department who is a Member of this House could be permitted, by leave of both Houses, to attend and speak but not to vote in another place if business warranted it.
I take the view that the system which I have suggested would produce a House which, while not very different in practice from the existing House, would retain the undoubted virtues and benefits of this House to which reference has been made and would have whatever additional legitimacy is conferred by a more assured system of greater representativeness.
7.50 p.m.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry: My Lords, I find this an extraordinarily interesting and even momentous debate. I hope it will go down in history. Even speaking at No. 76, following the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, one is constantly hearing interesting solutions and thoughts about constitutional change. I certainly join in the congratulations that everyone has offered my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon and all members of the committee on the excellent House of Lords reform first report that it produced, which has got us all thinking again.
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This debate is full of surprises. I really did not know which way the noble Lord, Lord Butler, would go until halfway through his speech. That makes for a very interesting debate. That said, I have to declare that I do not think that Option 1 for a fully appointed House is a practical alternative. It will not give this House the legitimacy that it needs to exercise fully its checking and revising capacity. Moreover—and I have not heard this point mentioned much—I do not think that there is any possibility of it being adopted by the Commons.
I have read a great deal of the Hansard report of the House of Commons debate yesterday. Although there is talk in another place of a move towards appointments—that is the fashionable phrase—the clear tenor of the remarks in yesterday's debate is that the Commons will vote for elected Members. They will vote for them either at the 60 per cent, 40 per cent or 20 per cent mark, probably around 60 per cent.
I remind your Lordships of two remarks made by Robin Cook, Leader of the House of Commons. He said first:
"Personally, I am very keen that we achieve a commanding majority for one of those seven options".
He said of the Joint Committee:
"I hope that we will give it a clear mandate and a clear steer on what it should work on".
In the next column, he said:
"we must establish which one of the seven is most likely to reflect the settled will of this Chamber".—[Official Report, Commons, 21/1/03; cols. 202–03.]
By this, he meant the Commons. I think that the words "commanding majority" were used on purpose.
It is important that we are not too air away from the Commons on this issue. We do not want a situation in which, as in 1911, the Commons expects its will simply to prevail. We do not want to be in conflict on this issue if we can avoid it. For that reason, I see no possibility of Option 1 being accepted, and, I have to say to noble friends on both sides of the House that this does not worry me. Since 1997, I have been in favour of a percentage of elected Members. I think that we would do our job better, with more authority and conviction, if we had elected Members, and we would be more democratic. We are having a problem with the use of the word "democratic". I notice that my noble friend Lord Higgins thought we were democratic enough already. But another noble friend whose name I shall not mention said to me very firmly earlier this afternoon, "We do not want to be destroyed by democracy".
Lord Higgins: My Lords, on my noble friend's initial point, has he not realised that it is gradually dawning on Members of another House that there will be a

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serious problem in their constituencies in having a competitive elected Member of the House of Lords who may be of a different party?
Lord Renton of Mount Harry: My Lords, I hope that I can chalk up another minute for giving way to an intervention.
A noble Lord: Half a minute.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry: Half a minute, certainly.
I do not accept my noble friend's point. This is one of the fears to have emerged from the debate that I do not share. We should be optimistic about what we are considering. The same applies to hybridity. Many have said that they think, as my noble friend Lord Rees said, that the country would not be impressed by a hybrid solution. I do not take that view. The mixture of appointed and elected is perfectly acceptable. Again, I note that in yesterday's debate in the Commons the Leader of the Commons, Mr. Robin Cook, said:
"About one third of all second Chambers around the world have a mixed membership of elected and appointed members".—[Official Report, Commons, 21/1/03; col. 204.]
Lord Norton of Louth: He was wrong.
Lord Renton of Mount Harry: My noble friend will have to develop that theme himself.
We have all travelled and met a lot of parliamentarians in different parts of the world. I have never, in 35 years in politics, heard a complaint about a mixed upper Chamber that was partly elected and partly appointed.
Two problems worry me considerably; the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, raised both and I agree with her on them. The first is the method of the election of elected Members. It is extremely important that they should be well known in the area in which they stand. Speaking in another place yesterday, William Hague suggested that tagging a vote for the European elections on to elections for the upper Chamber was likely to lead to a lower rather than a higher turnout. There is probably a good deal of justice in that view.
We must ask the committee to think carefully about the method of elections and the method of choosing the appointed Members to the upper House. The noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, spoke on that with great attention to detail. How members of the independent commission are chosen is important. We cannot all be cronies of leaders of political parties.
One area in which the report is slightly vague is in paragraph 52, which states:
"Only the Prime Minister would have the right to have nominations confirmed".
That is at the heart of patronage, is it not? I would like a clear limit put on what percentage of nominated Members could be put forward by the Prime Minister. That should be clearly stated in the final report from the House of Lords Joint Committee. We certainly do
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not want a 1911 situation in which Asquith and Elibank firmly threatened Tory Peers with the election of anything from 200 to 600 new Peers if they did not get the Parliament Bill through.
There should be one term only for the elected Members, possibly for 12 to 15 years. The same should apply to nominated Members. If some are paid, all should be paid. I hope that a high proportion of appointments would go to Cross-Benchers with no political allegiance and committed not to take the Whip, thus keeping a continuity of independence.
It is clear that once we have elected Members, our relationship with the Commons will change. Indeed, the effects of the change will be more substantial for the Commons than for us. I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, that we need to look carefully at our powers and the powers of the two Houses. It is arguable that the Parliament Act 1911 is totally out of date. Why, after all, should this House have the power to delay money Bills for one month? It is irrelevant, it has no meaning, yet it is in the Parliament Act. If we are to have extremely rapid changes of a constitutional nature—if we are, for example, to have a Bill to set up directly elected assemblies in England, which would mean a substantial removal of power from this House and another House to elected Assemblies—is it adequate to be able to delay such a Bill for only one Session rather than two? Is this not an area that requires deeper consideration?
The whole question of powers has been skated over far too lightly. Why? Because we assume that the Commons will not be willing to give us any enhanced powers. Surely, however, this is the moment to consider that carefully. If we do not do it now, we will not do so at any other moment in our lifetime. Powers moved from the upper Chamber throughout the last century because it was essentially hereditary. If it is not to be hereditary but to be largely or partly elected, it is surely the moment to reconsider the balance of powers between the two Houses.
I personally will vote for the 50:50 option at the start. I would accept that we should move towards Option 6 at the time of the second election in 12 or 15 years, during which time a number of life Peers will literally have ceased to be life Peers. But, and this is a big "but", associated with this I hope that there will be a review of the powers of both Houses to ensure that they are appropriate to the problems and challenges of today, which were non-existent in 1911 or 1949.
I agree with the point that this House needs to get to know the other House better, and the other way round. One way of tackling that would be to have many more joint Select Committees on foreign affairs, home affairs and perhaps on terrorism. In that way, we might all understand and appreciate each other better. We might stop thinking of the Commons as impotent tools of the executive and they might stop thinking of us as old codgers who unnecessarily delay their legislation. Twelve years ago, when I was the Government Chief Whip in the Commons, that was precisely the view that I had of the Lords. We must hope for a much better

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understanding of what each House can offer the other, and that should come out of this new and important constitutional settlement.
8.2 p.m.
Viscount Tenby: My Lords, to continue the numbers theme of the last two speeches, speaking at No. 77 in the speakers' list, at the back end of the day, I feel like a member of the chorus of "Guys and Dolls" in the third year of its run. I shall try not to stray into repetition—but if I do, I remind noble Lords that good tunes bear repetition.
I begin by declaring a non-interest, in that whatever solution is reached in the final reform of the House will not affect me. Although after my contribution, I may be charged with the offence of boring for Britain, I cannot be charged with the offence of self-interest. I am innocent of that charge. Paradoxically, there is, and has been for a long time, an acute family interest in the composition of this House, to which over the years I have inevitably succumbed.
I begin by congratulating the Joint Committee on producing a judicious and balanced report. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it could not have been presented more skilfully and sympathetically than it was by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberayon.
On occasions such as these in the old days, speakers were invariably tempted towards the pages of Bagehot. I notice that no one has tried that in this debate—although your Lordships' may have sinking hearts when you hear that it is a temptation to which I am going to succumb, but here goes.
Noble Lords will recall that, much to Bagehot's disgust, the House of Lords turned down Palmerston's proposal for the creation of life Peers. He observes:
"The Life Peers who would have been introduced would have been among the first men in the country…thirty or forty such men, added judiciously and sparingly as the years went on would have given to the House of Lords the very element, as a criticising chamber, it needs so much".
He goes on to say that unless the error is put right in future years,
"the intellectual capacity can never be what it would have been, will never be what it ought to be, will never be sufficient for its work".
That is a great parliamentary and constitutional authority, writing some 131 years ago. In my submission, what was true then remains as true today, and it is that which prompts me into being an uncompromising supporter of an all-appointed House.
I was interested to hear of the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, at a public meeting in Suffolk yesterday. When I first started promoting this proposition nearly a year ago, I feared for my safety, so novel appeared to be my view. However, I have to report that at no meeting of the public, nor at any of the courses that I addressed, did I encounter outright opposition to the suggestion of an all-appointed second Chamber. Indeed, I received much support.
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We have all heard about legitimacy. I am sorry to have to use the word again, but here goes. In a democratic system of government, the principal legitimacy is surely that of the ballot box. On that basic fact, everyone can and has agreed. However, there are other legitimacies: the legitimacy of expertise, of experience and—how can I say otherwise in a House such as this?—even the legitimacy of age. All these are not only useful in an amending and examining Chamber but essential if the role assigned to it is to be discharged effectively.
In a "take note" debate as large as this, with so many speakers, I am not going to dwell, as others already have or will do, on the arguments against an all-elected House. They include the threat that it would pose to another place; the poaching and struggle for territory that would ensue over the body of some poor constituent, equally represented by an M P and an elected senator, or whatever we choose to call him or her; the almost certain elimination of any independent element in such a House; and perhaps the extension of party machine control in the selection of candidates from closed lists. What an overwhelming depression and sadness there is in such a prospect.
If an elected element were agreed for the new House, it would impose another electoral responsibility on an electorate that has already shown, in unmistakable terms, that it needs to be reminded of that responsibility. It is surely an interesting paradox that the more that we as a society talk up inclusivity and the need for ever more citizen empowerment, the more election turn-out figures drop.
Perhaps noble Lords will allow me to remind them of some of the statistics; they bear repetition. The turn-out in the United Kingdom in the last three general elections has been: 1992, 77.7 per cent; 1997, 71.4 per cent; 2001, 59.4 per cent. In the European parliamentary elections, it has been: 1994, 36.5 per cent; 1999, 24 per cent. The turn-out for the referendum on the Scottish Parliament, in 1997, was 60.2 per cent. For the Welsh Assembly, it was 50.4 per cent. It was estimated that the turn-out for last year's local elections leapt to 34 per cent. Some eruption of democratic fervour there! "Drinks all round", as Private Eye would say. Yet here we are, some of us at any rate, in uncompromising pursuit of some unattainable ideal which will add not one iota to what this House requires for its specialised task.
Is it not the case that what we should be directing our attention towards is ensuring that there is a better turn-out for the only election which really matters in a democracy like ours—the one every four or five years for another place? That is where the power rightly lies. It is for those elections that we must somehow get the electors to realise their responsibilities and the special gift they have, which is alas denied to so many on this planet.
In the good old British "compromise is king" way, some would seek to create a hybrid House, perhaps 50:50 to ensure that everything is absolutely fair and everyone is absolutely satisfied, or any other combination of 100. I have to say that I am not attracted

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to the creation of two classes of Member in the same House or, if you like, to a "them and us" culture. They will all, of course, be senators (or whatever we decide), but some will be more "senatorish" than others, if you get my drift. Just picture the fun that political analysts and columnists will have in studying the voting list after an important Division to establish whether the wishes of the "real" Members had been thwarted by unelected cliques—indeed, quite like old times, I am tempted to observe.
I have tried to fathom the reluctance in some quarters even to embrace the concept of appointment to this House, and I have come to the conclusion that it rests entirely on an incipient defeatism—namely, the refusal to accept the fact that an appointments system that can succeed in picking the right mix of talent, that acknowledges regional and ethnic quotas, and that celebrates, by representation, the myriad strands of our national life can be fashioned successfully. We can send people into space and conjure up hitherto unimaginable technical wizardry, but we cannot, it seems, choose the right and the appropriate people to serve in an amending Chamber for fear, presumably, that the media will label such choice as the selection of cronies of this or that politician or say that they owe their preferment to favours given in the past. What an appalling admission of defeat at the outset, but it is an admission that I for one—and I hope many others—am not prepared to accept when it comes to voting on the options.
It will not have escaped noble Lords' attention that I have not talked about size—600 should be near enough; the importance of maintaining a strong independent element—the admirable Wakeham report was right, I think, to set it at 20 per cent; the admission of other faiths, which I strongly support; or age limitation, retirement and the like. However, those have all been covered in this debate and will no doubt be covered in any future discussions.
I have been in this place for some 20 years, not long by the standards of many here, but I have an immense affection for it and respect for the work it carries out. It is an essential part of the constitution and it is an exceptional contributor to the good governance of this country. I would wish to see this role enhanced and not diminished by our action, which is why, when noble Lords record their vote in a fortnight's time, I hope that they will keep this objective in mind and vote accordingly for the first option, for to vote for other options, no doubt for the best of intentions, would irreparably damage a system which, despite all logic, has served this country well over the centuries.
8.12 p.m.
Lord Harrison: My Lords, may I observe that it is never too late for number 78? The role, powers and functions of the House of Lords are by now well-defined and accepted. It is its future composition that is in dispute. I believe that I have a practical solution to this conundrum which favours a fully appointed House but which also puts its voting arrangements on a democratic basis and avoids the pitfalls of hybridity
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while acknowledging the current genius of the House—namely, its combination of working and part-time Peers—and ensuring that all Members of the House retain equal speaking and voting rights. Does that seem too good to be true? Let me try my scheme on you, my Lords. I dub it the "team system", having been dissuaded from calling it the "Manchester United squad system", although I have to say that, when I so described it to one former Cabinet Secretary who has spoken this evening, he heart-warmingly told me that he had got it in one.
The team system builds on the Wakeham commission's suggestion that the composition of the Lords should reflect in its political proportions the results of the most recent general election. This is how it works. Each party is given a team of Peers from which it will draw its voting strength. The numbers in each party's team will be decided by an appropriate independent body such as the appointments commission, which will meet regularly to take account of changing political patterns and strengths. Each Peer will serve 10 years, unrenewable.
Assuming a House of some 650 Peers—although the system allows this number to be drastically reduced, if required, without creating turmoil—a current formula might result in the following sizes of teams: Labour, 200; Conservative, 200; Liberal Democrats/others, 150; Cross Benches, 100. With the exception of the Cross Benches, who would always have a total of 100 votes for their team of 100 Peers, each of the other political groups would have their voting strength calculated as a proportion of the popular vote cast at the most recent general election. Thus, say, for argument's sake, Labour's 40 per cent of the popular vote would provide 120 votes out of a team of 200; the Conservatives' 35 per cent would provide 105 votes out of a team of 200; the Liberal Democrats and others' 25 per cent would provide 75 votes out of a team of 150 and the Cross Benches would wield 100 votes out of a team of 100. Thus, the total votes available in the House at any one Division would be 400, made up of Labour, 120, Tory, 105, Liberal Democrats and others, 75 and Cross Benches, 100.
Peers would be appointed to the teams by the individual political parties and vetted by the appointments committee. Like the noble Lord, Lord McNally, I decry the current vogue of undermining political parties. Nominating Peers under the team system is analogous to the selection of MP candidates by political parties as the means of gaining election to another place. Nomination is at the heart of the British polity.
The voting position of each member of the group within their own team is determined annually by an internal ballot. Each Peer, for example, would therefore be given a position for the year from one to 200 within their political team. Thus, at each Division in the House using this system, Labour's vote may be made up of Labour Peers numbers one, three, four, eight, 14, 23 and so on up to 198, 200. The Tory vote may be numbers three, six, 11, 14, concluding at 195, 199. And so on. All votes should be recorded and published, as they are at the moment. But, of course, the result of an individual

