Sitting of 11 June 2003

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

  PRIVATE BUSINESS
  TRANSAS GROUP BILL (By Order)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time on Wednesday 18 June.

Oral Answers to Questions
  INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
  The Minister of State was asked—
  INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

    HIV/AIDS (South Africa)
    Mr. Peter Pike: What discussions the Department has had with representatives of the South African Government about tackling HIV/AIDS in South Africa. [118377]
    The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Hilary Benn): Officials from the Department's Pretoria office hold regular discussions with their South African counterparts about the problems of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Helping to tackle HIV/AIDS is one of our main priorities in the country, and we have recently approved a new £30 million programme.
    Mr. Pike: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his new position. As I am sure he knows, many people in South Africa believe that the true number of people with HIV/AIDS is well above the known, published figure, which is itself high. Many in the country also believe that the link between HIV and AIDS is not yet fully established, which makes our task of trying to help and to tackle this appalling problem even more difficult. What can we do to make such people face up to the issue and tackle it head on?
    Hilary Benn: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. Let me also take this opportunity to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) for the integrity, commitment and passion with which she led the Department for six years. The esteem in which the Department is held in the House and across the globe owes a great deal to her achievements, and we are very grateful to her for all that she has done.
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    My hon. Friend is right to mention the difficulties created by attitudes to HIV/AIDS in some quarters in South Africa, which are preventing an effective response to the problem. According to our best estimate, about 5 million people in South Africa are currently infected with HIV—one person in nine—although there have been changes in recent months, not least following last year's court ruling that pregnant women should have access to neverapine. That has now been implemented.
    I agree with my hon. Friend that we must work continuously with the South African Government in responding to the challenge, and that is what we are seeking to do. There is a good plan on paper, and we must provide support, along with other donors, so that it can be delivered in reality.
    Alistair Burt: Let me also welcome the Minister to his post, and wish him well.
    I was in South Africa with the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) in South Africa very recently. We visited Khayelitsha in Cape Town, which has grown from nothing to an area with a population of 1.2 million since 1985. We heard about the work of a woman dealing with child abuse—and its obvious consequences, including sexually transmitted diseases—in a desperately overworked clinic. Will the Minister ensure that the Department's money is spent on supporting such clinics at the grass roots, so that the message about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases reaches those in the greatest need in South Africa? Sometimes those people are away from the public eye and away from the established clinics. Work needs to be done to help those who are moving into shanty towns: that is where the need may be greatest.
    Hilary Benn: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of ensuring that the message reaches all levels of society, especially those that are the hardest to reach. We are working on a national and provincial programme, in partnership with the South African Government and other organisations. Evidence elsewhere in Africa—Uganda being the best-known example—shows what can be done through a concerted effort by the Government and all parts of society to convey the message about the steps people can take to protect themselves, which in the long run is the most effective thing we can do to reduce this terrible scourge in South Africa, and indeed throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
    Helen Jackson: I welcome my hon. Friend to his post. Does he agree that women play a key role when it comes to dealing with HIV/AIDS in South Africa and other countries? They can convey their knowledge of the illness to children, in the family and in schools. Can the Department take that into account, through its relationship with the Government and at other levels?
    Hilary Benn: As my hon. Friend says, it is important to work with all parts of society but particularly with women, given their important role in the family. The court judgment that I mentioned, allowing access to antiretrovirals for pregnant women, will be widely welcomed.

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    As my hon. Friend knows, an important part of the Department's work wherever we are to be found in the world involves working with women and giving them more opportunities to take control of their lives. Their contribution will also be important to the tackling of HIV/AIDS in South Africa and elsewhere.

    Ethiopia
    Mr. David Heath: If he will make a statement on humanitarian aid to Ethiopia. [118378]
    The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Hilary Benn): The humanitarian situation in Ethiopia continues to cause serious concern, with 12.5 million people affected. High levels of malnutrition are reported in parts of the southern, Afar and Somali regions because of problems with the allocation and targeting of aid, and limited capacity to deliver medical supplies and food to those in need. DFID has provided £48.3 million since the start of 2002, and we are now focusing effort on improving delivery of support on the ground.
    Mr. Heath: I warmly welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new position.
    I do not want to emulate the language of Sir Bob Geldof, but is it not appalling that 14 million people are suffering from drought, 12.5 million need food support and 2 million have HIV/AIDS? Apart from the immediate support that we can offer, is there not a need to deal with the structural problems of Ethiopia, which means providing fair prices for its principal commodity, coffee, and fair access to the markets of the west? What are the Government doing to achieve that?
    Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman is right about the situation in Ethiopia, although it needs to be said that, despite the serious concern about the situation there, we have not seen a repetition of the famine of 1984. Despite the difficulties that there have existed until now in getting support in, particularly from the European Union, which was an issue that Bob Geldof raised, that aid is now going in, although there are problems with supplementary feeding for those who are suffering from acute malnutrition.
    The hon. Gentleman is right. There is a perennial problem in Ethiopia and, as well as dealing with the immediate humanitarian need, all of us must focus our efforts on trying to solve the longer-term problem. The Department is trying to do that through its programme in Ethiopia, but the hon. Gentleman is right that the biggest single step that we could take to help poor people in poor countries is to open trade, particularly agricultural trade. That is why the talks in Cancun in September will be so important.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: I welcome my hon. Friend back to DFID.
    I congratulate my hon. Friend and the Department on their contribution to the present crisis in Ethiopia but will he and his colleagues seek to influence the European
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    Union towards preparing a strategy for long-term sustainable development, so that the problems in Ethiopia do not simply recur?
    Hilary Benn: That is part of the programme that we are seeking to undertake. All donors who are working with the Government of Ethiopia have a responsibility to deal not just with the short-term but with the long-term problems. That will require a concerted effort. As I say, it is central feature of DFID's country assistance plan for Ethiopia, which was published in March.
    Mr. Laurence Robertson: I congratulate the Government on the aid that they have provided to Ethiopia, but when I spoke to the Ethiopian ambassador just a few minutes ago, he told me that about 30 per cent. of the aid that has been pledged across the world has not yet reached Ethiopia. Will the Minister do what he can to speed up the delivery of that aid to Ethiopia? He is right to talk about achieving food security on a long-term basis in Ethiopia but, as he will appreciate, that country has a problem not of water shortage but of water management: irrigation systems are essential if it is to avoid famine.
    Hilary Benn: As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, water management is a key issue for the future of the country. I assure him that we will continue to keep a very close eye on that and to ensure that the aid that has been promised is delivered. According to the World Food Programme, food needs for the remainder of 2003 are about 90 per cent. Covered, if all the pledges are confirmed—that is the crucial point. That is why we need to maintain the pressure. We will look to other countries to help to cover the remaining gap. The UK has provided the £48 million to which I referred earlier.
    Mr. Andy Reed: I visited coffee farmers in Ethiopia a few weeks ago. The collapse in commodity prices has had an enormous impact on them and their livelihoods. It is true—I hope that the Minister will be able to do much more—that the target has not been reached; there is a 30 per cent. shortfall. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will do his best to ensure that not just this country but the international partners reach that target. Will he assure me that water management will become a key aspect of the Government's policy in Ethiopia because, as the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) said, it is a question not of water shortage but of what is done with the water that is already there?
    Hilary Benn: Indeed, and it is precisely for the reason that my hon. Friend outlines that a significant part of DFID's programme is devoted, so far as water management is concerned, to making sure that countries have in place the structures and systems to manage water effectively. It is a question of making supply available in parts of a country where there are difficulties, but in the long term it is even more important to ensure that Governments have the structures and systems in place to provide and maintain water, to replenish the system and to ensure that investment continues to be made in wells and other supply methods that have been put in place so that the problem can be dealt with in the long term.
    Mr. Peter Luff: It is my pleasure, on behalf of the official Opposition, to welcome the hon. Gentleman back to the Department for his first Question Time since his rebirth there; I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) will have more to say about that later, if the opportunity arises.
    On humanitarian aid in Ethiopia, does the Minister recall the words of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in Africa at the end of May? He said:
    "The EU undoubtedly has to do better on the delivery front."
    The Minister has been reminded of the words of Bob Geldof, who described the response of the EU as "pathetic and appalling". But does he remember that Bob Geldof was then slapped down by Glenys Kinnock, who speaks for Labour on international development in the European Parliament, for being "unhelpful and misinformed"? Who does the Minister think is correct: the Chief Secretary and Bob Geldof, or Mrs. Kinnock? And will he assure the House that the food supplies that are so desperately needed by the 12 million starving Ethiopians will reach them, and quickly?
    Hilary Benn: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words on my appointment. I am not sure that the conversation between those esteemed individuals is one with which I should necessarily join in, but what I will say is that everybody recognises that there have been delays in the provision of aid by the European Community. However, it has pledged 465,000 metric tonnes—a substantial amount and about a third of the total requirement—which is now beginning to come through. The reports that we have received demonstrate that the situation is improving, but the hon. Gentleman is entirely right: we need to maintain vigilance and pressure to ensure that the promised aid is delivered, and that the reform process in the EU, on which both sides of the House are in agreement, is carried forward so that we can deal with these problems more effectively in future.