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Division on a Bill's passage through the House will be determined by adding up only the quota vote. The team system in this pure form wholly preserves the voting privileges of individual Peers, including party dissidents who cannot, for instance, be demoted to the bottom of the party list by the Whips because of the annual party list ballot preventing that. One derogation, however, is, I think, sensible. I believe that the first, say, 20 positions on the team list should be allotted to the parties' Front Bench teams to avoid the anomaly of a Front-Bencher having his or her vote not count towards the final tally.
In the final composition of the House under my system I retain the Cross-Benchers but exclude the Law Lords and the bishops. The team system, however, is infinitely adaptable and can retain one or both of those groups if that is the will of the House. What, then, are the advantages of the team system? First, the system is democratic. Its outcomes—the votes—are directly based on the recognisable voting strengths derived from the most recent general election. Unpopular, additional elections to the Lords are avoided. Secondly, the Lords' democratic legitimacy is concurrent with that of the Commons but in no way undermines it.
Thirdly, the Cross-Benchers are retained, continuing the tradition of independent thinking which marks out the Lords as a unique second Chamber. Fourthly, the team system can be enacted immediately after a general election and can be effective from the start of a parliament. It avoids the wholesale ejection of Peers at the turn of each new mandate. Fifthly, it avoids a hybrid House of directly elected and appointed Peers. It does, however, accommodate both working and part-time Peers on an equal basis as part of the unique contribution of the current House. Sixthly, it provides an easy bridge from the current House to any new reformed House. Again, there is no requirement for wholesale changes in the current political teams. It allows further changes in the size of the House, because the size of the teams can be reduced without affecting their voting strengths. Of course, it also permits new appointments to be made to provide the House with new blood.
Seventhly, the system would allow all Peers to have the same speaking, voting and other rights in common. Eighthly, my idea allows parties to retain and honour senior party supporters without requiring them to be permanently on call as voting fodder. Peers who were unwell, absent on business or otherwise unavailable would not be found to be letting their party down.
Ninthly, the votes in the House will directly reflect voters' intentions at the previous general election. Moreover, the Whips will be able to field their established voting strengths, and the system will also give Ministers greater flexibility to perform their duties outside the House.
Tenthly, my proposal permits political parties and the appointments commission that chooses the Cross Bench team to reflect modern Britain in all its celebrated diversity, in terms of representation by sex, religion. ethnicity, nations and regions, and so on.
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The team system would enact and extend the elements of this current reformed House, which has so successfully demonstrated that, in the best of British traditions, what does not work in theory may nevertheless supremely work in practice. Today's House can become tomorrow's House using the team system, and I commend it.
8.21 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I shall be very brief. Many others who also value and would prefer an all-appointed House have given their important reasons for having come to that view. My reason for speaking tonight is simply to add my name to those voices. I also want to highlight one of the many important reasons which I think is central to the whole issue.
What this House does best is to be a revising Chamber, to scrutinise impartially, to revise, to amend and, in many cases, to give another place an opportunity to think again. Most noble Lords would agree that that is a very important function in this day and age, given that so many Bills and so much legislation comes to this House hardly debated, let alone scrutinised.
For this House to continue to do that work in the way in which it has done, it must be able to use its experience and, in many cases, its specialised expertise. I believe that it does not need elected Members who, by the very nature of having stood for election, will want more power. More than that, they will have to dance to the tune of the party Whips.
When my noble and learned friend introduced the Motion with excellence yesterday, he referred to the expertise and experience of the many Peers who spoke on what was then the Human Reproductive Cloning Bill. If their experience and expertise were to be lost—indeed, if that of other noble Lords were lost—it would be a great tragedy for this House. I very much hope that that never comes to be.
I agree with other noble Lords who feel that if the House has to be tinkered with in some way, it should only be to improve it—if somehow or other that could be achieved. The House should never be tinkered with to turn it into a rubber stamp for the government of the day.
8.24 p.m.
Lord Plant of Highfield: My Lords, I want to deploy an argument that I believe is very unpopular in the House; namely, that ideally the House should be replaced by a small, wholly elected Chamber that is elected regionally using a form of proportional representation.
The size of such a full-time House—say, half the size of the House of Commons—the difference in its representative base and the difference in the electoral system would increase the legitimacy of the second Chamber compared with any alternative. At the same time, that would not increase its legitimacy so much that it would be a rival to the House of Commons. The size of the Commons and its constituency basis would

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ensure its primacy. At the same time, however, the degree of proportionality of the electoral system for a second Chamber would mean that it would be most unlikely that one party would have an overall majority in the House. Also, if the PR system had a low threshold, that would mean that a wide range of parties would be able to have a voice in the House.
Of course, a wholly elected House would mean that there would be no independent Members unless they could get in via the low threshold. However, the PR system would mean that all the time the government would have to seek a wider basis of consent for their proposals than just from their own supporters. It would also mean that there would be no ex officio experts, as it were, in the House, other than those who got elected. I believe that that defect—if such it is—could be overcome, in the Lords at least, by opening up the legislative process and taking evidence from a wide range of expert witnesses; for example, at pre-legislative hearings on Bills. That wider range of experts might be more valuable than the smaller number of resident experts in the current House.
It would also mean that the Law Lords would have to be turned into a supreme court and sit outside the Parliament. I fully recognise the implications of that. I point out, however, that there are pressures for that to happen anyway, not least because of the passage of the Human Rights Act, irrespective of any pressures coming from the reform process in the Lords.
A wholly elected House would also mean no ex officio religious representation. I am personally opposed to that—I say this rather deferentially, because my diocesan is on the Bishops' Bench—although I am a life-long member of the Church of England. It is difficult to defend its current narrowness and difficult to widen it to other faith groups without intense controversy and possible discrimination against perfectly legitimate religious groups. It would be interesting to have the first Rastafarian here, for example; I see no reason why, if one was extending religious representation, a Rastafarian should not be here as much as anyone else. But I am not in favour of religious representation ex officio.
In his speech yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, was kind enough to draw attention to the report of the commission that I chaired for the Labour Party on various aspects of constitutional change, which reported in 1993 and which unanimously endorsed the proposals about which I have just spoken, although they were argued about in much greater detail in that report. My great friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley—who was then my right honourable friend in another place—along with Mr Kinnock, appointed me to do that job for the Labour Party. When the report was published, Roy Hattersley pointed out in the New Statesman that I was a political innocent; and I do not believe that he meant that as a compliment.
There were, however, heavyweight people on the commission who certainly could not be regarded as such innocents, including, for example, my right honourable friends in another place Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Alistair Darling, Mrs Margaret Beckett and Hilary
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Armstrong, who is now the Chief Whip in another place—and my noble friend Lord Rooker, who was then the right honourable Member of another place. Also involved on the commission at various points were the noble Lords, Lord Burlison, Lord Elder, Lord Whitty, the noble Baronesses, Lady Gould and Lady Hollis, and the current First Minister in Scotland. They would have been in a position to have countered the wide-eyed innocence of this academic, who, it was alleged, was leading them astray. The proposal, along with many others in the report, went to constituency Labour Party groups and received overwhelming support.
However, I am sufficiently realist to accept that the proposal stands absolutely no chance of acceptance. I want to argue the case for a House in which 60 per cent would be elected and 40 per cent appointed. My fundamental guiding idea is that political power and authority in a free society can be legitimately exercised only with the consent of those over whom power is exercised.
In passing, one or two noble Lords have emphasised the concept of respect. It seems to me that, while it would be nice if people respected politicians, that has nothing to do with the issue. What is important is whether one can support politicians in their bid to enter Parliament and whether one can kick them out, and not whether one respects them.
Elections are the primary basis for testing and securing consent. I realise that many people in the House believe that consent and, therefore, legitimacy can rest not only on election but also on a recognition of expertise and appropriate experience, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, has just said. That issue goes back to Plato's arguments in the Republic.
I am willing to accept that it is true that expertise can secure consent in certain circumstances. I may consent to have an operation because I trust the expertise of the doctor in diagnosis and prescription. But there the expertise is instrumental; it is a means to an end. I want to be healthy and here is an expert who will tell me the best way to achieve that. The expertise is about means and not about ends.
However, most political questions are ultimately about ends. Do we want a more equal or less equal society, more liberty and less equality, more freedom and less security, and more rights and fewer responsibilities, or the other way round, and so on. Those are questions about ends and, because of that, they are not subject to expertise. There are no experts in questions of ends. In a free society, questions of ends and ultimate values are for citizens—at least, in the political context—to judge and to choose.
Obviously there is a role for experts in determining the appropriate means to achieve ends. For those reasons, I am prepared to accept that there is a case for nominating Members of the House who would have appropriate expertise to enable us to match means to ends more efficiently in the details of legislation. I can see that legitimacy and, indeed, consent can derive from that.

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However, I do not see how the legitimacy of the whole Chamber can come from expertise because, as I said, some of the most intractable political problems are about ends, goals, purposes and values and not about means, and there are no experts in those things. There would be no point in saying that, as a revising Chamber, the House never really deals with ends, goals or purposes because, of course, it does. If it did not do that, there would be no point in having Second Reading debates, because those debates are about the principles and values that lie behind Bills. Therefore, we have debates about ends as well as means. It seems to me that those ends are a matter that people should stand for and be given democratic sanction to in an election. I accept that there are experts on means, and that might be the case for having nominated people in the House.
I want to mention two or three reasons why I believe that a wholly nominated House would be wrong. First, I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, who pointed out that there might be a danger in the independent appointments commission being perceived as the great and the good choosing the great and the good. I believe that problems arise regarding the perception of that type of role.
Furthermore, it would be wrong for nominated Members to draw a salary as opposed to allowances. That would be like being nominated for a private income. But the consequence of not having a salary is bound to skew a nominated Chamber in favour of those in the South East or those who have a short commuting distance to London so that they are able to have another job. Alternatively, it will skew nomination towards those who have a private income or those who are elderly and have a pension of some kind. I believe that there would be a geographical skew.
I also believe that a wholly nominated House would have to involve political appointees as nominated people. Parties are absolutely essential in a representative democracy. Without their capacity to aggregate interests into reasonably coherent programmes, it is exceptionally difficult to see how representative democracy can work. Parties do that and are indispensable. It seems to me inconceivable that a whole House of Parliament will be exempt from the kind of representation that makes representative government possible. Party Members should be a substantial part of a wholly-nominated House, if we were to go to that.
I also believe that in a wholly-nominated Chamber it would become impossible to resist the demands of groups of people for functional representation from the professions, business, the unions, the voluntary sector, universities and so forth. It seems to me that the House would become a kind of repository of vested interests seeking very often to defend such vested interests. Without wanting to be offensive to the many lawyers in the House, we need only to think about how over the 11 years that I have been here lawyers have been able to manage to defend their interests pretty well. A dynamic society in a global world facing challenges which we can hardly begin to appreciate
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will always have to change pretty constantly. A Chamber of vested interests would run entirely counter to what we need a modern Parliament to do.
If we accept the principle of elections, as I think we should, it would be eccentric not to have more than 50 per cent elected. So, I would support 60 per cent. If one accept the political legitimacy of expertise, even in a limited way as I do, it would be important for the experts not to be just a rump. Therefore I would support 40 per cent nominated and 60 per cent elected. That would be a fair compromise between two contending principles of legitimacy.
8.36 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, it is in every sense a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Plant. In this well-tempered debate I take a wholly divergent approach to what is called "legitimacy", which is referred to by some noble Lords as weasel words and buzz words. It is a term in context with democracy which means nothing unless one can define both, and no one can do that. It is a question of one's individual approach. There is no use looking in a dictionary. One can define it any way to suit one's purpose.
At the age of 86 I have a somewhat tenuous interest which may be ended all too soon, and not only by the grace of God. None the less, I care very much about this place and I am concerned with the retention of its constitutional role. I pay tribute to my noble and learned friend Lord Howe and all members of the Joint Committee. I shall vote for Option 1. I shall oppose all elective options. It is assumed that these elections will be conducted on a closed party list system, as I understand operates in the Scottish Parliament but I seek confirmation, which to my mind is a far less democratic approach than appointment by a non-political appointments commission.
This is where one starts again. What are we talking about? What do the terms mean? I see the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester in his place. We have disagreed on many things, but he would agree with me that if one does not define terms at the start of a theological discussion, one will get nowhere. I see that the noble Lord agrees.
No one has yet produced any convincing approach to a definition of anything that we are dealing with. The noble Lord, Lord Plant, said that he does not want to offend lawyers. We are so used to being offended that it does not matter at all. But, as a lawyer, I ask where on earth are we going? It is purely a reflection of our individual attitudes.
The noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, has left his place, which is unfortunate because I was going to criticise his speech. He is a close neighbour of mine in Sussex. I would have done it in amity. I shall still say something about it.
The first thing is that the noble Lord has not yet gone native. That is the trouble. There is this question of the House of Commons. Of course it is very important. We understand our relationships under the constitution and, my word, we observe them by our conventions. But we will not get anywhere if we start

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from the most astonishing proposition made by a former government Chief Whip. I had better watch it because he is not in his place, but a former government Chief Whip says that the Parliament Act is outdated. That is wonderful. We have not defined any terms. If the Parliament Act, which is our bulwark and the basis on which we operate is outdated, where do we go from there?
It is a dangerous concept because the report concludes that the balance of powers between this House and another place should remain much as it is. So why on earth are we talking about changing the Parliament Act? It is incredible, but there it is. We debate in amity. All I can say is that it appears to me—and I hope my noble friend reads Hansard tomorrow— that his approach is wholly irrelevant to any constructive resolution of reform of both Houses.
I have something else that I want to say. The debate has got a bit scrappy. One cannot make a speech at this hour of night; everyone has said everything. It seems to me that, having listened to quite a bit of this debate, we should go to the crux of the matter. I regard the crux—this is a purely personal approach—of this debate, which polarises around Options 1 and 2, as being that composition should flow from the constitutional role as exercised with our powers, functions and conventions and not the other way round. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, said that early on in the debate yesterday, and it was confirmed again today by my noble friend Lord MacGregor and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell. That is where one starts. If one has no definitions, one should start there with the argument and see where it leads.
What are these options? They are proposals as to composition. They may not be resolved before a decision has been taken on the constitutional role. That may not be forestalled or pre-empted. The report finds that the constitutional role should remain much as it is—I have all the dreary references, if anyone wants to ask me for them. But that is what it finds; that is how it is.
So, for a start, what on earth is the need to tinker with composition? That is a simple approach, but I should like someone to give me an answer, because in this whole debate, as yet no one has dealt with that or given a cogent answer. Without that justification, change—the burden of which is on those who those who propose it—cannot be accepted by a reasoned House. One's political party does not matter, or if one is not of a political party. It is a question of reason and of the constitution under the Queen and Parliament. For heaven's sake, let us not upset that.
Time goes on. Ten minutes is really quite enough, but there were other things that I wanted to say. I was going to argue against the propositions advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, and the approach of my noble friend Lord Wakeham, and say that his approach was one of compromise.
The business of this Chamber today is not the business of compromise. There is nothing yet to fix. What did my noble friend say? In effect, he said that he
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supported an appointed Chamber—I checked this; I made notes at the time; he said it—provided that it was an elected Chamber. That makes total nonsense of Options 1 and 2, serves only to confuse and leaves us absolutely nowhere. The difficulty was that that led the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, to run their arguments on the reports of the Royal Commission, not on the report of the Joint Committee.
I have one more point, if I may make it, and then I promise to sit down. This is the kind of subject on which, frankly, you change your mind. Several Members of the House who have spoken have changed their minds. My noble friend Lady Thatcher set up a committee under Lord Home of the Hirsel to report on it. It reported in favour of a partially elected, partially appointed Chamber. My noble friend set up another committee of the Society of Conservative Lawyers; we reported in favour of a wholly elected Chamber. Times have changed. When, by chance, Lord Home of the Hirsel and I met here years later, over a wee dram we both said: "You know, we both got it wrong".
8.50 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I pause for effect.
I want to report some progress. When the reform issue came before the House in 1998, I had the pleasure of speaking 183rd on a list of 192 speakers. Today, I speak 83rd out of 99. That is progress. The greatest thing is that the speech that I made then was made at twenty minutes to three in the morning of the second day.
I acknowledge that it has been a valuable debate. It has been informed by experience, reaction and crystal ball-gazing. I have been amazed by the number of people who can tell us precisely what will happen if a certain event takes place. I confess that I do not know. Whatever option is finally accepted, we must wait and see. I speak with a little experience, having been Opposition Chief Whip in this House and having served in the Whips' Office on both sides in another place. Mostly, I am informed, as many people are, by my roots and by my gut reaction.
In my pocket, I have something that I have used more than once before. It is a postcard of a poster that was produced by the Labour Party in 1910. The poster shows the doors of the House of Lords being battered down by the workers. On the back, it says:
"Labour clears the way. Labour poster of 1910 challenging the House of Lords' rejection the year before of Lloyd George's 'People's Budget"'.
It has taken us almost a hundred years to get to this stage in the process of change.
I do not complain. We are having the debate because of the return of a Labour government in 1997. Otherwise, nothing would have happened. For 18 years before that, another party was in power. It had the opportunity to do something about change, and the fact that it did not indicates to me that it did not wish any change from the kind of House that we had then. I shall not get personal, nor shall I make