    Drinking Water
    Mr. Jim Cunningham: If he will make a statement on the efforts being made in co-operation with the international community to increase the availability of clean water in the developing world. [118379]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Ms Sally Keeble): One in five people currently lacks access to clean water worldwide. My Department is spending £87 million on bilateral programmes, focusing on improving water management and health education. We are also providing at least £40 million for multilateral initiatives to increase access to water.
    Mr. Cunningham: Given the Government's commitment to humanitarian aid for Iraq, can the Minister tell me whether there is a time scale for the delivery of fresh water?
    Ms Keeble: We have taken substantial steps, which my hon. Friend will be aware of, to ensure that we
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    provide aid to Iraq. Extensive work, supported by us, has been undertaken to ensure that the power supplies, which were a real problem, were reconnected so that the people could get water. I believe that the water supplies are now getting back to pre-war levels.
    John Barrett: Given that 6,000 children die every day because of poor water supplies and poor sanitary conditions, and given that this week, reports from Oxfam, Care, and Save the Children have highlighted problems with the water supply to the children of Iraq, what will DFID do to deliver for those children?
    Ms Keeble: I have already set out what we have done about the water supplies, and the steps that have been taken to reconnect the power to ensure that such supplies get through. We have also provided aid to several non-governmental organisations, including, I believe, UNICEF, to meet some of the needs of the children in Iraq. The hon. Gentleman is entirely right to point out the connection between water and child health—a problem that affects not only children in Iraq but children world wide. Some 2 million children die each year, quite unnecessarily, from diarrhoea-related diseases, which are almost entirely due to poor water supplies. It is not just about the supply and management of water; hygiene and sanitation needs are absolutely crucial. That is one reason why we are putting so much effort into tackling the need to improve sanitation levels, as well as into tackling the worldwide shortage of clean water.
    Ann McKechin: My hon. Friend will be aware that the World Trade Organisation is currently discussing the liberalisation of services, including water distribution and supply. Does she agree that any negotiations must ensure that sufficient safeguards are in place to protect supplies to the poorest people in the world, and that the WTO should now adopt the millennium development goals?
    Ms Keeble: My hon. Friend has set out some important issues in her question. It is entirely for Governments of individual countries to decide how to manage and organise their water supplies. Figures so far show that, by and large, virtually all the investment in water in the developing countries—about 68 per cent.—is in the public sector. Despite fears about the consequence of the liberalisation of water, comparatively little investment by the private sector in the developed world has taken place. When investment has been made, it has tended to be in management rather than infrastructure, about which most people are concerned. The main concern of the Department in increasing access to water is precisely to ensure that the most poor and marginalised people gain access to it. I can give my hon. Friend my complete assurance on that.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: The Minister will be aware that Malawi has plenty of water, but needs to improve its water management. On the other hand, throughout all sub-Saharan Africa, local villages and small communities need that help. Is it not a fact that DFID is not too happy about supplying funds to some of the non-governmental organisations working in

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    those areas, because the sums that they are looking for are too small? I understand, for example, that £2 million to help an education, AIDS and water programme was considered too little.
    Ms Keeble: I am surprised at the hon. Gentleman's remarks. If he wants to make specific points, I would be grateful if he would make them afterwards and I shall ensure that they are followed up. The Department's approach to water deals extensively with management and education programmes rather than infrastructure. Our experience would go against what the hon. Gentleman says. I shall ensure that he receives a detailed reply to any specific points that he wants to raise.
    Mrs. Caroline Spelman: It should come as no surprise to the Minister that hon. Members on both sides of the House are drawing her attention to the chronic problems of securing a clean water supply in Iraq. At the International Development Committee yesterday, non-governmental organisations warned that there are already clear signs that cholera, dysentery and diarrhoea are on the increase. According to the former Secretary of State, the Government ignored the need to keep basic humanitarian services running when they were planning for the war. Will the Department now launch an inquiry into why preparations were so poor?
    Ms Keeble: The issue of the Department's preparations has been covered many times. The hon. Lady knows how much finance was provided to NGOs specifically to prepare for the eventualities of war. She also knows that much of the money went into making preparations to deal with refugees and displaced people, though, mercifully, that problem has not arisen. We are aware of several cases of cholera and other diseases on the basis of information supplied by the World Health Organisation and other organisations operating on the ground. We examine such information closely. Without wanting to sound complacent, we are aware of the health problems that can arise at this time of year in Iraq, and we are taking stringent steps to improve services, particularly water. I understand that both power and water supplies are more or less back to the position that obtained before the war.

    Cuba
    Mr. Ben Chapman: If he will make a statement on aid to Cuba. [118380]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Ms Sally Keeble): DFID does not have a bilateral programme in Cuba. There is a £120,000 small grants scheme, administered by the Foreign Office, which supports civil society projects. The EU currently provides $12 million of aid, and the Commission is reconsidering its engagement with Cuba, in the light of the human rights crisis there.
    Mr. Ben Chapman: While much progress needs to be made in Cuba, not least in the field of human rights, the island has started on the road to reform. I do not condone recent events, but demonstrable progress has been made in the past 20 years. Would not that be built
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    on by facilitating entry to Cotonou and by the development of a bilateral aid programme? Is it an instance in which the broad policy of aid for the poorest prevents us from helping a country that is making progress in development?
    Ms Keeble: I acknowledge the work that my hon. Friend has done to promote relations between this country and Cuba. However, the issue—especially in relation to the EU—rests very much with Cuba itself. As he may know, it was Cuba that withdrew its application to join the African, Caribbean and Pacific group. We are currently supporting civil society, and the Cuba initiative deals with non-aid relations. It is for Cuba to deal with the human rights abuses and to reapply, perhaps at some future stage, to join the ACP group.
    Mr. Gary Streeter: Would not the most important thing that we could do to help the people of Cuba be to use our newfound influence with the American Administration to persuade them to drop their trade and diplomatic embargo on that island—an embargo that should now be consigned to the dustbin of history? Would not that be the best way to ensure that the people of Cuba could look forward to the prosperity and stability that they so richly deserve?
    Ms Keeble: If we are talking about aid from Europe, it is important that Cuba deals with the human rights abuses. A major project involving EU technical assistance is coming up on 26 June and, at present, the focus is very much on that. It would be a major step towards tackling some of the financial and banking issues on the island. One would hope that once the situation improved, the country could rejoin the international development community.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. There is too much noise in the Chamber. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I thank all those who cheered. Perhaps they will now be quiet.

    Occupied Territories
    Huw Irranca-Davies: If he will make a statement on humanitarian needs in the west bank and Gaza. [118381]
    The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Hilary Benn): Two and a half years of violence and closure have caused rapid economic and social decline. Many families have endured long periods without work or income, and many Palestinians now depend on food aid for their daily survival. Humanitarian assistance is helping to alleviate immediate suffering, but only a just political settlement will resolve the situation.
    Huw Irranca-Davies: I thank the Minister for that answer, but one of the areas that is often overlooked is the issue of the new security fence. A World Bank report has shown that as many as 10,000 people have already been affected by disruption to water supplies and agricultural land. Some 95,000 Palestinians will be affected by the time the wall is completed. Will he please

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    turn his attention to the humanitarian needs of those people who, once again, face dispossession in their own land?
    Hilary Benn: My hon. Friend is right. The building of the fence is a symptom of the problem. It is estimated that it will leave 290,000 Palestinians on the wrong side and will cut communities in two and separate people from their livelihoods. That reinforces the point that I made earlier: only a political solution will deal with the problems that the Palestinian people are experiencing.
    Mrs. Caroline Spelman: I welcome the Minister back to this brief, but I wish to place on record the fact that we would have liked the Secretary of State to be a Member of this House. However, I congratulate him on his promotion.
    The real progress now being made on the road map for peace in the middle east has taken Ariel Sharon and Abu Mazen to positions that their supporters might never have imagined being achieved. We need to support those who share the common ground of wanting peace against the extremists on both sides who would like to derail it. Does the Minister agree that the Government must do all in their power to buttress that delicate process, and that our aid must strengthen the negotiators' fragile position?
    Hilary Benn: I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words—not least because they give me the opportunity to congratulate my noble Friend Baroness Amos on her much-deserved appointment to the post of Secretary of State. We are looking forward to working with her. I agree with the hon. Lady when she talks about the importance of supporting the road map process. As I am sure she will recognise, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has played a very significant role in supporting that work, as has President Bush.