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malicious points. Most of my remarks—all, in fact—are benign. I recognise that this is a very important personal issue for everyone in the House. I shall not dress the matter up as constitutional, although I recognise that it is an important debate on the constitution of the House.
We have heard a lot of detail, and I could give the same. However, in essence, we are invited to consider— however long it takes and whatever form it takes—whether the House should remain an appointed House or should have an elected element. We can choose from 100 per cent down to 50 per cent elected. I am in favour of the principle of democracy, and I equate democracy with election. Other people see it differently, but, as far as I am concerned, the difference between appointment and election is that one is democratic and the other is not.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I do not question the noble Lord's personal views, but the report says that legitimacy can and would be achieved by widening representation. That is the committee's finding. Does he accept that?
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, there is certainly something in that. I am not making the case for a wholly elected second Chamber. Having been in the House, I recognise the enormous contribution that has been made by people who have not come, as I have, from a political background.
Ultimately, we are looking at whether this House should be peopled by those who are put here as the result of an independent appointments commission or by election. One does not have to look into a crystal ball, because we already have the first tranche of "people's Peers" appointments by an independent appointments commission. I do not wish to cause offence to any of those Members, but I think that those appointments went down like a lead balloon from the point of view of what the public expected from the commission. Therefore, let us not put all our eggs in one basket and believe that the alternative to election is an independent appointments commission—far from it.
As a member of the Labour Party and a socialist, and proud of it, I rest on what I was led to believe was the policy of the Labour Party over the years. My noble friend Lord Richard gave us the run-down on that. In 1992, the Labour Party was in favour of reforms leading to a new elected second Chamber. I say, three cheers for that! My noble friend Lord Plant gave us the gravamen of his report. In 1996, at the John Smith Memorial Lecture, which I attended along with many others in the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre—Tony Blair said that the Labour Party has always favoured an elected second Chamber. That was news to me, but I accepted it. I was certainly in favour of an elected second Chamber. Finally, we fought the last election on wanting a representative and democratic second Chamber.
I know there is an argument, "You can't have both". Frankly, we are in a position to have both. But the elected element is missing. Churchill used a phrase,
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"Trust the people". He won an election on that phrase. I think that, to a greater rather than a smaller extent, we should trust the people. Instead of pretending that we know what the public want, let us give them the chance to put into this place the people they want. The simplest, unadorned way of doing that is to devise some means of election to this House. People may be sick, tired and fed up with elections, but it would be unthinkable for the Labour Party collectively to walk away from this debate. After waiting 100 years, and with the opportunity to do something dramatic, that would effectively be saying that all the Labour Party is going to do is simply tinker at the edges.
I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Renton, to the debate.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. He may well remember, but perhaps I may also remind him, that Churchill, as well as saying, "Trust the people", also said on one occasion—and I heard him say it—"Democracy works badly but we cannot have any other system".
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I take that as a "yes" to the arguments. I am grateful.
I note that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, is in his place. As always, I listened to his speech with interest. He said that it appeared to him that colleagues from the Commons who sit on these Benches are in favour of appointment rather than election. That may well be true, but from all Benches I have heard former Members of the Commons speak in support of election rather than appointment. I refer, for example, to the noble Lords, Lord Renton and Lord Wakeham, on the Conservative Benches; the noble Lord, Lord McNally and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, on the Liberal Democrat Benches; and my noble friends Lord Dubs and Lord Richard from these Benches, as well as myself. Let us not kid ourselves that there has been a sea change.
The question which must be addressed is whether hybridity is acceptable. As has been said, miraculously, all over the world Chambers are peopled by Members some of whom are appointed and some of whom are elected. We do not want necessarily to copy what happens in other countries, but if they can do it and if it is our wish, so can we.
The issue is clear. We either complete the job which the Labour Party has attempted to do for almost 100 years—not alone but with the support of the Liberals and the Liberal Democrats—or we do not. We have an opportunity now to do so and I will vote for as high a percentage of elected membership as can be achieved. Certainly, I hope that that will be at least 50 per cent. I rest my case.
9 p.m.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, whom I have for many years both admired and disagreed with. Today, I find myself doing both in equal measure. I might have called him "the noble and

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unreconstructed Lord" because his policies and those of the Labour Party of 100 years ago he advocates with undiminished enthusiasm.
I share the anxieties expressed by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway at the beginning of his speech; that at this time of night one cannot make a speech because everything has been said. I shall probably demonstrate the truth of that. However, perhaps I may presume to suggest that it is just worthwhile drawing attention to one feature that has emerged in the debate. It is that a surprising number of noble Lords who have spoken have experienced a conversion of their views; that is, away from an initial espousal of an elected, wholly or in-part, Chamber and towards a wholly nominated Chamber.
Typical of them, though he is anything but typical as he is unique in his experience of both Houses, is the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill. Yesterday, he explained that he had been initially attracted to a partially elected House, but then he began to think of the practical implications. He listed them. First and foremost among them was the fact that there is an ennui in the country when it comes to elections, leading to low turn-out—one might call it "election fatigue"—with unimpressive results when looking at the people who win.
Secondly, the noble Lord spoke with feeling about the prospects of electoral mayhem in the constituencies, with invidious conflicts taking place between elected Members of the second Chamber and the sitting Westminster MPs, leading, most importantly, to instability if the proposed reform towards an elected component takes place. Others have spoken of that and of other differences, too, and those implications weighed with other noble Lords who have experienced the "conversion". The difficulties will be seen; there will be pressure for further change; and we shall be back where we started.
Perhaps, above all, there weighed on the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, the absence of any need for further representation. The House may remember the way in which he listed the number and scale of representative organisations for which people are invited to vote—invited all too often in vain already. He looked, in contrast to that, at the way in which a statutory and new appointments system could be tasked specifically with the widening of the representation of nominees to this House.
Other noble Lords reported similar conversions— not damascene but gradual and occurring after much thought on their part. They include my noble friend Lord Forsyth, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, and the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, among many others.
Equally as interesting is the fact that I have heard of no conversion in the opposite direction. This suggests to me that when the issues surrounding the character and composition of a second Chamber are studied, the immediate and seductive attractions of an elected composition are seen to wane. That answer has been
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persuasively given by those noble Lords who have challenged the reliability of various opinion polls on this issue. I shall not recite the arguments that we have heard about them because time is getting on and I do not wish to repeat myself and delay the House unduly.
It is enormously helpful that the Joint Committee has established so much common ground on the continuing need for a second Chamber; on what I may call its job description; on the need to enhance its present legitimacy or acceptability; and, lastly, on the need for its present composition to become more representative. I believe that the Joint Committee is right on all of those matters. It is also right to say to each House, "We have come this far. Now it is over to you to express your own views".
That justifies my setting out—very briefly, I hope—the centrepiece, and no more, of my own views. The composition of the second Chamber is the critical question that the Joint Committee asks us. To elect or to appoint? In either case, how and in what relative proportion?
When we consider the election options, we do so in fairly sombre circumstances. I have alluded already to the effect that they have had upon the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill. We are seeing in this country an indifference to political elections which seems to be growing. It is not necessary to go into the reasons, but, whatever they may be, it is not a trend that will be reversed speedily.
Surely, we can agree that we must do nothing to exacerbate the situation. If we try to make the second Chamber more representative by resorting to elections—even for the whole of its membership, not only for part—can we be confident that we will not find a seriously low turn-out? I do not think we can be confident on current form. Even in elections for legislatures with a primary legislative jurisdiction we are seeing this decline in electoral interest.
My noble friend Lady Blatch reminded us of the grim recent record. It would be much worse surely if people were invited to vote for representatives in a House which was only partly elected and had only an advisory role. I do not believe that exhilarating candidates would come forward, and we might find that the electorate would give their support, on a tiny poll, to fringe candidates. So in this House your Lordships might shortly be welcoming the noble, as well as screaming, Lord Sutch in a latter day form. There might be many more such candidates who would make equal contributions to your Lordships' proceedings.
In its wisdom, the Joint Committee alluded to this risk. I shall not take up the time of the House by citing the page. It referred to the situation and said that it might happen. The Joint Committee rehearsed various means by which people could be encouraged—others might say dragooned—into going to vote so as to overcome that risk. I do not believe that that is a sufficient safeguard against the dangers that exist; it is my principal reason for supporting Option 1.

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There are other reasons on which I respectfully adopt, ill may use a lawyerism, the arguments put by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Carter; my noble friends Lord Norton, Lord Higgins and Lord Forsyth; the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, this afternoon; and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, very recently. I adopt all their arguments.
But my vote—for the central reason, first among many, of the declining vote which on that definition will lead to a no less illegitimate House—will go against any form of selected composition. I want to secure a new, statutory appointments commission and a less haphazardly representative second Chamber than we have at present, wholly appointed by it and on a basis to be further considered by the admirable Joint Committee.
9.10 p.m.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, this is the first occasion on which I have spoken on the subject of House of Lords reform, and I hesitate to do so given that 83 of your Lordships have already spoken, many of whom in all parts of the House have deployed arguments which I should have wished to put forward myself.
I hope the House will forgive me if I approach this issue from a personal standpoint. My introduction to this House was in July 1999. All 740 hereditary Peers were still Members, although they were clearly going to depart at the end of that Session, save for the 92.
I remember that there were many fears expressed, some in the Chamber and many privately—mainly on the Conservative Benches—that the House would change irrevocably for the worse after the passage of the 1999 Act. We were told that the old-fashioned courtesies would disappear; our debates would become stridently party-political; we should no longer hear speeches of quality from colleagues who bring a lifetime of experience and distinction from outside to our affairs; and our effectiveness as a revising Chamber and our ability to ask the Government to think again about an aspect of their legislation would cease. Concern on the Labour side centred on the fact that, as the Conservatives remained the largest party and Labour strength was still under 30 per cent of the total membership, the Government would be frustrated from getting their legislation, with Bills endlessly delayed by filibustering.
None of those fears has been realised—not one. Certainly there have been Bills where the Government have lost votes. My noble friend Lord Carter reminded us yesterday that the Government suffered 56 defeats in the previous Session alone. There have also been Bills on matters of social conscience where the outcome has not been to the Government's liking—but often that has been because a number of their own supporters has declined to follow the line, and cross-party coalitions have been formed.
When I describe to friends in another place how these matters are settled in this House, I am greeted with incredulity, particularly when I add that from
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time to time votes are won and lost here on the basis of what has been said during the debate itself. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, and other speakers referred to the debate on stem cell research. That is a particularly good example, but there have been many others. It is also interesting how often one hears comments from people outside the immediate political process about the high quality of speeches in this Chamber.
So I would say to my friends who are proposing further radical reform of this House: can we be sure that these qualities which the present House possesses will still exist in any future House, particularly if it is one that is wholly or partly elected? I am not arguing that so far as this House is concerned "This is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds". I am sure that there are many people in the country who could do the job as well as, or better than, we do. But what has not been proved, either in this debate or in the deliberations of the Joint Committee, is that there are people of quality who would only be interested in coming here if they were elected.
There may be a case for a 100 per cent elected House; but we have not heard it in this debate. It is not contained in the Royal Commission report, it is net in the Government's White Paper, and it is not in the report of the Joint Committee. They have not begun to think about the implications of that in another place. It is inconceivable that you could have a bicameral system where both Houses are elected but one has complete control over supply and the unquestioned and undisputed final word on everything else as well. Other noble Lords have spoken about the drawbacks attached to each of the hybrid solutions involving a partially-elected House. I shall not repeat them.
Some of my noble friends have implied that a proportion of the House must be elected to fulfil the Labour Party's manifesto commitments. With respect, that is not so in the case of the 1997 or 2001 manifestos. My noble friend Lord Richard used as his text the 1992 manifesto, which contains a commitment. I gently remind him that the Labour Party lost the 1992 election, whereas it won the 1997 and 2001 elections.
The Labour Party's commitment in I 997 was to end,
"the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords … This will be the first stage in a process to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative".
I shall read verbatim because I do not want to be accused of misquoting. In 2001 the party said:
"We are committed to completing House of Lords reform, including the removal of the remaining hereditary peers, to make it more representative and democratic, while maintaining the House of Commons' traditional primacy. We have given our support to the report and conclusions of the Wakeham Commission, and will seek to implement them in the most effective way possible".
For a party that has usually been skilful in claiming success, particularly in pursuit of policies it promised voters at election time, it is surprising that the Government have not made more of the profound constitutional change they achieved in passing the House of Lords Act 1999. Lloyd-George, Asquith and Wilson would all have regarded the ending of heredity

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as a basis for membership of the House of Lords as a great political prize. They sought to achieve it and failed to do so. Furthermore, as is clear from the debate today and yesterday, it is an irreversible change. It is inconceivable that the party opposite, if it were returned to power, would invite the hereditary Peers back.
There remains the issue of the 92 excepted Peers, which has come to the fore because of the need to hold a by-election following the death of the noble Viscount, Lord Oxfuird. I have re-read the Hansard reports of the debates on the Weatherill amendment during the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor made clear that,
"Clause 2 of the Bill is not about keeping open the principle of hereditary membership of your Lordships' House".—[Official Report, 22/6/99; col. 795.]
I do not believe that I would misrepresent his view in saying that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor envisaged completing stage two of House of Lords reform within the first Session of this new Parliament, thus obviating the need for by-elections. But I wonder whether he agrees that, if we abolished the provision for by-elections and perhaps regarded the 92 excepted Peers as de facto life Peers, the Government would regard that as having substantially implemented their manifesto commitments?
I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, whom I am delighted to see in his place, would object to that. He made clear on 26th October 1999 that he regarded the Government's acceptance of the by-election arrangements as "notable and important" because,
"the Government thereby accept the principle of a continuing representative hereditary peerage".—[Official Report, 26/10/99; col. 170.]
Quite so, my Lords. That is the problem. Until heredity is no longer a criterion for membership of this House, the central manifesto commitment will not have been fulfilled. I appreciate that fulfilling Labour's manifesto programme may not be high on the agenda of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, but it should be for noble Lords on this side of the House.
I shall be voting for Option 1 and against the remaining options, provided that I get an assurance that the hereditary by-election procedure will be abolished and a more transparent, inclusive appointment will be implemented to avoid the accusations of patronage that would result from an open system.
9.19 p.m.
Lord Bowness: My Lords, I add my thanks to the many that have already been offered to the Joint Committee and to my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon for his introduction of the debate. Of the options that will be before the House in February, I shall support the appointed option, although I am bound to say that, given the general acceptance of the existing role and powers of this
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House, I understand why my noble friend Lord Ferrers asked why it is necessary to change the existing arrangements.
On the assumption that change will come, I hope that the plea of the noble and gallant Lord the Convenor of the Cross Benches will be heard in regard to the 92 hereditary Peers and that the same consideration will be extended to them as I understand the report suggests may be offered to life Peers.
Whether one supports the continuation of the existing House or the creation of a new House constituted by appointment, there must be a change in the method of appointment. It is incumbent on those of us who support an appointed House, whether for life—which I favour—or for a non-renewable term, of whatever length, to show that this can be achieved in a modern and open way.
Like other noble Lords, I support the concept of the statutory appointments commissions. However, it is insufficient merely to say that. It is important to put some flesh on those bones to show that it would not merely be a continuation of the old ways.
The noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, has already done some of that work this evening. Perhaps I may be allowed briefly to pursue the point. All appointments to the second Chamber should be approved by a statutory appointments commission, which itself would be appointed by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament. In approving all recommendations for appointment, the commission ought to have regard to guidelines which would be established by Parliament and not varied other than by a resolution of both Houses.
Those guidelines should ensure that this second Chamber would be balanced politically as to expertise and interests as between the different parts of the United Kingdom and as between men and women. It should be representative of the population of the United Kingdom as a whole. There should be no overall majority for any party. The independent element of not less than 20 per cent—or whatever is thought to be the right percentage—of the active membership of the second Chamber should be maintained. The commission should have a responsibility to maintain the total number of approximately 700—or whatever is decided is the right number of active Members of the second Chamber.
Proposals for new Members should be made to the commission in three ways. The commission, acting on its own behalf, would make recommendations for the independent element. It could also make recommendations on nominations made by the leader of any registered political party and on recommendations made by the Prime Minister acting as Prime Minster, but not as leader of his party.
In making submissions for recommendations for appointment, party leaders should submit a list of names from which the commission could select, having regard to the guidelines, but the commission should not be obliged to give reasons for rejection. Rejections would not necessarily be absolute. The lists put

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forward by party leaders should contain more names than the party leader might wish or be entitled to have recommended for appointment.
The Prime Minister should have a separate entitlement to submit names of Members to be appointed Ministers to serve in the second Chamber and to recommend individuals who have rendered distinguished service in particular offices, including former Chiefs of the Defence Staffs, former archbishops and, of course, former Cabinet Secretaries—and I am sure there are others. The commission should approve those recommendations of the Prime Minister unless, unusually, there were any reasons of probity or if the numbers, if appointed, would compromise the guidelines of the commission.
The case for an appointed House can be made. I do not accept that the public overwhelmingly support the elected option, despite the figures that have been quoted. These matters cannot be decided by a simple yes or no. If it is explained to people that we do not have and do not seek a House with power to challenge another place, that we do not claim superiority, but merely difference, that we accept a revising, advising, scrutinising and limited delaying power and that we are complementary to, not in competition with, the House o f Commons, a different view will be expressed.
I share the surprise of the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, at the idea that only those who have been elected can know what people think. I like to believe that working in the outside world as well as attending your Lordships' House gives me at least some real view of what people think—maybe as real as those who go to the surgeries of Members of Parliament.
Occupying the place that I do in the speakers' list, I considered withdrawing my name. My only justification for not doing so is that I feel sufficiently strongly about this House and its place in the Parliament of the United Kingdom and consider myself fortunate to be here. However, I do not presume to delay your Lordships with my version of the desirability of an appointed House and the consequences of moving from that position, especially when the House has heard speeches from many other distinguished noble Lords who have put the case more fully and persuasively than I ever could.
Accordingly, I trust that the House will forgive me if I, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, adopt the arguments of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth from my Benches and the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, from the Labour Benches, who advanced the same reasons and will in due course vote for the appointed option and against the others.
9.26 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, when I first came here in 1971, my eyes were opened and I thought, just because my forebear received the title from Pitt or Walpole, why should I have any right to boss my fellow subjects about? However, lo and behold, that is what the constitution said at the time. However, my legitimacy now comes, not from Pitt or Walpole but from the right honourable Anthony Blair who passed
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an Act in 1999 that said that most of us should go but some of us should be elected Peers. The joy of saying to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, "We elected Peers", which is an experience that the noble Baroness has never undergone, is something that I relish even five years after I invented the phrase.
I have always been a reformer. I wrote to Mrs Thatcher in 1979 and said, "For heaven's sake, we must reform the Lords". I got the brush-off. My great-grandfather discussed the matter with Lord Salisbury in the 1880s. Lords reform has been about even longer than that—the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, quoted Bagehot, for example.
I have read the Commons and Lords debates from yesterday, and it is interesting that everyone is all over the place. The Cabinet is split, the Labour Party is split, the Liberals and Tories are split—everybody is split. Nobody knows or can agree what to do. One would not normally want to put the noble Lords, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, Lord Graham and Lord Onslow in the same dinghy at the same lime, but at the moment we are all paddling the same canoes—if your Lordships will excuse the mixed boats.
It may be worth going back over the origins of this House and another place and how they verged. This House started by representing the interests of the powerful and the Commons by representing the interests of the knights of the shire and the burgesses of boroughs. The Commons was regional and we were powerful. We had our powers taken away from us in 1911 because we had ceased to represent power. The moment we ceased to represent power we had to think of a new reason for being here, because it was essential—as everyone accepts, except the noble Lord, Lord Elder—that we should have a bicameral system.
People have been saying that if we gave this House more legitimacy, it would challenge the Commons. But our powers are laid down in black and white. We have immense powers, and if this House started to behave as the Irish nationalists did in the 1880s, it could bring the government of the country to a halt in about 20 minutes. All it has to do is automatically chuck out any statutory instrument or, every time the Lord Chancellor puts a Question, force a Division. We would not have to vote; we would only have to ensure that people hung around for about 20 minutes.
It is quite possible for this House to make things quite unpleasant. However, we have a "written constitution"—I use the phrase advisedly; it is not all in the same book, but it is written—and, above all, we accept the principle and spirit of that constitution. Yesterday in the House of Commons, someone said that the Government must govern with authority, but it should not necessarily legislate with impunity. I thought, "God, those are wise words; I wish I had thought of them". As I said, I think that that is what Parliament should be doing.
The executive of the Crown is far, far too powerful. As was said yesterday in this place, I think, of all the whipped votes in the Commons none was lost. I am not suggesting that the Commons should go back to the days when, writing from the peninsula, the Duke of

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Wellington asked how we could expect a government to have any authority when it was defeated two or three times a week on major issues. No one is asking for that. However, sometimes governments should lose Bills because they are rotten Bills. Sometimes Orders in Council and regulations should be thrown out because they are rotten legislation. That does not mean that the Government's authority is wrong; it just means that we should have the power to do that.
When my noble friend Lord Cranborne did his cobbled up deal with the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, the object of the exercise was to keep people like me here to stop it being a totally appointed House and to force some form of further reform and change. Now, people are saying, "Just get rid of us or give us a life peerage or whatever it may be and we'll stick with a totally appointed House". I suggest that the idea that we cannot trust voters to turn out—and the idea that appointment is more democratic than election, which I have heard—is not exactly the truth.
If we give this House more authority, which can only come from an element of election, then this House can use more of the powers that it has to argue with this Government and with any government. The moment that happens, the Commons will start saying, "Actually, we do not want to be told our business by the Lords the whole time. Perhaps we should start paying attention to what Ministers say and try to make them change their minds and be more sensible on legislation". I am not making any party political point. All governments behave like that. All governments want to get away with murder and experience no argument over what they want to do. It is in the nature of human beings and of the bossy classes.
I hope therefore that your Lordships will go with at least 50 per cent, and preferably 60 per cent, elected. But it must not be on a closed-list system. That is too illiberal. Lots of systems are not too illiberal, but that is a bad one. Retaining 40 per cent appointed would allow the House to say, "Yes, we will have certain people who represent certain interests". It would allow Churchill to bring in Lord Walton to be Minister of Food and Mr Anthony Blair to bring in the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, to be Lord Chancellor. That is what we should actually have.
What is wrong with a mixture of appointment and election? What is wrong with hybridity? It has worked in most other places. This House has been hybrid since 1380-something or other. We had the abbots and the bishops. The Scots were elected by one system, at the beginning of every parliament. I believe that it was around the time of the last election that one Peer was cheering and said, "It is so and so's turn. He was a bit thick at Eton, but he will do this time round". The Irish were elected for life. We have always had hybridity. What is wrong with it?
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, made a valid point. As I look around this House, I do not notice any difference in the manners, appreciation or behaviour compared with the days when I first arrived
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at Westminster. Anthony Eden was still on the Front Bench and from the steps of the Throne, I saw, aged 14, the likes of Lord Samuel and Lord Stansgate.
Let us get this matter right. Let us give this House more authority so that it can be beastly to the Government or to any government. That, in turn, would make the House of Commons do its job better.
I conclude on a warning. I quote from my noble friend Lord Cranborne. He said to me, "Michael, I can well foresee the following circumstances when your grandson and my grandson are both elected hereditary Peers and some new scheme for Lords reform will come about and their speeches will be more or less along the lines, 'My Lords, no one in their right mind would have invented this system. However, I suggest to your Lordships that it has stood the test of time, so why change it?" But I want to change it. I want this House to have authority; I want Parliament to recontrol the executive. By properly reforming this House we shall enable the Commons to do its job better.
9.36 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, on the previous occasion we debated this subject, I supported the idea of an elected element of about 66⅔ per cent—the proportion originally advocated some years ago by the noble Lord, Lord Richard—for a combination of reasons. Like my noble friends Lord Ampthill and Lady Saltoun, the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, and others, I have changed my mind. I now think that a totally nominated House is the least bad option.
Four new, and mainly unforeseeable, factors have prompted my about-turn. The first is that the Government have now made it totally clear that, in line with the Joint Committee's recommendations, existing life Peers, whenever appointed, will retain tenure for life. So that rules out a totally elected Chamber for a start. Indeed, it is hard to understand why Option 2 has been put forward at all. It would require both Houses of Parliament to agree to a Bill to expel immediately every single life Peer, every single bishop and every single Law Lord. But it also makes a mainly elected Chamber well nigh impossible. At the moment—or, anyway, two or three days ago—there were 564 life Peers. It is reasonable to suppose that there will be about 540 by the date stage two comes into force: inexorable actuarial probabilities being counter-balanced by the need to grant life peerages to at least some hereditaries on the two opposition Front Benches if the House is to continue functioning properly.
So if 80 per cent were to be elected, the House would contain 2,700 Members; 60 per cent would give us half that figure, 1,350; a 50:50 split would result in 1,080 Peers. A 40 per cent elected element would produce 900 noble Lords and noble Baronesses in all. A 20 per cent elected element would give one a House of 675, rather more manageable, and comparable in effective size—as opposed to theoretical size—to the pre-stage-one House, and comparable, of course, to the present House. The noble and learned Lord, Lord

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Howe of Aberavon, hinted diplomatically that that was a feasible option. However, as has been asked by a number of other noble Lords: how many people of calibre would stand for election on such a basis? What would be the turn-out for such elections? Some 28 to 35 per cent, at a guess.
The second factor is that public expectations of what an elected, or largely elected, House would do for them are being boosted to unrealistically high levels. It is clear that the public have little idea what this House actually does on a day-by-day or hour-by-hour basis. Who can blame them when most Members of the House of Commons have little idea either, as the noble Lords, Lord Gordon of Strathblane and Lord Higgins, and others have reminded us? I am not talking just about those honourable Members who have been elected in the past six years or so.
But there will be a more important reason for almost certain disillusion on the part of the public. They are being told that at long last they will have democratic input into the Lords, and their expectations will be aroused accordingly. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, argued that we have power over people's lives—I think that that was what I heard him say—and that the general public therefore want in some way to control our powers. However, we do not have power over people's lives. We have the power of delay, which is a very minimal power. Nothing that we do in this House gets anywhere at all unless the House of Commons endorses what we do. That is right and proper and as it should be.
Furthermore, what the public will not realise is that men and women elected for a single term of 10, 12 or 15 years with no chance of re-election would have the power to become de facto independents the moment that they were elected. They could go even further. Someone elected as a Left-wing Labour Peer could cross the Floor and become a Right-wing Conservative the following week, or the other way around. They might do so not out of cynical calculation, but from sincere conviction. Threats of deselection or a massive impending electoral swing against an incumbent could be laughed off, as the incumbent would face neither reselection nor re-election.
Those who believe that the main function of parliamentarians these days is to attend to their constituents' inadequate street lighting or refuse collection, as my noble friend Lord Weatherill has reminded us on many occasions, will feel doubly cheated.
The third new factor is the evident determination of the Government to use—or misuse, as many of us would argue—the Parliament Act to the full. It used to be assumed that the Parliament Act would be employed only in exceptional circumstances. No longer is that the case, alas. However, that means that the Government will always be able to get their business through. The sole difference will be that they may have to wait a few months rather than only a few weeks, as used to happen before stage one.
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As it happens, the Government are doing pretty well at the moment without recourse to the Parliament Act. Two days ago, at about 8 p.m. on Monday in a Division on the Courts Bill, they defeated by a very comfortable majority the massed ranks of the opposition—the Conservatives., the Liberal Democrats, the independents and a Welsh nationalist—gaining more than 57 per cent of the total vote. That being so, there is no longer the necessity to achieve a precise or roughly precise party balance in the membership of the House.
As my noble friend Lord Cobbold pointed out in an excellent letter published in the Daily Telegraph on 2nd January, to which my noble friend Lord Palmer drew attention yesterday evening, the present House works extremely well. A year ago, one could not be certain. Things were still in a state of flux, with people still finding their feet. Now everything seems to be working out much better than one could ever have predicted.
At the risk of giving the noble Lord, Lord McNally, a heart attack—I see that he is not in his place, so that risk does not exist—I join my noble friend Lord Weatherill in submitting that the current House "ain't broke"' and should not therefore be fixed, unless one could be absolutely certain that the patched-up version would be an improvement on what we have now. I do not think that we could be given any such guarantee.
9.43 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I found a particular remark made by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe quite sinister. It was when he quoted from the committee's conclusions and said that the reason for the widespread disillusionment throughout our political system was the,
"virtually untrammelled control of the House of Common; by the executive".
That matters more than almost anything else that we have been discussing. If the people of Britain do not feel that Parliament will defend their rights and interests, they will turn to the mob to do so. That is already happening in France.
I fear that part of the reason for the disillusion must lie at the hands of the Government, who have been unable to resist the temptation to disarm Parliament by a steady process. The obvious—the major—example is the way in which nearly every Bill is guillotined and shamelessly sent to us with no consideration. Even yesterday, there they were, debating the same subject as we were debating—presumably it is as important to them as it is to us—but they had only 28 speakers and allowed only five