  The Prime Minister was asked—
  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Angela Watkinson: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 11 June.
    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.
    Angela Watkinson: Will the Prime Minister confirm that the Minister for Europe spoke for the Government when he said that the prospect of a deal with Spain over the sovereignty of Gibraltar was simply zero?
    The Prime Minister: The Minister certainly did speak for the Government. However, what he actually said was that there could be no question of any deal going through without the consent of the people of Gibraltar.
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    We have always made that clear. That remains the position. I have said it myself, and the Minister for Europe said it too.
    Laura Moffatt: Change is often difficult to handle, for our constituents and for those delivering public services. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the deal struck between West Sussex county council and Crawley borough council to deliver a stunning new secondary school and new facilities for leisure in my constituency represents the sort of change that will deliver our public services?
    The Prime Minister: The investment in my hon. Friend's constituency is matched by investment across the whole country. In terms of capital funding, we as a country are now spending about four or five times what was being spent when this Government came to office. As a result of that, we have the best school results—at primary level, and in GCSEs and A-levels—that the country has ever seen.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: The Chancellor said on Monday that he would wait until next year and then see whether his tests on the euro had been met. Surely the Prime Minister would agree that his policy is now wait and see?
    The Prime Minister: It is, as the Chancellor described, to take the preparations necessary to make sure that Britain is in a position, should the economics be in the right place, to join the single currency.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: So the Prime Minister confirms that the policy is now wait and see. I remind the Prime Minister of what he used to say about the self-same policy. He said that it led to
    "paralysis in the Government—even the big man of the Cabinet cannot get his way. The Government are weak, divided and are being pushed around by their factions."
    So there it is. In his own words, the Prime Minister's policy is weak and uncertain. However, British business needs certainty. Will the Prime Minister now tell us whether his deal with the Chancellor means that next year's Budget will be the last chance of this Parliament to trigger an assessment of the euro?
    The Prime Minister: We set out the measures that will be taken over the next year, and said that we would return to the assessment in the Budget. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer!"] Well, I am absolutely amazed that the right hon. Gentleman should return to the scene of the last Conservative Government, because who was the person creating all the trouble? I thank him for this question—I do not know whether it was planted by my right hon. Friend—as it gives me the opportunity to read out what he was saying at the self-same time. He said:
    "The public is ready to go for Britain repatriating its powers from the EU"—
    I see Opposition Members nodding in agreement—
    "which could eventually mean pulling out."
    That was the right hon. Gentleman's policy then. The truth is, it is his policy now.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: The only person in this House who has stood on a manifesto to get out of the European Union is the Prime Minister. Having attacked the last Government for their policy of wait and see, it is he who has now adopted the very same policy. His failure to answer the specific question of whether next year will be the last chance to trigger an assessment shows that we will have exactly what the Chancellor foretold six years ago—a running commentary that will damage British business.
    Let me remind the Prime Minister that he used to say that we can have unity without clarity, or clarity without unity, but we cannot have both. Has the Prime Minister at last discovered the third way—no clarity, no unity and no credibility at all?
    The Prime Minister: What we have set out is why the benefits of the single currency are very clear. We have set out the obstacles remaining to British membership, and we have set out a way of removing those obstacles.
    The right hon. Gentleman talks about the evidence for British business. Let me tell him what would be a disaster for British business—withdrawing from the European Union. If he says that that is no longer his policy, perhaps he will explain why he was a member of CAFE—Conservatives Against a Federal Europe—which said:
    "If it is not possible to attain these ends by negotiation, we must withdraw from the European Union".
    He was a member of that organisation, was he not? This is what it says on its website now:
    "Conservatives Against a Federal Europe has closed down and will remain closed while Iain Duncan Smith is leader of the Party."
    In other words, the only reason it has closed down is that the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum. The disaster for British business and Britain is the policy that the right hon. Gentleman actually believes in.
    Hon. Members: More, more!
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Dr. Howard Stoate: My right hon. Friend will be aware that issues such as antisocial behaviour and policing levels are important to communities such as mine. Will he set out his policy on how he will reduce crime and ensure that the police on our beats are increasing in number, not just now but in future?
    The Prime Minister: The most important thing, which is why I hope that the Anti-social Behaviour Bill gets the support of the whole House, is to give the police the powers that they need, and, in particular, to put in place fixed penalty notices for those who commit antisocial behaviour and to support drugs proposals that, in the country's main crime areas, will mean that we have a proper testing facility for all those people who are arrested for the main criminal offences. If they are tested positive, they can then be referred for treatment; if they refuse to take treatment, that can be taken into account when bail is applied for. I hope that the whole House will support those proposals, which will be important in giving the police the powers that they need.
    Mr. Charles Kennedy: As and when the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs conducts its investigation into Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, if the Prime Minister and Alastair Campbell are invited to give oral evidence, will they?
    The Prime Minister: There are two inquiries. One is in relation to the Intelligence and Security Committee, and I met it yesterday and made it clear that we will co-operate in any way at all. In relation to the Foreign Affairs Committee, in accordance with convention, I will not, and nor will officials, attend that Committee. The Foreign Secretary will, as will the permanent secretary to the Foreign Office. That is entirely in line with convention, but I may point out that, by dint of appearing in front of the Select Committee on Liaison, I am the first Prime Minister to have appeared before a Select Committee?
    Mr. Kennedy: Given the massive and understandable interest in all that, if the principal players involved do not appear in the public gaze to give their evidence, will that not simply underscore the view, which has wide support in all parties in the House, that there should be an independent judicial review?
    The Prime Minister: The proposal that the Foreign Secretary and the permanent secretary should go to the Foreign Affairs Committee is entirely in line with convention and practice. Again, let me say to the right hon. Gentleman in relation to the allegations that have been made that, as I pointed out in the House last week, there is not a shred of truth in any allegation—
    Mr. Kennedy: I am not making any.
    The Prime Minister: He could have fooled me. He has been making a few allegations. The fact is that there is no truth in them whatsoever. If there is any evidence to justify those allegations, it should be brought forward.
    Dr. Brian Iddon: When the Berlin wall was constructed, the international community protested vigorously. Why have its protests been so muted about the building by the Israelis of a 217-mile-long wall on Palestinian soil? Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Israelis are really serious about peace they should stop building that wall now?
    The Prime Minister: It is precisely because we want to see the situation change, including removing security measures like that, that we are engaged in discussion with the Israelis and the Palestinians to try to ensure progress. I am sure that my hon. Friend would also agree that it is important, as part of that peace process, that the Israelis be given proper guarantees about their security. It will be very difficult to make progress in that area, but I am sure that the only way to do so is the way that President Bush described, so that we have an end point, which is the two-state solution, and a series of measures in respect of both security and then lifting the restrictions to enable law-abiding Palestinians—the vast majority—to go about their daily business. However, that has to be negotiated. I understand the concerns