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hours and 20 minutes before the shutters came down. The Commons is becoming a House of clock-watchers and that is not good for fulfilling their role.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree, having read the Commons debate, that, possibly because it was time-limited to five hours, it was a much better debate than we have had in this House?
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I am so glad that the noble Lord made that point; I was about to give two examples to show what a deeply disappointing debate it was.
Let me first point out—I firmly believe this—that there is no great public demand for reform of this House. When Bernard Ingham ran the lobby, of which I was a member for many years, and someone produced something and said, "What are the government doing about that?", he would often say, "All I can tell you is that that is not what they are talking about in The Three Ferrets at Hebdon Bridge". That was often a very relevant answer. We learned from the brilliant speech of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, that if the minds of the people in The Three Ferrets are focused on these issues, they may well—it is only a small poll—come to recognise the value of an appointed House. I believe that he said that the figures are four to one in favour of an appointed House. That was without him trying to bend their ear, other than by chairing the meeting.
Let us return to the House of Commons debate and the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. I shall give only two examples. Mr Hague said that he hoped that an elected House would add to the boisterousness and effectiveness of the upper House. What a strange idea. I remember when I came here after 16 years in the Commons Press Gallery being warned by one of my colleagues who knew both Houses much better than I did, "Don't be misled by the absence of `Yah boo' politics in the Lords. You will find that a sharp intake of breath when you say something silly can be just as devastating".
My second example involves a very senior Liberal, Mr Paul Tyler, who I believe is in the shadow Cabinet, or whatever the Liberal Party calls it. I have a lot of time for him—I have known him for years—but do you know what he said? He said:
"If the Senate of the United States of America can manage with 100 members, I see no reason why we should not have 100".— [Official Report, Commons, 21/1/03; col. 211.]
The Senate is in no way comparable; Mr Tyler seems to have forgotten that one of the main functions of this House is to scrutinise the shoals of Brussels proposals. More than 70 Members are needed merely to staff the six sub-committees and the European committee. That is extremely depressing, and the fact that Mr Tyler can take such a simpliste and superficial view does not give me great confidence.
I hope that Members of the House of Commons realise that we are on their side and that we are there to reinforce them and to do the job that they are no longer allowed to do. If we can persuade them of that, they may well see the virtue of this House.
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Besides the detailed scrutiny of legislation and the European issue, there is also a role for the gadfly in this House—or perhaps, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth said, for the "troublesome priest". Sadly, that is an increasingly rare species in the Commons today. Of course some remain: Dennis Skinner, Teddy Taylor and Tam Dalyell, to name but three. But many of the names in the roll-call of honour of those who harry the government when they get things wrong are from long ago—from almost my childhood. I refer to Sydney Silverman, Bessie Braddock, Enoch Powell, Geoffrey Dickens and Leo Abse, and, more recently, Michael Cox and Peter Shore, who also performed a brilliant job in this House. I am very glad that we still have people such as that, and I do not believe that the method by which the House of Commons is selected will increase that number. It is diminishing.
Politics is not the battle that it was in the days of the doctrinal divide. That means that life in the Commons is probably less exciting than it was when there was a great battle between socialism and capitalism. I believe that that may well have an influence on the quality of the people who want to go to the House of Commons. Having a Conservative government in power certainly causes certain problems for my party.
I do not believe that we can have a House in which people are treated differently. I was interested to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, say that there would be no difference between 300 elected and 300 non-elected Members. He said that they would be exactly the same. I doubt that. But when he went on to say that the elected Members would be paid salaries and allowances but that all Members would be the same, I considered that to be quite Orwellian:
"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others".
I warn your Lordships against the idea of representatives of interest groups. The kind of people who want to represent interest groups are not normally the high-flyers. It is not a top doctor who heads the BMA, and so on. I do not like the idea because I associate it with corporate government from the fascist days of the past or, if you like, the mandated delegates so beloved of the Trotskyites in the days of Militant. Such representatives would be required to put forward the view of those that sent them and there would be pressure to recall them instantly if they did not do what they were told to do. That would be the opposite of independence and it would probably be boring, too.
There is one precedent on which I should like to build. The convention is that the House of Commons nominates the retiring Speaker to come to the House of Lords. That is entirely free from prime ministerial patronage. I believe that that system could be extended, with Members of the House of Commons nominating and, if necessary, electing a limited number of distinguished parliamentarians for membership of the House of Lords. Some would never want to come here by patronage of a Prime Minister or a government-appointed quango. One obvious example is Tony Benn.

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But I believe that he might well accept a peerage if he were given it by the House of Commons. Personally, I believe that he would add greatly to our proceedings.
I see the problem of topping up the hereditary peerage as a real one. That is why I support Option 1A, as proposed by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig.
Proposals for Lords reform have once again raised more problems than they solve. I supported the last major reform, which was far simpler to implement and had a far clearer justification than this so-called "stage two". In practical terms, stage one never did need stage two. It is political baggage of outdated emotion and a profound and widespread misunderstanding of how this House operates. There is need for much more time for reflection, digestion and education. That point was made very tellingly by my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean.
9.53 p.m.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, it is a particular pleasure for me to follow my noble friend Lord Marlesford. Decades ago, he and I worked very closely together to develop and introduce a range of Whitehall reforms, with some success, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was kind enough to mention in his speech. We also urged the introduction of departmental Select Committees in another place which would focus on the expenditure and activities of those departments—a scheme eventually introduced, also with great success, by my noble friend Lord St John of Fawsley. Perhaps in those days we should also have turned our attention to the form of your Lordships' House, but I have to confess that, at that time, that did not seem very important to us.
As this debate winds to an end, I want to spend my few minutes on one central purpose; namely, to seek to refute yet again, as others have done, the over-simplified idea that doubling up on elected Chambers—that is, having two instead of one—would in any way strengthen our Parliament or enlarge our democracy.
I accept that a stronger Parliament must, indeed, be the aim of all democrats. But I believe that to try to achieve it by creating a second elected Chamber is utterly misguided. Many other noble Lords made that point. However, what seems to have been missed—I have listened carefully—by the protagonists for elected Members, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, reminded us yesterday in a devastating speech, is that the function of the House of Lords is different from, although complementary to, the function of the House of Commons, which is the elected Chamber. It is not only different but an essential prop to the workings of the whole democratic structure.
Although I have listened carefully, the election enthusiasts seem not to have grasped that a better democracy does not come from multiplying elected Chambers, votes, simple party choices and all the things that go with them. An elected Chamber must be the very heart of our democratic system, but round it must be the cladding of independent advice and restraint as well as, naturally, the rule of law, freedom
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of speech, a free press and a dozen other things besides. Without those buttresses, democracy is a sham. In many countries it is called democracy but we know that it does not add up to much.
I am not an engineer, and there are probably expert engineers in your Lordships' House—there are experts here in just about everything—but I understand that the internal combustion engine must have a governor mechanism to prevent it going awry. I learnt at school that James Watt, in a moment of genius as he was walking across College Green in Glasgow, suddenly understood that a steam engine needed a condenser. In the same way, I believe that our democratic House of Commons, another place, must have a filtering, revising, improving, second-thoughts prompting Chamber attached to it if it is not to overheat and break down.
Incidentally, I do not take the same long-term pessimistic view as several noble Lords about another place. First, let it never be forgotten that it has changed enormously over the past 30 or 40 years. As I have mentioned, the Select Committees really have worked as we hoped. To begin with, people said that they would not; that they would be merely for idle hands and to keep people out of mischief, but they have been far more effective in calling our gigantic, sprawling executive to account. Many people in your Lordships' House would confirm that.
Secondly, we are supposed to be thinking a few years ahead, and yet everyone seems to assume that huge majorities of the present kind in the Commons are here for good. That is not so. We on this side know that huge majorities suddenly melt away. They do not last. The arithmetic changes. When that happens and suddenly the executive no longer has such certain control over the party and therefore over Parliament, and suddenly the majority can be in doubt, the whole atmosphere changes and makes the Commons far less of a rubber stamp and a much more exciting place.
We know that once party elections come roaring into this House, on their heels, inevitably, come increased party political control, tighter party lines, more opposition for the sake of opposition and all the other features which spell the bane of independence, the death knell of careful consultation and true accountability, and greatly increased subordination to the executive.
The case for elections has been made by several noble Lords on the grounds that, among other things, it will increase the territorial representative nature of the House of Lords; there will be not so many from the South and South East, bringing in the more robust views of northern England and the more distant regions. However, there is then the question of independence. We are told, "That is all right. The independence will be preserved by electing the Peers for so long that they can immediately disengage from the groups and interests which elected them freely in the first place". In other words, we are asked to swallow the absurd proposition that more representation means less, that everything will be for the best if the supposed representatives ignore those who elected them. They

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would not have to look over their shoulder after all. That would come well from Edward Lear. It really belongs more to the land of the Jumblies than to the real world.
There is then a worry about cronies and a packed Chamber. Certainly, we must have a more powerful independent commission, which would have much more say in who comes here. Many different formulae have been put forward today. I suspect that party elections would be far more prone to producing those who toe the party line and yes-men and women than an appointed House. That is especially so if they were elected through closed party lists.
Personally, I believe the cronies argument to be much exaggerated, and that my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, who introduced the debate so excellently, is right about that. The truth is that people who for years have served well a party or government often make the most effective and candid critics the moment they come here, or at least after a while. I can think of many excellent examples of noble Lords opposite and on this side whom I salute and who confirm that.
If we must have an elected element, then I hope that it will be as free from party organisations and machines as possible and that the elections will be indirect or—as the Joint Committee report calls them—"various", which is a very important word, and as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth rightly suggested in his excellent speech. There are many ways to approach this problem other than through the traditional patterns of election.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford is completely right to say that there are better ways of bringing better people into this Chamber. He was right, too, to say that the whole argument about an elected versus an appointed House is really rather an immature argument, which is out-of-date, misguided and even blinkered. It does not address the possibilities that now open out in a modern society.
Actually, the common sense route would be to recycle the 92 hereditary Peers, who are largely the worker bees here, as we know, as life Peers, as in Option 1A of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, which I would support. However, I expect that that is far too sensible a solution to be adopted. At least that way the stamp of party machines and executive domination will be held at bay and the authority of this House in performing its moderating and checking role will be preserved.
I read somewhere the frankly naïve view that there would be more authority flowing to us and our activities if this House was,
"largely chosen by the people".
In other words, let the voters decide and so on. What that means, if we are honest, is not chosen by the people but by the whole paraphernalia and apparatus of political parties and their machines, by media pressure and the hysteria which seems to guide them all too often.
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I recognise that for the Commons party elections are the necessary way. But they are not sufficient. James Watt was right: the engine cylinder of elected Commons Members needs the cooling condenser of second thoughts if it is to work. That is how our job has evolved, and most objective and informed people agree that your Lordships do it fairly well. I do not think it is smug to say that; it is merely objective and true. Furthermore, we do it within existing powers and with the invaluable participation of professional leaders, scientists, military leaders, bishops and other spiritual leaders—perhaps we need more of those—and those with deep legislative experience.
Undermine all that, sweep these experienced minds into a corner, or away altogether and you end up not with more representation of the British people but much less; not with a stronger and more durable democracy but with a weaker one; not with a more respected Parliament but with a more derided one.
Years ago in another place when we were debating the case for setting up the Select Committees, I rather arrogantly and presumptuously described myself as "a Parliament man". I still am, which is why I do not want to see this Parliament of ours weakened by tabloid theories and shallow understanding of what democracy is really about and how it truly works in this nation.
10.4 p.m.
Lord Dean of Harptree: My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend and entirely agree with the points that he made. I also agree with the points made by my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew, who spoke of conversions. It has clearly emerged during the debate that several noble Lords who were attracted to the idea of elections have changed their minds.
There are three good reasons for opposing any elected Peers. I shall endeavour to avoid using arguments that have already been advanced. The first and obvious point is the possibility of conflict between the two Houses. At present, as the Joint Committee emphasised in its first report, your Lordships exercise self-restraint. In our revising role we frequently introduce amendments that we send to another place, asking another place—which usually means the government of the day—to think again. But if another place insists on its original view, we usually accept that the elected House should prevail.
I doubt whether that self-restraint would operate with elected Peers, especially if they had been elected more recently than the Members of the House of Commons. Instead of harmony and self-restraint, we would have discord. That would not be good for Parliament and would weaken Parliament's authority in holding the Government to account. So an elected element would alter the character of your Lordships' House—and not for the better.
The second point, to which reference has also been made, is that with elected Peers almost inevitably the party machines would take over. In those circumstances, the best people would not be sent here; nor would the electors be fired with enthusiasm to

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vote. We all recognise that many men and women outside with knowledge and experience that would be valuable to your Lordships' House would not be prepared to stand for election. That is not because they are too grand but because that is not their style.
So, almost inevitably, with election we would find that this Chamber would be less representative of the nation than it is at present. Furthermore, the independence on which we all pride ourselves, even those who take party Whips, would thereby be diminished. So again, the character of your Lordships' House would alter—and not for the better.
The third point, which I do not think has been mentioned so far, is that the concept of self-regulation, on which we pride ourselves, would be fatally undermined. We govern ourselves. We do not have a Speaker; we do not need a Speaker. On the rare occasions when advice is required, the Leader of the House or the Government Whip on duty gives advice, which is immediately obeyed. If we had elected Members, I do not believe for a moment that they would be prepared to accept such self-discipline. Who can blame them? They would want to speak out for their constituents. So, almost inevitably, if we have elected Members we shall have to give power to keep order to the occupant of the Woolsack and the Chair.
Anyone who has served, as I have, as a Deputy Speaker in another place knows how difficult that job is. One has to balance allowing the Member to speak, sometimes vigorously, on behalf of his constituents on the one hand, with on the other ensuring that the rules of order and conventions of the House are observed. That is a difficult balance to strike. Once we abandoned sell-regulation in the House, we would be in uncharted territory. That would be unfortunate.
Where are we going with all this? The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that it would need a genius to resolve the issue. Given the enormous variety of views that has been expressed—not only between parties but within them—I doubt whether consensus is likely to emerge. History may well repeat itself. If it does, I can suggest a simple solution: we should offer life peerages to the hereditary Peers sitting in the House at the moment. There is a good precedent: we already have in our midst hereditary Peers who have accepted life peerages. I am not suggesting anything revolutionary or new; I merely suggest that there is a good recent precedent that we could follow. It is possible to say, without being in any way patronising, that our hereditary colleagues, in all parts of the House, have done a good job. They have added enormously to the functions of this place.
If that suggestion were to be followed, the Government could say that they had fulfilled their election commitment to get rid of the hereditary Peers. The rest of us could say that we had preserved continuity in a House that, in practice, works effectively. In such a complicated situation, a simple solution may be the best.
10.12 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, as the last of four Bishops to speak in the debate, I suppose that my task is to summarise the position of these Benches. That is no easy task. Organising bishops—or even their corporate mind—is like trying to herd cats. Nevertheless, there are common features in our approach to this important debate.
We speak with some diffidence, although bishops have participated in Parliament from the beginning, and perhaps even earlier. Indeed, one bishop helped form the thought patterns within which western democracies still operate: in the fourth century, Augustine of Hippo marked the use of the structures of the state in the advancement of the kingdom of Heaven. Eight hundred years later, Aquinas, influenced by classical ideas—interestingly, carried into the new Europe through Islamic culture—took Augustinian thinking forward. He developed a Christian idea of governance as being for the common good and bringing about a just public realm for all.
Aquinas's thinking is well illustrated in the prayer that the bishops are privileged to use in your Lordships' House every working day. The prayer reminds us of the core business of the House. I shall quote a phrase or two for the benefit of those who may not have heard it for some while:
"grant that, we having thy fear always before our eyes, and laying aside all private interests, prejudices and partial affections, the result of all our counsels may be … the publick wealth, peace and tranquillity of the Realm, and the uniting and knitting together of the hearts of all persons and estates within the same".
That prayer daily touches our conscience. Conscience has not always won the argument against expediency, but that is why it is there. It was there when the bishops ordered the Magna Carta to be displayed in their cathedrals so that its contents could be disseminated. It has been there since 1081, when the Members of Parliament list begins with the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
But that was then and this is now, and although the bishops on this Bench would wish to continue to play a constructive part in the governance of our country, we hesitate to speak in a way which might seem like defensiveness or special pleading. I was therefore greatly touched by yesterday's speech by the noble Lord, Lord Winston. He said that the Prelates on the Spiritual Bench have lent an important element to the workings of our democracy—in its moderation, its liberality, its espousal of true human values and its notion of ethics.
We are warned to beware when all speak well of us. But there is usually little danger of that. It is rather nice in today's world when occasionally someone speaks well of the presence of the Church. I am grateful for those words. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, said that it would be good to see some Muslim, Catholic and perhaps Jewish representation on the Spiritual Bench. Certainly in our earlier submissions we ourselves argued for a broadening of religious representation.
In his opening speech the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, stated that there are many questions not before the House at this time, including