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    about the security fence, but the only way to make sure that those things are off the agenda is to get a proper peace process moving forward.
    Mrs. Patsy Calton: Does the Prime Minister believe that the risk of terrorism in the UK is greater or less since the war with Iraq?
    The Prime Minister: I think that there is a risk of terrorism the whole time, irrespective of the war in Iraq. The best evidence and proof of that is where some of the most recent appalling terrorist acts have taken place. As far as I am aware, Morocco was not a great supporter of the war in Iraq, but it was subjected to brutal terrorist assaults. There is no way in which those terrorists can be appeased. Trials of people connected with al-Qaeda are happening all over Europe, in countries that supported the United States of America and in countries that did not. By hiding away at the back on any of these issues, we are not going to stop the terrorists; we shall only stop them when we confront them and defeat them.
    Mr. Mark Todd: On Monday, among other events, a new block of school buildings opened in Swadlincote, in my constituency. More than half the schools in my area have received capital investment over the last six years—compared with the misery of Tory rule. However, in a fast-growing area such as South Derbyshire, which is attracting more and more people to it, we desperately need to sustain that investment. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that that is what we can expect?
    The Prime Minister: The investment will be sustained, as a result of the measures that the Government have put in place in the comprehensive spending review. In Derbyshire, for example, capital spending has increased from about £5 million to well over £60 million. That is precisely the difference between a Labour Government who believe in investing in education and a Conservative party with a policy of 20 per cent. cuts across the board.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: Given the Prime Minister's answer to his hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd), perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell us how many teachers are facing redundancy right now?
    The Prime Minister: According to the Department for Education and Skills, there are about 500 net redundancies. We are looking carefully at each of those, however, to see where the local education authority or the Department can help. I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that there are about 25,000 more teachers in place than when we came into office.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: I remind the Prime Minister that the figures that he has given are from only the third of schools that have declared their position so far. The estimates show that at least 800 teachers face the sack as a direct result of the funding crisis. When the Secretary of State for Education and Skills said that
    "the overall level of redundancies…will be of the same order as in past years"—[Official Report, 22 May 2003; Vol. 405, c. 1136.]—
    will the Prime Minister confirm that he was not telling the truth?
    The Prime Minister: I will not confirm that at all. It is correct that every year there are teachers who are made redundant, and the estimates that I have given are the correct estimates. Of course it is true that certain schools in certain parts of the country have faced real funding problems, partly as a result of increasing costs, partly as a result of the changing of the formula. However, overall the position is as I have described, which is that there has been a very large increase in school funding.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: Increases in national insurance, problems over the funding—it is down to the Government. And the Education Secretary was simply not telling the truth. The reality is that the figures for redundancies are that, this year, three times as many will face the sack as last year. So the Education Secretary, as ever, first tried to blame schools, and then when that failed he tried to blame councils. Surely he now has only himself to blame.
    Six years ago the Prime Minister promised to make education his first priority. Now the Government are sacking teachers. Should not the Prime Minister immediately get to the Dispatch Box and apologise to parents, teachers and governors for this, his crisis?
    The Prime Minister: First, as I say, it is important to get the issue in context. Actually, it is a small minority of the schools that are affected but some have been affected seriously. We are looking, with their local education authorities and those schools, at what we can do to help. The right hon. Gentleman says that we have let down the education system over the past few years, but let me remind him that, by contrast with the situation that we inherited in 1997, we have not just 25,000 more teachers but 80,000 more support staff. We have the best primary school results that we have ever had, the best GCSE and A-level results and the largest ever capital programme.
    It is true that, as a result of the pressures on costs, not least the one-off payment on pensions, there have been real difficulties for some schools, but the answer to that cannot be the right hon. Gentleman's policy of opposing the extra investment in schools and imposing a 20 per cent. cut across the board. Perhaps he can tell us how such a policy could possibly help any of the schools in financial difficulties.
    Margaret Moran: While visiting new mums at the new maternity ward at the Luton and Dunstable hospital on Friday, we were delighted to hear of an extra £1.6 million Government funding for a new operating theatre. However, is my right hon. Friend aware that Luton has one of the highest levels of child mortality and heart disease and inherited one of the lowest levels of funding? Will he, when he reviews the fair funding formula, ensure that it is fair, and in the meantime, encourage his health colleagues to dish out some extra dosh so that we can more rapidly tackle the legacy of health deprivation and underfunding that we inherited from the Tory Government?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend will know that the primary care trust had a real-terms increase of, I think, almost 8 per cent. in its funding, but obviously there is still a lot more to do, which is why that substantial funding increase is to be maintained in

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    future years. But it is worth pointing out that her story of improved facilities at her local hospital is replicated in many constituencies in the country, and that whatever the difficulties, both on out-patient waiting and in-patient waiting, all the indicators are in better shape than in 1997. In the cardiac and cancer fields in particular, there has been massive improvement, and overall the NHS is performing more operations and seeing more people than ever before. There is a long way to go, but it is simply not true to say that the NHS is not making progress.
    Mr. Edward Leigh: Does the Prime Minister agree with the assertion that the fundamental moral and legal justification for the invasion of Iraq was the possession by that country of weapons of mass destruction, posing an imminent threat to its neighbours, and that whilst regime change is very welcome, of itself it is not justification for the invasion of a sovereign country?
    The Prime Minister: It is precisely for those reasons that we set them out in United Nations resolution 1441 and that we passed the resolution in the House. I have to say to the hon. Gentleman, as I have said to other hon. Members, that the Iraq survey group, which is the body charged with looking into the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is starting its work now; surely the best way of dealing with this is to wait until it has accumulated the evidence and then we can discuss and debate it.
    Mr. Brian Jenkins: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has delivered many extra resources to education, and in my part of the world—in Staffordshire and specifically in Tamworth—we no longer have leaking roofs or outdoor toilets and conditions have been far, far better. However, will he explain to the parents of children in Staffordshire why Staffordshire is still at the bottom of the education funding league and why teachers are still having to be made redundant? If we sent the cash, what is the problem?
    The Prime Minister: I think that my hon. Friend would allow that we have increased investment in Staffordshire very considerably. He knows the debates that will always continue about the proper way in which the grant is distributed, and I also know that there have been particular problems in particular schools in Staffordshire. Again, I think that he would agree with me that when taken as a whole over the past few years, there has been a massive increase in capital and revenue spending in Staffordshire. We will obviously look at the problems to which he has drawn attention, but it is worth pointing out that in Staffordshire—and elsewhere—as a result of that investment, we have had record school results throughout the county.
    Mr. Andrew Mitchell: Can the Prime Minister explain to the House what damage is being done to Britain from remaining outside the euro?
    The Prime Minister: If the economic conditions were met and Britain did not go into the euro, Monday's
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    assessment spelled out very clearly what the damage would be in terms of lost trade, lost investment and lost living standards for our consumers. But, of course, the economic conditions have to be met.
    Mr. Andrew Dismore: May I remind my right hon. Friend that hundreds of people are killed needlessly every year in accidents at work and that many others have their lives claimed by transport disasters? The public are outraged by the failure of the justice system to bring those responsible before the courts. I welcome the Home Secretary's recent announcement of a draft corporate manslaughter Bill. Will my right hon. Friend do all that he can to ensure that that Bill becomes law as quickly as possible so that we can create a powerful incentive for big business to take health and safety as seriously as the need to make profits?
    The Prime Minister: That is important, obviously, and the Government will publish proposals for legislation by the end of the year. It is important to point out that the proposals are directed at the corporations themselves, which is the area of weakness in the current law. The criminal liability of individual directors will not be targeted by the proposals. However, I must tell my hon. Friend that I know the strength of feeling on the issue, which is why it is important that the proposals be brought forward.
    Andrew Selous: Does the Prime Minister understand the widespread concern expressed to me by a number of my constituents about the need for equal treatment of parents in access disputes? Is he aware that some fathers have had to go back to court 30 or 40 times to have straightforward access agreements honoured? Will he ensure that the new powers to deal with the issue that were proposed to the Lord Chancellor by the advisory committee some 16 months ago are implemented without delay?
    The Prime Minister: I will certainly look into the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. Obviously, the primary responsibility is on the courts to decide on access, but certain proposals were put to the Lord Chancellor for change. I shall find out the precise state of those proposals now and write to the hon. Gentleman about that.
    Martin Linton: Has my right hon. Friend read the Treasury documents on the euro—[Laughter]—that say that if we had joined the euro in 1999, unemployment would now be higher but that if we ruled out joining for all time, we would lose out on trade and growth benefits valued at £3 billion a year? Does he agree that he was therefore right to reject the policies of both the Liberal Democrats and the official Opposition?
    The Prime Minister: I do agree with my hon. Friend. Leaving aside the Liberal Democrats' policy, it would be absolutely disastrous for this country to be in the