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the future of the Law Lords and the presence or composition of these Lords Spiritual Benches. These questions are not before the House because the Joint Committee, perhaps rightly, judged them to be second order questions once the primary matter of whether the House is to be made up of appointed or elected Members is decided. One sees the logic of that but there is a flaw in the argument. Were it to be decided that the House be totally elected, by definition, Law Lords, bishops and others would disappear and there would not ever have been the opportunity of debating their worth or otherwise. In other words, if these matters are not raised now in this round of debate, the opportunity might not arise again.
Because of this, I feel that the earlier contribution of my noble friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford was significant. As we take part in this significant debate concerning the future of our own democratic institutions, the world is involved in issues of war and rumours of war, the struggle of ideologies for the mind and soul of humanity, issues of life and death, justice and peace. Religion, for good or ill, is at the heart of many of these struggles. It is just not possible to get inside the mindset of many of those locked in dispute without understanding something of the religious ideas and ideals which drive them. I believe that to risk removing such understanding from your Lordships' House would weaken and narrow this focus of governance.
My noble friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth pointed to the same dynamic in his local community. I have the privilege of being a co-chair of the Interfaith Network for Britain and Ireland. I know how in city after city councils of faiths have been formed during the past decade, which are now vital for community cohesion, particularly in times when international disputes could easily create rifts between people of faith in Britain. I believe that it is imperative for such a faith presence to be developed and strengthened in your Lordships' House. A Bench of bishops is not necessarily the only model, but to give attention to an appropriate parliamentary faith presence is no second order question.
Because we see the need for specialist representation from the world of religious faith and other disciplines, we have earlier argued for a largely appointed second Chamber. My noble friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester, in his powerful speech yesterday, argued strongly for indirect elections from local government. Service in local government has often been the path along which eminent and influential Members of your Lordships' House have earlier travelled. Were the bishops' advice to be followed, that traditional path would be given formal shape and content.
I started my speech by indicating that harnessing bishops was like herding cats. I suspect that this bevy of Episcopal cats will find themselves heading for different options when they are finally put before us. But that, to its credit, has been the long tradition of the Bench of Bishops.
10.20 p.m.
Lord Moran: My Lords, the report we have been debating seems to me clear, concise and sensible, and was introduced yesterday in an admirable speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon. The old House, which I entered in 1984, worked well but had one quite unacceptable defect: the overwhelming potential majority of one party. I am afraid that that party—the Conservatives—were foolish enough to use it in a shameful way on 14th July 1993 when they bussed in scores of backwoodsmen and defeated the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blake, proposing a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty, by 445 votes to 176.
That made early change inevitable. The position was rectified by the purge of most hereditary Peers in 1999. The political balance became much more reasonable and, essentially, this House was reformed. It is not now dominated by any party.
Most people agree that, while not seeking to be a law-making body, this House has an indispensable role in scrutinising and revising legislation, with its average of 2,000 amendments per Session nearly all accepted by the Commons. But in order to be effective with its limited powers, it must have, as the report stresses, strong elements of independence and expertise, as it has at present. There is, I believe, a need to keep the party-political aspects of the House to a minimum. The less political, the more useful is the work of the House. I have taken part in many Select Committees, and in all of them party prejudices were laid aside at the door. Peers took part as individuals, not party spokesmen, making the work far more effective.
It is important to preserve the present, specifically independent element in the House's composition; the Cross Benches. Apart from these, there are, happily, at present, very few Peers who blindly follow their party line—those of whom W S Gilbert wrote:
"I always voted at my Party's call
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all".
There are, however, independent-minded Peers in other parts of the House to whom the House listens and who it respects. One has only to think of the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, and a number of others. If we had a fully elected House, or a substantially elected element, that would increase party-political influence and diminish or eliminate the independent element.
Moreover, most people wishing to stand would surely aim at the House of Commons, where power lies; or the European Parliament, where the pay is best; or the Scottish Parliament; or the Welsh Assembly. We might be landed with fourth-rate politicians. Paragraph 68 of the report states that domination of the House by elected party politicians would irrevocably change the nature of the House. It would do so for the worse.

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I believe that the present House is effective, cheap—one-tenth of the cost of the Commons—with a valuable independent outlook and a legitimacy as defined very sensibly in paragraph 43 of the report. To my mind, the best course is to keep things as they are.
Speaking as one of the doomed 92 residual hereditaries, I support what was said yesterday by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig of Radley and my noble friend Lord Weatherill and I welcome the generous remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, at col. 652 in yesterday's Hansard. I believe that the House would be a much weaker place if it were to lose Members such as the noble Earls, Lord Ferrers, Lord Peel and Lord Selborne, the noble Countess, Lady Mar, the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, and the noble Lords, Lord Denham, Lord Willoughby de Broke, Lord Freyberg, Lord Bridges, Lord Elton and Lord Ampthill, to name only a few.
I believe that the arguments against a hybrid House are strong, and those against a wholly or partially elected House very strong indeed. Consequently, I propose to vote for Option 1, a wholly appointed House, with the safeguards proposed by the report, and for the option proposed by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig, Option 1A, if that is possible, and against the other options.
10.25 p.m.
Lord Gilbert: My Lords, like one or two other noble Lords who have spoken, I was very ignorant of this place when I came here. I regret to say that I probably carried some caricatures in my mind—of which, I am glad to say, I was fairly swiftly disabused. As a consequence, although I came here somewhat reluctantly in the first instance, I have found my time here extremely agreeable. The longer I have been here, the more impressed I have been by the way in which this House orders its affairs.
That does not mean to say that I believe that everything we do is perfect. There are a number of changes I would like to see made in our procedures. However, having said that, I have no wish whatever to repeat arguments that have been made much more cogently than I could have made them myself. Therefore, for the purposes of reference, I should like to say merely that I have been most impressed with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and with that of the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market—at least until the last 90 seconds when he seemed to suffer a mental breakdown in the middle of his remarks. But we can forgive him that. I would not have said it if he were not in his place, but I suggest that he reads his remarks tomorrow in Hansard.
As to this side of the House, I was extremely impressed yesterday by the remarks of my noble friend Lord Sewell and, today, by those of my noble friend Lord Elder, who is not in his place. I was glad to be present for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, who I have known for more than 50 years. I was delighted to see that, for once, there were some Liberal Democrats who did not follow the party line of inbred political correctness.
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Although I am speaking at No. 93 in the debate I have some things to say that have not been said before, but they are probably not for sensitive ears. I shall concentrate merely on attacking the proposals for an elected element of any kind. It will be no secret that I shall be voting for Option 1 and fervently against all the others. I believe firmly that the introduction of any elected element would be dangerous for this House, dangerous for the House of Commons, and extremely bad for the country.
As to all this talk about having a representative upper Chamber—heavens to Betsy—go and look at the other lot! If you ever thought that the current House of Commons is representative of the country as a whole, just go and study their CVs. I ask you. Representative? Well! The noble Lord knows who I am talking about anyway.
It is quite possible to achieve representativeness without elections. It is the fiat of every Prime Minister that he gets representativeness in his Cabinet without having elections to the Cabinet—although one great mistake that the present Prime Minister has made is that he did not abandon the elected membership of his shadow Cabinet but took them as one into his present Cabinet, from which various consequences have flowed.
As to this House, it has been said that there is nothing wrong with hybridity; that we have had hybridity before. But what we are now contemplating is a hybridity of a kind different from any that has ever been seen before. It is inconceivable that elected Members of this place would not be granted pay, if not allowances, on a par with Members of another place. I do not know what that is currently—£60,000 or £70,000 a year, or something of that order—but, human nature being what it is, I do not believe that there would not be considerable resentment from those who are being paid nothing but an attendance allowance of £100 a day towards those who are doing the same work and being paid £60,000 or £70,000 a year. It would be extremely divisive and bad for morale in this place.
Resentment would also run in the other direction. If the elected Members formed less than 100 per cent of the membership, they would resent the appointed Members for diluting their claims to legitimacy. You would have nothing but continued resentment between the elected and the appointed Members.
My second point as regards the implications for this House is that, if the term is not limited—I understand the proposal of the Joint Committee—and Members can seek re-election, we shall be back to the tyranny of the Whips and the party machine.
I cannot see that an elected element of less than 100 per cent would produce a static situation. There would be constant pressure for the elected element to be increased to 100 per cent. What is more, there would be constant pressure to change the powers of this House. There was an interesting exchange yesterday between my noble friend Lord Sewel and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, whom I am glad to see in her place. I thought that my noble friend got the better of

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the argument in explaining the origins of the authority of the House of Commons. But in one respect, the noble Baroness was right: technically, legally, the present authority of the House of Commons rests on the Parliament Act and the right of supply. The first thing that any Members elected to this place would seek to do would be to change the Parliament Act and end the monopoly on supply. They would not be worth their salt if they did not. They would do so from day one; and they would go on and on doing so. There would be a constant battle, and of course the House of Commons would resist that.
I do not know what the end would be, but as has been stated vividly this House has huge powers. All we have to do is table amendments to every line of a Bill, or call a Division on every government amendment—on hundreds of government amendments on Bill after Bill. You would soon have the Chief Whip on his knees beside you asking you what you wanted. A message would go down to the other end of the corridor very quickly indeed. I frankly do not see what arguments the House of Commons could advance to sustain its monopoly of power over supply once this House had elected Members; and I do not see that the country could object to such a change.
Furthermore, if Members were elected to this place on the basis of identity with the method by which people are elected to the House of Commons—in other words, if only 300 Members were elected to this place, they would presumably be representative of the whole country—they could say to every Member of the House of Commons, "I represent twice as many people as you do. Who the devil are you, Mr Jones, or Miss Smith? Thank you very much". The other place will not like that argument very much. Unless the elections are held on precisely the same day, in which case they will be otiose, as everyone can see, Members elected to this place will say to Members of the House of Commons, "Oh, you were elected two years ago. I was elected last Thursday. My public mandate is much more valid than yours". The House of Commons is not going to like that either.
There is a further unmentionable matter. If Members of this place are to serve for only one term, I can tell noble Lords how they will spend it—they will spend it undermining the lot down the corridor in order to get their seats when their term comes to an end; will they not? I know that I would—but then, I am not a very civilised individual!
All elections involve party—inexorably, inevitably. If we moved to a system of election by party, we should lose, among other things, the most distinguished Members on the Cross Benches. It was interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord McNally, citing some of the expertise in certain areas to be found at the other end of the corridor. There was one area that he did not mention—one that I know a little bit about; namely,
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defence. He ran out of names—in fact, he had none to mention. I am very willing to give way to the noble Lord.
Lord McNally: I would say that Menzies Campbell knows a lot more about defence than the noble Lord does.
Lord Gilbert: I do not doubt that a lot of people know more about defence than I do. I was not talking about myself. I was talking about the chiefs of the defence staff.
Lord McNally: My Lords—
Lord Gilbert: Oh no! You have had your go. You can only have one bite of the cherry.
We would lose the Permanent Secretaries. I doubt whether even a dozen Members of this House would stand for election to the House of Lords. I am certain that fewer than a dozen Members would get elected. The former trade union leaders, captains of industry and Permanent Secretaries would not offer themselves to the British electoral process by party at such a late stage in their careers. That would be nothing but a loss to the country.
Who would we get? Either people who have never stood for election or failed candidates in elections for another place, the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and probably the GLA. We would have an elected House of failures. Is that what the country wants? Go on! Does the noble Lord, Lord McNally, have a response?
That is all I have to say. I have fallen in love with this place and I do not want to see it changed by the introduction of elected Members. I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, said about how to deal with the remaining hereditary Peers. They do a first-rate job, and the solution he proposed is exactly right.
10.36 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the list of speakers says that I am 95. I feel as if I were 95, having listened to 87 of the 93 speeches in this debate. This is a great occasion. Although it is too late for oratory, whatever is decided I hope that the Joint Committee will consider the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong. The idea he proposed also occurred to me when I was a Minister biting my nails in the Lords' Gallery of another place, listening to my reputation being defended by a colleague who I knew had not read his brief. Ministers of either House could be called to the Bar of another place to account for their actions rather than rely on others to do so. In the same vein, I hope that the committee pays attention to the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry that there should be much more use of Joint Committees so that the Houses get to know each other.
At the end of the remarkable speech by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, I could see that not only had he fallen in love with the House but that it was in danger

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of falling in love with him. That would embarrass him greatly. What he said was dangerous because, I fear, our speeches will be read in that light outside the House. We have been awfully self-congratulatory. We have said constantly how well we do our job. Even if it is true, it should not be said, certainly not with satisfaction.
This House does not belong to us; it belongs to the country. We sit neither as representatives nor directors but as trustees. As such, we have an interest not only in this House but in the whole Parliament, because it is a single institution originally created to make it possible to govern this country, and, thereafter, to make it impossible to govern the country without its consent. The principal function of Parliament was, and remains, to monitor and control the executive. Originally, the executive was the King. One could see him and his followers outside Parliament. In Oxford, two streets—North Parade and South Parade— standing about 300 yards apart, mark the lines where the armies of the executive and Parliament faced each other fairly regularly while the court sat there during the Civil War. Now the executive is inside Parliament and you cannot tell them apart. They are sitting opposite us, very attentive and decorative. I am flattered that they should be here at this moment, because it does not always happen. They are sitting in far greater numbers—if they are still at work, which I doubt—at the other end of the Corridor. Indeed, more than 80 members of the executive sit as Members of the House of Commons, which is supposed to control the executive. The House of Commons therefore has a conflict of interest when it comes to discharging its duty under the constitution. That has not arisen because we have suddenly had a spring tide of an election. It is incremental over many years, and it flows from a change in the country's economic and social conditions.
A hundred years ago, it was possible, indeed expected, that anyone who wished to have the honour of sitting in the House of Commons should pay for the privilege. Having paid to get here, he did not expect to receive any financial reward. All that has changed. There is a substantial reward for being here and it is only possible to get into the House of Commons with the support of a national political party. Since belonging to the House of Commons is, quite properly and honourably, a job upon which one's livelihood and family depend, quite apart from any ambition one may have, it is natural to try and stay there, and one can do so only with the consent and support of one's party at the next election. That gives the Whips inordinate power over the behaviour of the Members of another place.
All that flows from the electoral system. That, coupled with our social and economic organisation, has undermined the efficiency of the democratic process in defending the public from the operation of an over-mighty executive. We are being asked to introduce the same system here to protect the public by having more elected people and, perhaps, a wholly elected House. That really is to stand logic on its head. That is my main point.
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I do not expect my view to prevail. I am comforted that it is the view of so many of your Lordships, but the words of the Leader of another place, quoted by my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry, suggest that the views of this House may not prevail. I look, with some hope, towards my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon. I apologise for not thanking him with due courtesy at the beginning of my speech for the gracious way in which he introduced the debate and the sterling work that he and his committee have done. I regret that they said that this House must be representative. For the reasons that I have given, I do not think that it should be. But if that is the majority view of this House, I hope that it will be given due attention in the committee which will still be asked to try and find a consensus between the Houses.
I hope, thereafter, that there will be consultation by the committee on the detail of whatever is eventually proposed. If it is to be an appointments commission, there should be consultation and discussion on how it is to be composed and what its terms of reference should be. If it is to be an electoral college, I hope that before it sets to work it reads the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford.
Noble Lords: Worcester.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am sorry, I meant the Bishop of Worcester. The two are entirely different in approach and appearance.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester lit a sparkler at the party to which we should pay attention. There is something wrong with the electoral process; it has damaged how this place works. If there is another way of making it work electorally, and if we cannot have the sort of House that I think we should have, let us have a House that re-engages with the electorate and then, if the two Houses lock horns, perhaps this House will come out on top.
I am rather like a baby hoping that the bath water will be thrown out with it or a turkey hoping for Christmas. If we are to be recycled, to repeat the unpleasant term used by my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford—and I have visions, as a turkey, of the shelves of Sainsbury's—I think that the day will come when I have done enough here. I came here under a completely different regime, in which I was obliged to nobody but my father and Ramsay MacDonald and could come and go as I wished with a clear conscience. I am now here as a result of the votes of a majority of all your Lordships to do a job. I find that it has extraordinarily cramped my declining years and diminished the chances of writing even one of the two books that I would like to do or painting 50 of the 100 pictures to which I would like to put my paint brush. I may have reached the point when I should go anyway, because I am worn out and not contributing. There will be other people in that position who ought to be able to get out, but there is no escape hatch for us, and there should be.