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    "never" position of the Conservatives. They are now in the position that even if it were shown to be in the interests of the country to join in terms of jobs, stability, industry and trade, they would refuse, as a matter of dogma, to do so. That is not a serious policy for government.
    Annabelle Ewing: The Prime Minister will be aware, with respect to the European constitution, that there are current proposals to endow, by constitution, exclusive competence to the EU on fisheries. Have the UK Government written to the EU to oppose the proposals? If they have not done that, why did Scotland's First Minister tell the Scottish Parliament two weeks ago that they had?
    The Prime Minister: We have had a common fisheries policy for many years, as the hon. Lady knows. Although some say that it would be good for Britain to withdraw from it, I do not believe so. There are real problems with the depletion of fishing stocks, which have to be addressed by the policy proposals that are being put forward. The common fisheries policy has always been decided in Europe.
    Mr. Ronnie Campbell: A recent report by the European Central Bank called for a comprehensive review of the state-funded health service. It also called for a move towards an insurance-based health service. Is that not another case of bureaucrats—unelected, faceless—telling member states what to do and what not to do?
    The Prime Minister: I am not entirely familiar with the report to which my hon. Friend draws attention, but I can assure him that the health spending of this Government is well protected thanks to the proposals in the comprehensive spending review. It is just as well to point out that our aim is to get this country up to the level of European health spending. So I think it would be rather odd if people were to suggest that high levels of health spending were somehow inconsistent with membership of the single currency.
    Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory: The Chancellor has reaffirmed that there will be a referendum on the euro eventually. Why then is the Prime Minister ruling out in advance a referendum on the European constitution, whatever the constitutional changes or implications may be? What is the logic or sense in that?
    The Prime Minister: What I am saying is that the Convention does not in fact put forward proposals that fundamentally alter the constitution of this country. [Interruption.] No, they do not. What I have also said, which is true, is that people like the right hon. Gentleman, who as a matter of fact is advocating a referendum irrespective of the outcome of the intergovernmental conference, see that—he has to be honest about this—as the first stage to getting Britain out of the European Union.
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    Let me read what the right hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the European Convention—is that not right?—said just a few weeks ago:
    "The very nature of the European Union is incompatible with democracy and accountability".
    He also said that it was time for Britain to step back and become an "associate" member of the EU. He nods. That is the true agenda of a very large part of the Conservative party today. They should have the honesty to come out and say that that is their position. Perhaps then we could have an honest debate in this country about the European Union.
    Barbara Follett: Will my right hon. Friend give priority to an issue that is making the lives of some of my constituents a misery, especially on these long, hot summer nights? Despite a very welcome decrease in overall crime in Stevenage, youth nuisance is still causing a great deal of trouble.
    The Prime Minister: I am pleased that my hon. Friend says that crime overall has fallen. Measures on antisocial behaviour will be taken forward by the legislation that we will introduce in the House. I do not know whether these apply in Stevenage, but last year, for the first time, we ran throughout the country summer schemes for young people. As a result, the number of robberies declined by more than 30 per cent. in the areas where the schemes applied. It is important that this year we extend those schemes as far as possible throughout the country.
    Sir Michael Spicer: With respect to the European Convention, how can something that sets up a single foreign policy, a single defence policy, a single economic policy, a single social policy, a single police force, a single judiciary and a single Convention be a tidying-up exercise?
    The Prime Minister: Because it does not: that is the central point. Foreign and defence policy is going to remain with member Governments. It is not going to be transferred to the European Commission. It will still be dealt with by unanimity. Therefore the case that somehow we are about to hand over British foreign policy or defence to the European Union is simply not true.
    The truth about the hon. Gentleman's position is that he too is someone who wants to renegotiate Britain's essential membership of the European Union. That is right—he nods. At least he is honest about it. Let us be quite clear about this. The reason why some Opposition Members want a referendum on the Convention is not that they seriously believe that it is about to give away foreign and defence policy, but that they want to paralyse the European Union as the first step to getting this country out of Europe. That is the true argument. Labour Members are going to join in that argument with relish, because it is not patriotic. It is not in the British national interest; it is a betrayal of the British national interest.
    Mr. Dai Havard: Given that it is the season of reshuffles—[HON. MEMBERS: "Give him a job."] Not in the running. However, I would like to ask a question about the future position of the Secretary of State for Wales. There is a lot of talk about retaining a voice for Wales in the Cabinet, and I would like an assurance that that will be
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    done by keeping an independent Secretary of State in any reshuffle. Who has the job is a different matter—that is for the Prime Minister—but the process is more important than the person.
    The Prime Minister: I am afraid that in relation to all those questions my hon. Friend will have to wait.

Occupational Pensions
12.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Andrew Smith)rose—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must leave the Chamber quietly.
Mr. Smith: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With permission, I wish to make a statement on action that the Government propose to take on occupational pensions following the Green Paper.
Our proposals build on the historic strength of the UK's voluntary system—the partnership between Government, individuals and employers which has seen pensioner incomes rise faster than average earnings over the past 20 years, but which now faces real challenges as people are living longer at a time when birth rates are falling. Although the UK is well placed compared with other countries to deal with that, still more needs to be done. People need to be able to plan for their retirement and make informed choices about how and when to save, and how long they work so that they get the income in retirement that they expect. We will make further announcements in due course on the suite of Sandler products; a better deal for those who take their state pension later; and on the proposals outlined in the tax simplification review.
Today, however, I want to focus on occupational pensions because they are under pressure now and we need to take early action. I am therefore setting out a balanced package of reform that better focuses regulation on things that people are most worried about so that we can cut burdens on business and increase member confidence in pensions. We will strengthen the protection of pension rights that people have built up to make sure that rights promised are rights delivered. Getting that balance right means taking a tough look at areas where regulation has grown out of all proportion. It also means taking action to deal with the demands of an increasingly dynamic economy in which companies are taken over and people move between jobs more frequently.
In February, we tackled the challenge of two-tier work forces to extend protection of pension rights to new starts working in many previously public enterprises. However, it must be wrong that solely because of a takeover workers in any private company have their rights scrapped. That is why I can announce that we are extending the protection of pensions provided by TUPE—the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981—to private sector transfers. We will insist that where pension rights have been established, the new employer will need to match employee contributions up to 6 per cent to a stakeholder pension or offer an equivalent alternative. That is a fair adjustment. It builds confidence in pensions and reflects company best practice. To provide security for a more mobile work force, we will help people build up rights in short-stay jobs by enabling them for the first time to take with them the full pension that they have built up to another scheme.
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I am clear that in a voluntary system, such protection of rights must be balanced with measures that make it easier for companies to set up and run good schemes for their employees. As I have stressed before,
"Pensions simplification has to be at the heart of any strategy to encourage greater pension provision."—[Official Report, 11 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 1053.]
In a voluntary system we must be mindful of the costs for providers. Over the years regulation has built up, often for the best intentions, into a layer cake of complexity. That cannot be right. If we are to make the voluntary system work more effectively, we need to make sure that regulation is well targeted and effective.
That is why I can confirm today that we will be driving ahead with measures to cut regulations and costs on companies running schemes. We will replace the minimum funding requirement with scheme-specific funding arrangements. We will simplify and consolidate legislation in key areas to make it easier to administer pension schemes and, taking account of consultation responses, we will go further than we signalled in the Green Paper. We will radically reform section 67 of the Pensions Act 1995 to give schemes more freedom to adapt to changing circumstances without closing or even having to wind up. I am also taking forward a raft of specific simplification measures, such as streamlining the requirements on member-nominated trustees, improving dispute procedures, ending the requirement to offer additional voluntary contributions, and introducing less bureaucratic reporting arrangements.
I have received submissions from the Pickering review and others that we should abolish compulsory inflation indexation because the requirements are too onerous and expensive. Although some important points have been made about the knock-on effects of costs putting schemes at risk, I do not believe that we should do away with indexation. However, guaranteed indexation of 5 per cent. was proposed in 1995, when market long-term expectations of inflation were at 5 per cent. Today, because of the stable macroeconomic environment that this Government have put in place, inflation has been driven down to average just 2.4 per cent. over the years since 1997. That means that under present arrangements, we are effectively forcing purchase of more than full inflation cover, which may be disproportionately expensive.
I therefore propose that the cap on mandatory indexation will now be set at 2.5 per cent., giving schemes and their members more flexibility to agree together on the form of pension that suits them best, easing funding pressures and helping to keep schemes open. I stress that there will be no effect on the value of today's pensioners' rights. It is a measure for future accruals only, to give more freedom to design schemes in the most sensible way. I can tell the House also that we will keep survivors' benefits—the requirement for contracted-out schemes to provide for widows, for example—because making any change here would have a bad effect on women's pension prospects, in particular.
With increased flexibility, we need to make sure that employees' rights are protected without employers winding up their schemes as a result, so I can announce today that we will set up a new, proactive pensions regulator to focus on tackling fraud, bad governance

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and poor administration. It will adopt a more proportionate approach, making sure that members are protected, while reducing burdens on well-run schemes.
Pensions are a voluntary partnership and it is for workers and employers to decide on what type of scheme suits them best. We have seen welcome examples in recent months of employers and trade unions deciding together how best to ensure continuing high quality provision, and we set out in the Green Paper a proposal to require employers to consult scheme members before making changes. I can confirm that, working with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, I will be taking this into effect, requiring consultation to strengthen partnership in pensions.
Examples of good practice are too often overshadowed by cases where employers have gone back on promises, causing anxiety. People also worry about the get-out clause that lets solvent companies which could afford to keep their pension scheme running wind it up with inadequate compensation.
In the cases where firms have done that, it has inflicted untold damage on confidence in the whole system. People worry that other schemes will follow suit. We need to act to make sure that a pension promise made by employers is a pension promise honoured by employers. We will therefore strengthen member protection where solvent employers decide to wind up their pension scheme.
I have placed in the Library draft regulations to apply to schemes that are winding up from today. As from now, trustees will have the power to make solvent employers who choose to wind up their schemes buy out members' accrued rights in full. That will greatly increase security for members of solvent schemes. But there is one further issue that we must tackle.
Sometimes, when firms go bust, the money is not there to meet pension commitments. Recent cases have shown the terrible injustice when that happens, and the public are right to demand action. We should not accept that just because a firm goes out of business workers can find that a pension that they have saved in for all their working lives becomes worth next to nothing.
Our Green Paper set out options for sharing out assets more fairly. Today I can announce that we will change the priority order to give greater weight to those who have been in schemes and making contributions the longest. We will lay draft regulations on that shortly. I hope that the hon. Members for Havant (Mr. Willetts) and for Northavon (Mr. Webb) will welcome the cross-party agreement that I believe that there is on that point.
But we need to go further. Ever since I started looking at this I have asked why, if people expect their holiday provider or motor insurer to be covered if the firm goes bust, there is no cover for something as important as an occupational pension. We will therefore legislate to set up a pension protection fund. That fund will take over the schemes of insolvent companies to ensure not only that pensions in payment are protected, but that those still working can be sure of getting 90 per cent. of what they were promised. It will be paid for by a fixed-rate levy and an additional risk-related premium, which, together with a salary cap, will minimise perverse
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incentives and moral hazard. The fund will be a non-Government body. It will meet its obligations through the power to set and vary the level of charge without recourse to public funds. Taken with the other measures, that is a big extension of pension security, for the first time guaranteeing protection if a company scheme goes bust.
I have always said that my aim is to build a wide and deep consensus in this country that embraces employers, employees and pensioners. This is a balanced package to reduce costs and complexity of regulation, making it easier for employers to run schemes while ensuring that pensions promised are pensions delivered. Many of the proposals will require legislation, which the Government will bring forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.
These measures will protect the pension rights of millions of pensioners and employees throughout Britain and I commend the statement to the House.
Mr. David Willetts: I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests.
I regret that the House has had no opportunity to debate the Government's proposals in their Green Paper last December. We have regularly called for such a debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) pressed the then Minister for Pensions, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), in the days when we had such a Minister, for such a debate, but he was told by the Minister, in his inimitable style:
"Don't be so silly. The Government are committed"—[Official Report, 20 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 58.]—
to a debate on the subject. We have not had a single debate in Government time on pensions for three years. We have had debates in Opposition time and in the House of Lords, but for three years the Government have not come to the House to debate pensions, and that is something that we very much regret. There has been no debate because there has been no policy, and now, of course, there is no Minister for Pensions either. Meanwhile, the crisis in pensions has been getting steadily worse. In fact, since the Secretary of State took on his responsibilities, 41 per cent.—nearly half—of all pension schemes have closed to new members. That will be the judgment on his tenure in office. One of the saddest features of that is manifested in the many invitations to conferences on pensions that pass across my desk. Unlike the Secretary of State, I actually go to them. They have titles like "Effectively Closing and Winding up Pension Schemes", which took place in January at the Park Lane hotel, and "Closing and Winding up Pension Schemes for Solvent and Insolvent Employers", at the Café Royal, London. That is a sad commentary on the state that occupational pensions have reached.
All that we have had from the Government is an endless flurry of activity, while nothing changes. There have been 39 consultations, including Myners, Sandler, Pickering and Turner, targets, reviews and taskforces. Meanwhile, the inexorable process of the collapse of one of our great post-war successes—funded occupational pensions—has carried on apace. That is because of the weight of regulation and taxation that the Government

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have imposed. Why did the Secretary of State say nothing about the problems that the Government have themselves created over the past six years, particularly—I see that the Chancellor has already headed off—the £5 billion a year tax that they imposed on our pension funds? It is no good talking about security now: it was the Government who created the insecurity that is the problem.
Can I ask the Secretary of State for a straight answer on the most basic question of the lot? Does he accept that there is a crisis in British pensions? I am not even asking him to say that it is all the Government's fault, but does he recognise that there is a problem? Will he acknowledge that we face nothing less than a crisis? The "Crisis? What crisis?" mentality that we have had from the Government for the past six years has made a bad situation worse.
Does the Secretary of State recognise the overwhelming consensus from all the leading organisations that responded to his Green Paper that the Government need to reform state benefits? Many of those organisations, including Age Concern, Help the Aged, the National Association of Pension Funds, the National Consumers Council, said that unless the spread of means-tested benefits is tackled, people will have no incentive to save for their retirement. Why, yet again, did the Secretary of State say nothing about that fundamental need to reform state benefits?
Why, also, did we hear nothing about the need to improve incentives to save? There is no point in imposing extra obligations unless people can see that they will be better off for saving. The statement contained nothing about incentives. Instead, we heard a range of specific proposals, some of which we can welcome. Some are old favourites that have been around for a long time. The Secretary of State got a cheer from his Benches for his proposals on TUPE, which were in the Green Paper—not the December 2002 Green Paper, but the December 1998 Green Paper, in which the Government said that they plan to place new regulations before Parliament in 1999. Four years later, he gets a cheer for something that he proposed five years ago.
Of course, we welcome the proposals for a new regulator. We also welcome the practical proposals on section 67 of the 1995 Act. However, let me ask the Secretary of State about his very significant proposal of a much tougher regime for wind-ups if a company is solvent. I understand the desire that lies behind it—to make life better for those many workers who are understandably angry about the loss of their pensions when the company remains viable—but does he accept that there are two significant dangers? First, there is a danger that companies will stop accruing pension benefits to existing members of their schemes in order to reduce the cost that he is imposing. Can he assure the House that he has considered that risk and is confident that companies will not now close their schemes for existing members as well? There is a danger that the proposal will worsen that risk.
Secondly, what about the risk of financial engineering? I heard about that when I was in America last week, studying schemes there. It means that companies shed their pension responsibilities to a different legal entity, like a snake shedding its skin, and emerge as a new company without pensions. They are
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happy for the former legal entity to claim pension insurance, which the Secretary of State announced today. We need to be confident that he has tackled those significant risks in his proposals.
In fact, the Secretary of State identified the risks in the Green Paper and I invite him to assure hon. Members that he remains confident that he has covered them. The Green Paper stated:
"We can see arguments for and against"—
the Secretary of State was in his "for and against" period, which has lasted a long time—
"increasing the amount that employers are required to put into the pension fund if they choose to wind up the scheme. The Government will be guided by the aim of not increasing the overall burden on employers providing pensions."
Can he assure hon. Members that he stands by that aim, which he included in the Green Paper only last December?
The Secretary of State also mentioned pension insurance. Again, I can understand its appeal in principle. However, in practice, there are serious objections. Have the Government considered them? What about the danger of good schemes paying for bad schemes? The Secretary of State gave no indication of the cost of the premiums. What about the danger of that cost being another burden on companies that provide occupational pensions? What about the danger of the insurer going bust? Is the Secretary of State confident that that will not happen and that the Government will not have to bail out the insurer?
Those objections are not made on the spur of the moment. I have the back catalogue of the Government's consideration of pension issues over the past six years. A document from September 2000, entitled "Security for Occupational Pensions—A consultation document" states that
"insurance brings with it the clear moral hazard of some employers neglecting their obligations in the knowledge that, in the event of their insolvency, their pension liabilities will still be met."
That was the Government's view in September 2000. How and why has the Secretary of State changed his mind?
What about the Myners review? Paul Myners, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's favourite adviser on pensions, who continues to have an advisory role on institutional investment, produced a report in March 2001. It stated on insurance that
"it would represent an additional cost for providers of defined benefit schemes—at times, possibly a considerable one—and as such would create additional incentives for employers to move away from such schemes. This is not an effective way of meeting the objective of protecting members of defined benefit pension schemes."
The report continued that
"it would be much more difficult for pension funds to take a long-term view, as any short-term investment underperformance would be likely to lead to a rise in their premium…The review therefore did not recommend insurance as a way forward."
The Government have regularly commissioned reports on the subject and every one has concluded that the risks of insurance outweigh the benefits. Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that danger?