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That is rather a sad note on which to end. Like the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, I fell out of love with this House and then in love with it again after all the changes. Long may the upper House remain the second House, and long may it survive.
10.45 p.m.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, it is usual to start a wind-up speech by saying that it has been an excellent debate, but tonight I feel unable to say that. On the contrary, in more than five years of membership of your Lordships' House, I have never listened to a debate that has been so deeply depressing. The debate has been riddled with complacency and self-congratulation. Time after time, I have heard the voice of Dr Pangloss—now Lord Pangloss—saying, "All is for the best in the best of all possible Houses".
Of course, there are legitimate arguments for a wholly appointed House—which have been expressed clearly and forcefully by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, and the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. However, those arguments need to be challenged, and far too many speakers in this debate have swallowed them whole.
We in this House overestimate our own virtues. I agree that what we do, we do well. We have good debates. We have contributions to those debates from Members of great expertise, some of them sitting on the Cross Benches, some of them on the party Benches. But who listens? What coverage do we get in the media? We produce excellent reports, many of which actually get read, and spend a lot of time on the boring but necessary job of revising the detail of legislation. Occasionally, we persuade the Government to think again. As many speakers said, we had some success with the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill 15 months ago. But is that all that we are expected to do?
What is the greatest problem of the British constitution today and what has been the greatest problem for many years past? Only three speakers—the noble Lords, Lord Desai, Lord Onslow and Lord Elton—have referred to it. When the Government have a large majority in the House of Commons, as it has for 19 of the last 24 years, there are no effective checks on the abuse of executive powers. It is the absence of those checks that gave us the poll tax and that may, in the next few weeks, lead us into a war in Iraq when that war is opposed by a large majority of the people of this country.
A reformed second Chamber could offer the chance of a more effective challenge to the executive—to the executive, not to the House of Commons. Many noble Lords have said that greater legitimacy must be avoided because it would increase the risk of deadlock with the House of Commons. Has anyone stopped to think why, if elections to your Lordships' House are such a threat to the primacy of the House of Commons, so much support exists in the House of Commons for elections to your Lordships' House? Why is it that the Public Administration Committee, in a unanimous report, proposed a 60 per cent elected membership of your Lordships' House?
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I will tell you why. In the House of Commons, they see what is actually going on. They see the Government crushing the challenges from their own Back Benches. On both sides of that House, among Government Back Benches as well as among the opposition parties, they want a House of Lords that can challenge the abuse of executive power. That was made clear in a brilliant speech made yesterday in the House of Commons by Mr William Hague. Let me quote at a little length from it. He said:
"The powers and ability of this House and of Parliament as a whole—this House and the other House—are inadequate to bring proper balance to our constitution. It is possible to govern with authority without being able to legislate with impunity. Today, however, Governments expect to be able to do both. That is why Parliament as a whole should be strengthened, and that includes the strengthening of the upper House. It also includes the strengthening of both Houses vis-à-vis the Government of the day. This is not a zero sum game. More authority and legitimacy for the upper House will not necessarily reduce the authority, legitimacy or power of the lower House, if we conduct our own affairs by giving proper scrutiny to Government actions and legislation. That is what we should be doing".
After an intervening paragraph, Mr Hague continued:
"That is the case for electing a large part of the upper House".—[Official Report, Commons, 21/1/03; col. 195.]
Noble Lords on the Conservative Benches should read not only the speech of their former leader but the speech of Ken Clarke, their leader in waiting, and of Sir George Young, before they finally commit themselves to voting against elected Members. I have to say that speeches from the Conservative Benches have been much as I expected. I welcome the four or five gallant souls who resisted the Gadarene rush to oppose all elections.
What I found more disappointing was the reaction from speakers on the Labour Benches. More than half of them have announced their intention of voting against any elected element, in clear breach of what has in fact been their party's policy of many years.
Among the speeches from the Labour Benches in this debate, there is one that is notable for not having been made—the speech of the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House. He is a man who is enormously respected in your Lordships' House. He has made his views in support of reform clear on many previous occasions. A speech from him would, I believe, have been valuable and persuasive. I regret that he has been silenced or has silenced himself. But if Labour Peers cannot hear a speech from the noble and learned Lord, they can read the speeches of Robin Cook, his opposite number in the House of Commons, and of Tony Wright, the chairman of the Public Administration Committee. They should do that before deciding how they are going to vote.
If, as seems all too likely, your Lordships' House supports no option other than an all-appointed one, noble Lords will have opted for a quiet life. I have to say that I understand that that is a very seductive option indeed. It is a wonderful privilege to be a Member of your Lordships' House. I, too, love this place. If I was thinking of myself alone, I would be happy if your Lordships' House continued unchanged until kingdom come. A House which included elected

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Members might be a less pleasant place in which to work. Perhaps elected and appointed Members will not get on as well with each other as Members of the House do now. However, that does not seem to me to be at the heart of the question. The question, I think, is whether that House will work better than the present one. I believe that it will.
I have to say also that the idea that all appointments can be made by an independent commission is completely misguided. The commission can indeed appoint Members who sit as Independents. However, this House is a political House; it is and it always has been. In fact, some 70 per cent of its present Members take a party Whip. The House could not operate without party structure, party leaders, the Whips' offices, the usual channels. A non-political House, however high-minded, however intelligent, however wise its Members, would be totally chaotic.
There is of course a role for Independents here. I very much want them to remain. However, they are indeed the icing on our cake. Cake is, of course, much nicer with icing oil it; and it is a better House with the Independents here. But without the cake there can be no icing, and most of us, I am afraid, have to be the cake. I simply do not see how the commission can choose those who come here to play a political role.
The commission can and should exercise a veto over political appointments. It should be able to reject nominees who have, for example, spent years living abroad as tax exiles, or who have been offered a place in your Lordships' House as a reward for making their seat in the House of Commons available for someone else. The commission cannot, I believe, tell a party, "We are going to choose X, Y and Z as your representatives in the second Chamber". Indeed, if it could, that would mean one House of Parliament being elected by an electorate of eight, nine or 10 people. That I regard as a totally incredible idea. No commission can or should have that power. It is the quango to end all quangos, as the Speaker said yesterday. So, without elections, we shall end up with a House most of whose members will continue to be appointed through the patronage of party leaders. I believe that that will not do.
Nor do I support some of the other proposals raised in debate. I totally reject the idea of appointment through election by professional or other interest groups. That is, I believe, a travesty of democracy. The British Government in fact created such a system in Hong Kong some years ago—the functional constituencies. Mr Patten tried to democratise it. The Chinese Government, however, liked it and restored it. So now one has the functional constituencies, the bankers, with the votes cast by the directors of the banks and not by the employees.
Indirect election is perhaps less objectionable but it leads to the election of people to represent the interests of the members of the local or regional councils which elected them rather than of the people who live there. I believe that in a non-federal country such as ours it is far better to have direct than indirect elections.
The arguments about the cost of an elected House are greatly exaggerated. For one thing membership could and should be much less than the suggested
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figure of 600. On a 50:50 or a 60:40 split, a House of 300 would leave plenty of room for both independent and political members. It is absurd, frankly, to suggest that elected members of the second Chamber should get the same office allowances as MPs when it is quite clear that their office responsibilities would be far less.
We have been offered an historic chance to—
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but will he just take a moment to explain to the House how their responsibilities would be far less? My understanding is that if we had only 150 elected members they would have hundreds of thousands of constituents whom they would represent here and that their workload to cover the work that we do in this place would be very considerable indeed.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, it is in my view perfectly clear that the great amount of social work that Members of Parliament now do in their local bases will continue to be done by them. Members of the second Chamber would be required to deal with constituency work only if someone in their constituency brought up a matter that was a direct responsibility of the second Chamber. I think that it is entirely clear that there would be nothing like the workload for Members of a second Chamber that there is for constituency MPs who are known to their constituents as a channel through which to make complaints or ask for assistance.
We have been offered an historic chance to play a constitutional role which I believe is truly needed. That role is to check abuse of executive powers. We cannot do that if, whenever we challenge the Government, they reply, "They do not count. They are not elected". If noble Lords do not think that the Government will make that reply, I suggest that they read the speech made yesterday in the Commons by Tony Wright.
We cannot do the job that needs to be done unless at least half the Members of the House are elected. That means elected by a system under which the seats are broadly proportional to the votes, and in which voters have the chance to choose between members of a party rather than simply voting for a single party list.
For all too obvious reasons, the Government do not want to see greater legitimacy for the House. If we reject the chance of democratic elections, the Government will use that as an excuse for going no further. Many noble Lords plainly would like that. However, if we are seen to reject democracy, we will end up increasingly as an irrelevant and ineffective body. My Lords, the choice is yours.
11 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, when I was last outside the Chamber, I overheard two Peers looking forward to the wind-ups this evening: they called it the Tom and Derry show.
I do not know about the rest of the House, but my heart sank when I looked at the list of speakers yesterday afternoon. For me, rather like other anoraks

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in this House, the veterans of such debates such as the noble Lords, Lord Desai and Lord Richard, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and many others, it felt like "Groundhog Day"—again and again, another debate on the House of Lords. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, said that it was like a Roman orgy. That is the only time that I have ever wanted to be more like the noble Lord.
My noble friend Lord Higgins, among others, remarked on the huge gulf that exists between this House and another place. The noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, who had carefully read the debate in another place yesterday, as I had, also remarked on the differences. Sometimes it appeared as though they were talking Serbo-Croat, we were speaking Mandarin and there were no interpreters in sight.
For all that, the debate has been far better and more interesting than I had feared. There have been some rich comic moments. It has largely been devoid of sentiment and rancour, although not without some passion. The debate had just a hint of a personal interest in the subject from almost all noble Lords.
I have two impressions of the debate. First, it is clear to me from the past two days that this House is going to vote overwhelmingly for an appointed House. Secondly, I have something to say to the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip as a word of advice and perhaps even a warning, based on what I have heard of the view of most Members of this House about the general awfulness of elections. His regional assemblies Bill? No chance. He can forget about that right now. It might do better if it were on appointed assemblies.
It has also been notable that many Peers have changed their minds over the course of the debate during the past few years. Everyone in the debate has rightly praised the interim report from the Joint Committee, and I too join the congratulations to my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon, all other noble Lords involved and those who spoke.
Reform of the House of Lords is a good soundbite. But it is not all quite so easy as it seemed on that glad confident morning in the lost world of the 1990s, when the Labour Party conference roared its approval and Mr Blair derided this House as an "affront to democracy". Then we were promised a more modern, more representative, more democratic House. It has not quite worked out that way, has it? Perhaps the Government never really wanted democracy in the first place.
Of course, in 1999 there was a short-term political aim, which was to cull the numbers of independent and opposition Peers. I suspect that there was a hope on the side of getting away with creating something almost unique in the world, a fully appointed Chamber, at the mercy of executive patronage. In 1999, both Houses, if they wished to, could have voted for that. We could have voted for what many in this debate now say they want: we could have created an appointed House by supporting the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington. But neither House did that. They did not do so because those of us who were here then, while
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willing to see the passing of an hereditary peerage that had served Parliament well for more than seven centuries, wanted something better in its place than a weakened House that was in hock to prime ministerial patronage.
I still hope for something better, but we will not get there by piecemeal solutions, minor tinkering and simply hoping that we can go on as we are. Unless further reform comes in a Bill which runs far beyond composition and which entrenches the role and powers of this House, enhances its authority and puts safeguards on the misuse of patronage, I fear that the role and authority that so many here want for this House will never come.
Let us face it: the Prime Minister has no interest in a stronger Parliament. The question that we all have to ask ourselves was implicit in the powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Richard: do we ourselves want a stronger Parliament? The noble Lord spoke of the moral highground that this House won in 1969 when it voted for reform and another place rejected it. He said how ironic and damaging it would be if the reverse were to happen now. The noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, among many others, told us, in a striking speech, how far another place was now abased before the power of the executive. Parliament, I fear, will find no salvation in another place.
So where do we go now? First, I believe that we should hold firm to principles to which most of us in this House agree, whatever our differences about composition. They came up time and again in our debate and bear repeating. The executive is too strong and Parliament is too weak. We need a stronger Parliament and a stronger House that is able to exercise its authority and work with another place in holding the executive to account. We should accept no reduction in the powers of this House. We should seek more influence over secondary legislation. We will abide no manipulation of our working procedures for the convenience of any government. We want forms of membership that provide a significant degree of independence from party Whips, an independent element that is strong enough to place its stamp on the House, iron safeguards against abuse of government patronage and, of course, no domination by any one party. There is a consensus in this House and outside it for those objectives.
Of course there are differences about the nature of what some call "legitimacy" and others "authority" and how they are conferred. That debate has marked discussions on this House since before Mr Asquith's government laid out their aspirations for democracy in the preamble to the 1911 Act. "Aspirations for democracy"—do noble Lords remember that?
I share the view of a number of noble Lords who have spoken. In the 21st century, authority flows from election in a way that it can from no other source. That is why I believe that it should be part of any further reform; that is not because I do not care for this place but because I do.
If we vote against reform involving election and Members of another place lean towards it, we need not imagine what will be said by them on the question of

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authority. We will hear it soon enough—the next time that we exercise our judgment and vote against a Bill of Mr Blunkett's, which I hope we will do in the next few months. He will not just denounce us as unelected; he will rail against us as a House which is not only unelected but which has shown that it has no intention of ever being elected or shifted at all.
For all that, as I said earlier, it is clear to me that this House is going to vote for appointment, and that view must be respected. It is a serious view and that course has been recommended by many noble Lords—so many that I shall not mention them all, although we know who they are. There are a lot of them, and they are serious people. That list should be treated with respect.
Whatever the verdict of another place, I hope that the Joint Committee will pursue that option. However, I do not agree with those who say that election is dangerous and may lead this House to challenge the primacy of another place. That argument was dealt with magisterially by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. She said that the authority of another place rests with the other place—with how it behaves, what it does and how well it does it. That is true for them and it is true for us. Authority has ebbed and flowed between the Houses across the centuries, and it may well do so again.
With reform, our authority and performance may put another place increasingly on its mettle. But is that not the point? Is that not a reason to advocate reform and not to slink away? Let us listen to my noble friends Lord Crickhowell and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. My noble friend Lord Crickhowell said that he would be more militant if elected. My noble friend Lord Forsyth said that he behaved differently now as an appointed Member of this House. I preferred the old Forsyth. There are of course examples of unelected second chambers around the world that work; there are also examples of elected second chambers that work—and work without provoking constitutional catastrophe. Almost every argument in this debate can be turned the other way.
However, appointment is not without its technical problems. In 1998–99, my noble friend Lord Kingsland and I worked out proposals for how an independent appointments commission might work in practice. It was not easy. I am not at all certain that we overcame all the problems; nor has all the ingenuity of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, been able to resolve them.
I was much taken by the argument of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. But what would appointment for terms mean for those here now? Would new Members come in for 12 or 15 years, while existing Members would remain here for the rest of their lives? Would the noble Lord, Lord Alli—I choose him simply because he is a relatively young Member in this House—watch generation after generation of newly appointed MLs march to the Dispatch Box to take the oath and leave after their terms? That would be the ultimate definition of "grandfather's rights".
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There are also those who want every Member of this House to be elected. That, too, is a fair position. For myself, I fear that the House would lose much if it lost the independent voices on the Cross Benches; nor do I believe that we could dispense lightly with the interventions of the right reverend Prelates. And I do not salivate, as does the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, at the prospect of a supreme court outside Parliament. All that needs careful study. Therefore, I welcome the fact that the Joint Committee intends to proceed to study the place of the judiciary and the faiths.
But the committee should look at an all-elected option, too, as, like it or not, it is a view widely held outside this House. It should work out what such a House would look like. Again, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, said that we know what an appointed House looks like but few of us know what an elected House looks like—the constituencies, modes of election, forms of representation, terms of office and the like. That is one problem that could arise when we conic to a vote on 4th February.
Over 12 months ago, a few weeks after the Government's White Paper was published, the Shadow Cabinet came out with its proposal. We saw great merit in preserving a significant element of non-party voices—the noble and gallant Lords, diplomats, academics, civil servants and so on. But we concluded that if we were to have elected Peers at all, then all Members of the political House should be elected. Those Members should be buttressed by long terms— perhaps 15 years rather than the 12 years suggested by the Joint Committee—possibly with no re-election.
I also believe, unlike the Joint Committee, that we could function with a House with far fewer politicians than is the case today. Even if we numbered 300, we would still be one of the largest second Chambers in the world. However, largely for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, and others, we uncompromisingly rejected a hybrid model in which some political Peers would be elected and some not.
Turning to the other options in the Joint Committee report, I wholly reject Option 3—in effect, Mr Blair's 80/20 hybrid idea. Even the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, with that blunt candour that the House appreciates so well, has now publicly accepted that that plan is seen as "nonsense".
I also find it hard to understand the case made by Mr Robin Cook and others for a hybrid House — Options 5, 6 or 7 of the Joint Committee report—in which the public are allowed to elect some of our political Members but, presumably because it is all rather grubby and difficult, others must be appointed. If election is so good, why should the public not elect all our political Members? If it is bad, why elect any at all? On the other hand, perhaps Mr Robin Cook hopes for a nice appointment on the red leather Benches when he retires. Perhaps, like the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, he will fall in love with the place as well.
Some say people would not turn out to vote. I think they would if they believed that this House counted. Some say election would deter men and women of