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The Secretary of State has announced not planning for success, reform of benefits or new incentives to save, but insurance for failure. Someone's house is burning down, yet the Secretary of State is not sending for the fire brigade, but saying that he will consult about the need for better fire insurance in future. That is not good enough given the scale of the crisis in our occupational pensions.
Mr. Smith: The opening remarks of the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) somewhat misjudged the mood of the House, because as I was speaking, I could see several Conservative Members nodding assent to my arguments and proposals.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned debates in the House. On how many Opposition days have the Conservatives chosen to debate pensions? We debated them last Thursday, thanks to the Liberal Democrats. The key matter is the remedy for the insecurity that people are experiencing about their occupational pensions. The hon. Gentleman presented no alternative remedy for that. Again, he dragged out dividend tax credits, yet whenever he is challenged about whether he would reinstate them, he will not make a commitment. What credibility can the public give a party whose members spend all their time attacking a policy but cannot make a pledge to reverse it?
The hon. Gentleman referred to incentives, but the most important incentive that we can currently offer is to rebuild security and confidence in the system. I am sure that he would throw that at me if we had not presented such proposals. We are, of course, addressing the questions that he asked about the technicalities of wind-up and insurance. As I said in the statement, we want to deal with perverse incentives and moral hazard with regard to risk-related premium and the operation of a cap on the eligible pensionable salary. Of course, we shall consult on the implementation of our new proposals on wind-up and the changed priority order.
Conservative Members will make a mistake if they do not seize the opportunity to respond to my challenge to build a consensus between employers, trade unions, individuals, the financial services industry and, as far as possible, between parties in the House. Pension policy and protection is for the long term, and the hon. Gentleman makes a big mistake in not welcoming the insurance proposals, which have been strongly urged upon us, by not only trade union representatives and individuals but the financial services industry and many employers.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether I had considered the overall balance of costs on employers. That is an important question. As I said in the statement, it would be self-defeating if the costs of loading on more protection led people to wind up schemes. We have therefore been careful to produce a balanced package. When the hon. Gentleman has the opportunity to examine the summary regulatory impact assessment, which forms part of the relevant document, he will realise that our best estimate of the overall impact is between zero—a balance of no additional cost—and some £150 million-worth of savings. That comes about because of the extent to which the reduced requirement
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on the mandatory indexation cap offsets the cost of pension protection. Of course, we must consider distribution issues. However, if we examine the matter in the round, and consider not only the savings from our changes to limited price indexation but those from tax simplification—our replacement of the minimum funding requirement with scheme-specific proposals and other simplification measures—our approach to a pressing problem is balanced and sensible.
The country will take from the hon. Gentleman's contribution the single point that the Conservatives have no alternative proposal. He goes around conferences pledging to end contracting-out, thereby denying some £11 billion in income to pension funds. I do not believe that that is the best way in which to secure pension protection. Hon. Members and all the interested parties should come together to forge consensus in order to offer pensioners the protection that they deserve.
Mr. Steve Webb: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement because today's workers are experiencing a crisis of confidence in their pension funds and some of the measures that he has announced will help to alleviate it. We welcome the proposal to crack down on solvent firms that try to wind up underfunded schemes. That is a welcome change.
We also welcome the proposal to give workers who have worked for their company for a long time better pension protection if the firm becomes insolvent. It is immoral that someone can put a lifetime's savings in a pension scheme and find that they have been taken away. As the Secretary of State said, there is all-party support for that. It is therefore all the more regrettable that, six months on from the publication of the Green Paper, no concrete proposals have been published. Can the Secretary of State confirm that he has not yet put on the table exact details of how the proposal is going to work? The longer this process is delayed, when insolvent employers wind up a scheme, the more workers will be vulnerable.
I have a number of concerns about the measures that the Secretary of State has proposed. Can he confirm that he is watering down the protection that future pensioners will get against inflation? Inflation is running at 3.1 per cent. today, which is higher than the 2.5 per cent. protection that company pensions will get in the future. If those circumstances repeat themselves in the future, will every company pensioner in the land see a year-on-year fall in their real living standards? Does this not also mean that the oldest pensioners, after years of falls in their living standards, could yet again be the poor relation?
By far the most substantial announcement today is the proposed pension protection fund. I absolutely sympathise with the Secretary of State's desire to give people security, but there is a real problem here. Insuring pensions is not like insuring holidays or cars. If a holiday firm goes bankrupt, a few hundred pounds of compensation might be required; if a car crashes, a few thousand might be needed; but if a major company pension fund winds up, we might need a few billion. Is the Secretary of State really saying that the insurance scheme will be allowed to borrow billions of pounds—and, if not, will the Government guarantee to stand behind it? If they will not, this could be a cruel

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deception. Workers could find that they have lost not only their jobs but their pensions as well, despite having paid for their insurance. We will look positively at proposals for insurance, provided that they are backed by the Government. Without that backing, this could be another cruel con-trick on the work force.
Mr. Smith: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his positive welcome—for the most part—for our proposals. He put it to us last week that he might be applying for the job of Pensions Minister, and if that was his first interview, perhaps he is making some progress—but it is still a case of "Don't call us, we'll call you." He asked about the timing of the measures. As I said in my statement, as far as the proposals on the wind-up of solvent companies are concerned, we are publishing the regulations today and they will, after consultation and due process, take effect from today. He will understand that that is an essential corollary to bringing in the pension protection fund. Firms will have to meet their obligations in full if they wind up their schemes. We shall be laying the regulations relating to the priority orders shortly.
Yes, of course there will need to be a period between now and when the legislation takes effect in which to set up the pension protection fund. As I said, we will introduce those provisions just as soon as parliamentary time allows. No one is more seized than I am of the importance of getting on with this. To return to a point raised by the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) about a pensions crisis, I have to tell the House that I would not be introducing these wide-ranging radical measures if I did not accept the scale of the challenge, and the scale of anxiety that is afflicting pensioners in this country—[Interruption.] We are taking action, whereas the Conservatives have no alternative remedy to offer.
The hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) asked about inflation protection. As I explained in my statement, the 5 per cent. mandatory cap was brought in at a time when long-term market expectations of inflation were running at 5 per cent. They are now running at 2.5 per cent. This is therefore a reasonable adjustment. To put it in even more commonsense terms, I believe that the person in the street would readily trade some of their inflation protection for the knowledge that they have security for their pension scheme, which they do not have at the moment. People are worried that other firms will go the way that some already have, and that they will lose their pensions altogether. That is why it is so important that the Government act to introduce these proposals.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the analogy of holiday protection and motor insurance, but I think that he actually reinforced my argument. If people can count on the fact that firms providing that kind of insurance will be covered if they go bust, surely it is much more important that we have protection for pensions. Yes, the pension protection fund will have to deal with very large sums of money indeed. I am confident, however, having learned from the American experience—rather than replicating it—that we an make the fund work very successfully here on the basis that I have set out.
Mr. Frank Field: Will the Secretary of State allow me to congratulate him again on having such
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a clear idea of what he wants to do, and on coming before the House and setting out his proposals in less than 10 minutes? If only some of his colleagues could learn from him, our proceedings could advance much more quickly. Does he also accept that, of all the statements that he has made, this is probably the one that our constituents will be following most closely? While they will be interested in his ideas on adding to the superstructure of pension provision, many of them will be concerned about the foundations of pensions—particularly those of their own pensions—that they see collapsing.
May I suggest that, in building a consensus across the House, the Government give some of their own time to discussing the Pensions (Winding-up) Bill, which will come before the House on 20 June? Will the Secretary of State also tell us his ideas for people who will not be covered by anything that he has said today—those of our constituents who have already lost all or part of their pensions? Will he consider putting a levy on the £13 billion in unclaimed assets held by banks and building societies, so that we can deliver justice to that group of workers, as well as planning carefully—as he has outlined today—for any of our other constituents who might find themselves in the same awful pit as those people who have been made to save for more than 40 years and have lost every penny of their savings?
Mr. Smith: I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind opening remarks, and for what I take to be a general welcome for the Government's proposals. As he says, the content of today's statement really means something to our constituents. All hon. Members know that when people see that the pension that they have been paying into—which they assumed would afford them some protection—is not there, they are shocked, horrified and very angry. This touches the lives of our constituents in a very real way, and I am proud that it is this Government who are introducing protection for occupational pension schemes, and protection under the TUPE regulations for transfers within the private sector.
As for the creation of the pension protection fund, it has been a long-standing aspiration of the trade union movement that something such as that could be put in place. In terms of my right hon. Friend's metaphor about foundations, I hope that he and our constituents will see this as a substantial building block for rebuilding confidence. He raised the agonisingly awful issue of people who have already lost their pension entitlements. Nothing would be more cruel than for me to come to the Dispatch Box and raise false hopes about what might happen. If we are legislating for the future, in terms of establishing a pension protection fund, that would apply in the future and not retrospectively.
I have taken note of the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) about orphan assets. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), pointed out in the debate last week that just because those assets are unclaimed does not mean that they do not belong to anyone. She also said, however, that she and I stand ready to meet people and to engage constructively with any sensible proposals on the subject. The experience of