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distinction, people such as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, who in his amusing speech wanted root and branch reform of everything except himself. Last Thursday the noble Lord wrote a piece in The Times modestly entitled, "You could not elect someone better than me". I worry about that. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, was harsher today than I would be, but the qualities that we see in ourselves, the superiority that some have claimed over those tainted with the stain of the ballot box, and the perfection of the system of appointment are not always so apparent to others, particularly outside this House.
In the past few years many new Members have come into the House, some very different from those who were here before 1999. We have even received a self-selected cadre of people's Peers. Many feared that would mean change and decline, but in a remarkable way all have become assimilated to the place. They have joined in our work in the same spirit as those we lost. In all humility, are we so sure that no elected Peer could absorb the spirit of the place and do our job just as the new Members since 1999 have done? The assumption that runs through the vast majority of speeches made in the debate is that they could not. I am not so sure.
No doubt many of us wish that all this uncertainty would go away. I think I am right in saying that all of us believe that another place is crying out for radical reform. It needs an infusion of the independence of mind and the ability to legislate of this House. Perhaps that is the way it was once, to quote countless former Members of another place who rose and spoke to criticise the House of Commons as it is currently.
Here, the Government have succeeded in ending the automatic right of hereditary Peers to sit in this place. That was a giant step. From their perspective the Government can take pride in that. However, as I said in 1998, once constitutional boundary stones are uprooted none of us can know where they will settle again. Is not this debate proof of that?
After the vote on 4th February, we must consider what follows next. I expect that the Joint Committee will want to press on with its work. I believe that it should consider more than one option, including elections. I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor might agree with that. If so, I promise him that we on this side will work with the noble and learned Lord and his colleagues in the search for an achievable consensus. That may not be achieved in the next few months. I think we should be realistic about that; it will take time. But it is surely worth working for. Otherwise, as the caravan moves on we risk subsiding again into relative obscurity, just as we were in the past. That is no fate for this House. Surely, none of us wants that. In the past 10 years, this House has moved forward while another place has continued to subside. We must not allow that situation to be reversed.
11.18 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg): My Lords, I join all noble Lords who have expressed their thanks to the Joint Committee, which is chaired by the right honourable Jack Cunningham, and of which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, is the vice-chairman. The time occupied by the Joint Committee's deliberations has been well spent. A period for reflection concentrates minds wonderfully, not only in the committee but elsewhere in both Houses.
In a debate of over two days with close to 100 speakers, I cannot refer to every contribution, but shall concentrate on the main themes. Plainly, the dominant view of this House expressed over the past two days is in favour of an all-appointed House. However, within each of the parties, there is no common view. Free votes reflect that reality. For example, it has been well noted that on the Liberal Democrat Benches, Members as distinguished as the noble Lords, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, and Lord Phillips of Sudbury, favour an all appointed House, contrary to their own Front Bench.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that I have never seen myself as Darth Vader. In fact, some of my noble friends on these Benches have said to me—and the noble Lords, Lord Rodgers and Lord Phillips, might well agree—that, on the contrary, they see me rather as Obi-Wan Kenobi and feel the "force" of my mission in this debate to save us from the parliamentary disaster of hybridity, about which their Front Bench is so extraordinarily sanguine. It is not of course for me to claim any of these associations; nor do I.
Despite disagreement within the parties, however, there is a consensus that the House's main role should continue to be as a revising, scrutinising and deliberative assembly with the power to delay, but not to seek to veto, legislation; that the House of Commons should retain its role as the pre-eminent Chamber; and that the test for any Government should continue to be whether it commands the support of the majority in another place. The Government's ultimate objective is to secure a second Chamber that is broadly representative of the Britain of today, a Chamber which will complement the other place by reinforcing Parliament's ability to conduct scrutiny and hold the executive to account; that has a composition distinctive from the House of Commons, neither as a rival nor a pale imitation of it, that is not dominated by the political parties either collectively or singly; that brings to its deliberations distinctive expertise and experience; and which will increase the respect of the public for Parliament because of the distinctive value that it adds.
All the options for composition put forward in the Joint Committee's report need to be judged against those objectives. As has been mentioned, I said in a radio interview a couple of weeks ago that I thought that opinion on this question was polarising around the wholly appointed and the wholly elected options. The debate of the past two days has tended to reinforce that view.

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The option that has gained most support among your Lordships is to continue with a wholly appointed House.
Some noble Lords rightly made short shrift of the argument that part elected, part appointed does not matter because this House has always been hybrid; that is, appointed and hereditary Peers are not the same. This argument was not well taken. Although appointed and hereditary Peers are not the same, they have one characteristic in common: they are not elected by the people. Therefore, they provide no basis for justifying a hybrid House of a wholly different character, one divided between appointed and elected.
The dynamics of a House divided among appointed and elected Peers has to be considered distinctly. But, I first summarise the arguments made against a wholly or substantially elected House. Such a House would change the character of this House for ever. It would be a House of equal legitimacy to the House of Commons, since it would be elected. The rationale for the conventions by which this House came to accept that it is subordinate to the House of Commons, as the sole elected Chamber, would be gone for ever. The arguments go further: to assert that this House would remain content with its present powers unchanged after acquiring elective legitimacy equal to the House of Commons is simply to deny the inevitable dynamics of two elected Chambers whose interaction is conditioned by conventions.
As a matter of history, it was the Royal Commission of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, which allowed the electoral genie out of his lamp. So, unsurprisingly, the noble Lord yesterday declared that he continued to favour the compromise of a hybrid House. Once out of the lamp, however, the electoral genie could not immediately be pushed back in. The Government, I acknowledge, in their White Paper saw a necessity to concede to the genie a 20 per cent lease of life. That was an attempted compromise that failed and can now be put aside. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, can now also put that option aside. Apart from that, I agreed with the whole of his devastating speech.
We have since had time for reflection, but once the genie was out of his lamp, there were those who wanted him to fly high. They claimed that a 50/50 outcome around an imaginary centre of gravity could take the trick. But they must acknowledge that 50/50 would be only a staging post in what my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside yesterday called an "inexorable dynamic", leading, as I would say, towards a wholly elected House.
So the true issue for today is: all appointed or all elected? As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, tellingly declared, "Let us not compromise our Parliament". The noble Lord, Lord Butler, said that we should not split differences on an issue of this kind. I agree with both of them, adding that we must now proceed to make the true choice.
Another place should presumably also observe that if this House becomes wholly elected, there will be no reason why a Prime Minister should choose the
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Cabinet from the House of Commons alone—leaving aside the appointments that can only be made here, of course, the Lord Chancellor and the Leader. A Prime Minister would be as free to choose his Cabinet from this House as from another place.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord give way?
The Lord Chancellor: No, my Lords, I shall not. I have a long way to go and a long debate to which to reply.
Elected Peers would be as representative of the electorate as today's MPs and would claim the same prominence and representative entitlements in their constituencies as MPs enjoy today, not to mention equal pay, financial benefits and support services. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, that all that would be highly divisive.
On the other hand, the arguments for a wholly appointed House were that it would enable this House to retain its attractiveness to those who were expert and distinguished across the broadest range of experience outside politics. The composition of this House does bring a unique mix of expertise to bear on the critical evaluation of legislation—businessmen, farmers, lawyers, academics, scientists, faith leaders, doctors, nurses, journalists, trade unionists, former civil servants and Cabinet Ministers, local government leaders and heads of the Armed Services, to name but some.
A number of noble Lords asserted that more and more MPs appear to be drawn from a single class—a class of professional politicians, it was said, without a deep hinterland of employment experience behind them. If I may say so, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester cautioned us wisely to abstain from being overly self-regarding and unduly critical of the qualities of another place. That was a feature of some of yesterday's speeches. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on that.
In my view, the elected Chamber is the heart of our democracy, the politically supreme Chamber, and is in touch with the people in a direct way that we are not. MPs know intimately, in a way that we do not, the daily problems of their constituents as victims of crime, antisocial behaviour, intimidation, discrimination, debt or family breakdown. They know about social exclusion in a direct way that we do not.
So the two Houses complement one another. An appointed House, chosen in accordance with criteria that will make it more representative of the nation as a whole, can add real value to the high value that the House of Commons itself brings. So I see nothing illegitimate about an appointed second Chamber, subordinate to the elected Chamber, bringing huge collective experience, to the benefit of Parliament as a whole, but not seeking to rival the House of Commons by being equally representative of the electorate. It is a working servant, not a rival, of the other elected place, to which by convention it defers.

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Above all, an appointed House would not threaten the pre-eminence of the House of Commons. Arguments about whether a more recently elected second Chamber should have the power to defy the first or whether a proportionally elected chamber would be more legitimate than one elected on a first-past-the-post system simply would not arise. The House would be free, and able, to make its views known and would have the authority deriving from the quality of its composition to command attention, but it would not have the power to challenge the elected Chamber. The conventions under which we presently operate would continue to work. There would be no need to think about putting the relationship between the Houses on to a statutory footing. There would be no danger of gridlock.
Those arguments address properly the question of what the second Chamber is for and how best its composition should serve that purpose. The only question mark against it is legitimacy. But we do not, in this country, maintain that the only legitimate route to public office is election. We do not, for example, elect our judges. It is generally agreed that their independence would be hopelessly compromised, if they were to be elected and subject to continuous populist pressure. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, yesterday listed a broad range of appointments that are legitimate, though not elected, not least among them those in government, in the Civil Service. In this country, we are pragmatic about our constitutional arrangements. We support what works. This House works because, through its unique composition, it adds value that another place does not replicate.
All the options between all-appointed and all-elected have been more or less criticised for producing a hybrid House. Such a House has been described in earlier debates as a "nonsense". The critical question is whether, in a hybrid House, we could continue as a House of Peers, in which we would regard each other as equals, when those who were elected could and inevitably would claim in debate greater legitimacy for their views and, equally inevitably, would have dramatically better terms and conditions than those appointed. In her splendid contribution yesterday, the noble Baroness, Lady Knight of Collingtree, characteristically denounced the unworkability of,
"a fish-and-fowl, half-and-half House".—[Official Report, 21/1/03; col. 667.]
Each of the hybridity options is an attempt to mix a pragmatic and a theoretical basis for the House, a mix that does not work in practice because hybridity cannot work. For pragmatic reasons, there is a wish to retain a significant appointed element. That is seen as the best way of ensuring that the House retains a large number of expert and independent Members, rooted in their outside interests and free of the party machines. At the same time, there is unease about the status of the House if it contained no elected Members, even though those who came through the elected route would be less well suited to the role that they would like the House to continue to fulfil. My own opinion is that any of those options would prove itself to be a
836
transitional option, leading eventually to a wholly elected House. So, I repeat the real question: wholly appointed or wholly elected?
If it was the purpose of the debate to come up with a consensual solution, it was doomed from the outset to fail. But it was not. The purpose was for all who wished to speak to set out their views on the best way forward in the light of the Joint Committee's report. In the past two days, we have given the issues a thorough airing. I am sure that all your Lordships, many of whom have listened attentively to the whole—or almost the whole—debate, will now depart and consider carefully which option or options—only one, I hope—they might be able to support, when we come to our votes next month.
I have not sought to conceal that I believe the true choice to be between an all-appointed and an all-elected House. I personally on this free vote will be voting alongside those who have declared that they will vote for all-appointed and against every other option.
We pride ourselves in this House on listening to the arguments and then making up our minds. On this subject, par excellence, this is our historic duty. What is needed is not a fudged centre of gravity around a half-way house, around a hybrid House, an unstable evanescent compromise, but a long-lasting settlement for the future of this House which will preserve, not prejudice, the enduring stability of our long-lived Parliament.
11.36 p.m.
Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, the debate which we have enjoyed during the past two days has been fascinating and revealing beyond my wildest expectations. It is customary for Members making such speeches at this stage in the debate to pay tribute to the extraordinary quality of everything that has been said. I refrain from doing that because I take account of the warning given by my noble friend Lord Selborne against repeating the litany of our strengths. None the less, it has been fascinating to hear the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor making such a forceful and persuasive presentation of a view that is wholly out of line with that presented by his colleagues in the Cabinet and in another place. That in itself is a remarkable tribute to the splendid eccentricity of this House.
To hear my noble friend Lord Strathclyde making an elegant presentation of a case with which he knows the bulk of his supporters lack sympathy or enthusiasm was another striking insight.
Finally, I say with regret that to hear the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, who was one of my colleagues on the Joint Committee, describing this debate as "profoundly depressing" and making, if I may say so, a rather graceless and hectoring speech, made me wonder whether he might not be seeking re-selection in an elected House. There was something alien about its tone.
I refrain from further comment. I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate. I thank them for their tribute to the Joint Committee, of which

837
I am no more than a spokesman. I thank the Government for having made the debates in both Houses, and the votes that are to come, possible in response to our recommendations. I am sure that all members of the Joint Committee in this House will join me in expressing our appreciation of the illuminating, if not unanimous, advice we have received to guide us in our further deliberations.
The advice that we have received on the questions has been outstanding, particularly that from the noble Lord, Lord Desai. However, it does not diminish the need for us to find real genius to answer the questions. Perhaps I may be allowed to comment on one question. It is that which we considered least of all—indeed, scarcely at all—and which we took as part of the acquis communautaire of this establishment—the agreed common ground—as to the fate of the remaining hereditary Peers.
In what I said in my opening remarks, and in what others detected in the Joint Committee's report, almost nothing was said about the future of the surviving hereditary Peers because we had taken it as part of the "done deal" of the Weatherill/Cranborne transaction. Events have moved on since then and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, drew the attention of the House to a passage in the speech by the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. I hope I may be forgiven for repeating it:
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"As Convenor, I am extremely dependent on—indeed, I could not function without—the willing and totally voluntary assistance of a number of Cross-Bench hereditary Peers in discharging my responsibilities … Departure of all the remaining hereditaries in one go would leave a very, very considerable gap indeed—a gap that could affect for some time the ability of the new House to perform as well as does the present one. It would be perverse if stage two were to end in a debasement of the present capability of the House to carry out its roles and functions".—[Official Report, 21/1/03; col. 589.]
The same point was referred to by our noble friend Lord Elton. I hope that in one way or another the Joint Committee and both Houses may be able to handle that issue in such a way as to be able to reassure my noble friend Lord Elton and others that there may be some considerable time before they have to begin contemplating their demobilisation leave. That emerges—to my surprise, I hope—as something like common ground from a debate which has illuminated the issues but has not found much other common ground. On that basis, I commend the Motion to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Hereford Markets Bill [H.L.]

  Nottingham City Council Bill [H.L.]
  Presented and read a first time.
  House adjourned at eighteen minutes before midnight.

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