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workers at Allied Steel and Wire and others who have suffered so cruelly shows why it is so necessary that we introduce these protection measures and get on with it.
Mr. Nigel Waterson: Like many hon. Members, I have constituents who have seen their pensions disappear when a company has gone bust. I therefore welcome, on the face of it, what the Secretary of State has said about changing the priority for creditors in such situations. I want to ask him a specific question, however. After the recent scrapping of priority for the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise, exactly which interests will be leapfrogged by the interests of pensioners, and will pensioners really have the full protection that they deserve in such circumstances?
Mr. Smith: There are essentially two aspects to the priority order proposals that we are introducing. This is a sort of interim measure that we can bring into effect quite quickly—because it can be done through regulations—pending the establishment of the pension protection fund. There are two kinds of changes to be made. The first is to give more priority to those who have been contributing to a scheme longer, and are therefore more likely to be those closer to retirement. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead has advocated this proposal in the past. By definition, therefore, there would be a relatively lower priority for those who have not been contributing for so long.
We are also bringing forward the introduction of measures that were expected to take effect in 2007, to alter the balance and place the protection of active members who are contributing to a scheme over the indexation requirements for pensions in payment.
Mr. Derek Wyatt: As my right hon. Friend knows, ASW workers in Sheerness were made redundant last July and their pension funds were put into administration. Although they will be pleased to learn of the protection measures, there will be heavy hearts in Sheerness and Cardiff, for 1,350 have lost their pensions. If my right hon. Friend cannot accept the recommendations of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) in relation to the capping of banks and building societies, will he find another solution? I know of 41 companies in the UK in which the same thing has happened during the last 18 months. Two billion pounds would be needed. That is not much money, and this is a very serious matter. It was a condition of employment for ASW workers that they would have both the jobs and the pensions. They thought that they would receive pensions, but they will not.
Mr. Smith: I understand how my hon. Friend feels, and, more important, I understand how his constituents feel. A number of my own constituents were affected by the Maxwell pensions saga. As I have said, it is because of the seriousness of those people's position that we are introducing the measures that I have described. As I told my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, I stand ready to engage in meetings and to consider any constructive proposals, but I do not want to raise false hopes.
Mr. Paul Goodman: Presumably the Secretary of State agrees that occupational pensions cannot flourish unless the state system is stable. What will the measures that he has announced do to clear up the confusion between what the state second pension seeks to do and what the minimum income guarantee does? A person receiving both the full second state pension and the basic pension will still not be lifted clear of the minimum income guarantee. Does the Secretary of State accept that unless he can solve these serious problems, occupational pensions will not be able to flourish as he wants them to?
Mr. Smith: No, I do not. My statement concerned the specific issue of insecurity affecting occupational pension schemes; but I think that the extension of cover through the state second pension, and what we have done not just in relation to the minimum income guarantee but in introducing the pension credit, will protect those on low incomes and help the important cause of tackling pensioner poverty. I will not take lectures from the Conservatives, who oversaw not only pension mis-selling but the entry of many more pensioners into poverty, and imposed VAT on fuel. They are not in a strong position to lecture us now.
Richard Burden: I welcome much of what my right hon. Friend has announced. It will strike a chord with the employees and deferred pensioners of Kalamazoo in my constituency, whose company has been taken over, split up and finally put into voluntary liquidation. The pension scheme was wound up and today, like many others, the employees stand to lose at least 50 per cent. of their entitlement. I understand what my right hon. Friend said about not raising false hopes, and I applaud his honesty, but I agree with others who have said that we need to consider the issue of retrospection in one way or another. I commend the Bill promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), but if the Secretary of State does not feel able to back it, I nevertheless welcome what he said about talking to people. Let us hope that we achieve some results, because those employees deserve it.
Mr. Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for his welcome for the proposals. As I have said, I stand ready to discuss the issues, although I do not want to raise hopes on any false basis, and I am happy to extend that invitation to my hon. Friend.
Sir Archy Kirkwood: I echo the welcome given by other Members, and I think that the statement will repay careful study. I am also grateful for the Department's positive response to the recent report of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions on this important subject. But the devil is in the detail, and I want to press the Secretary of State on the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) about the insurer of last resort. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in America has turned a $7 billion surplus to a loss of $3 billion or $4 billion in the space of 12 months. If this scheme is to have any credibility, that issue must be dealt with explicitly at the outset.

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I also want to make a bid for some pre-legislative scrutiny, which the Government appear to have set their face against. Action is important, of course, but does the Secretary of State accept that if the devil is in the detail, the House and its Select Committees must have a chance to look at the small print before announcements are made that are vital to all our constituents?
Mr. Smith: I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said about our proposals, and commend the work of the Select Committee. Today we are publishing our responses to its recommendations, which are very helpful.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the insurer of last resort. There could be an additional element of moral hazard if people felt that the Government stood behind such an institution. As for the financial position of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in the United States, of course its balance sheet will have shifted given the swings in the stock market, but it is still 90 per cent. fully funded to meet its obligations. At this stage of the economic cycle, that is not a weak position for such an institution to be in.
The hon. Gentleman asked about pre-legislative scrutiny. We engaged in a lot of consultation, and I detect among the public, as well as in the House, a feeling that we need to get on with introducing legislation—having considered it fully and having scrutinised it in the usual way.
Mrs. Betty Williams: In view of the severe injustice suffered today by workers at Wardles, Bangor in my constituency, I welcome my right hon. Friend's proposals to extend the TUPE regulations. Does that mean that in future all workers who have made pension contributions will be given a guarantee that their pensions cannot be stopped if their firms are taken over?
Mr. Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming my statement, and extend my sympathy to her constituents. Following a takeover and a transfer, no pension to which a worker is entitled can be scrapped. At the very least, the employer would have to match up to 6 per cent. of the employee's contributions. In some cases, that could improve the pensions available.
Miss Julie Kirkbride: Like many other Members, I have constituents whose financial security has collapsed in their retirement years—employees of Kalamazoo and UEF, for instance. I agree with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and the hon. Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) about the need to find a solution for deferred pensioners who have lost security for their old age.
What plans has the Secretary of State for the insuring of company pensions, which I think is a good idea? Will the premiums be paid by the employer, or will the Secretary of State allow the employer to pass the contribution on to the employee, who will also be making pension contributions? Given the fact that his Government increased taxes on pensions by £5 billion in their first year of office back in 1997, why should they
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not share some of the liability that he rather optimistically estimates to amount to about £150 million a year?
Mr. Smith: I am stacking up a lot of meetings today, but I am happy to extend to the hon. Lady the invitation I have already extended to Labour Members to discuss the position of workers in their constituencies. As for the payment of flat-rate risk-related premiums, economists may say that employers always pass on contributions in some way, but we intend the employers to meet the cost. It will, as I have said, be offset by savings made through the reduction of the mandatory cap on price indexation.
Mr. Jon Owen Jones: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt), I have many constituents who were employees of Allied Steel and Wire. While they may gain some comfort from having inspired the statement today, it is cold comfort to know that their experience means that others may not suffer as badly as they have. I plead with the Secretary of State to consider what my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has said and to find some mechanism to help those poor people out.
Mr. Smith: I hear my hon. Friend's pleas, as I have those of other hon. Members. As I have said, I feel for the workers who are affected. Equally, I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept that it would be wrong for me to raise false hopes—but I will engage constructively with sensible suggestions.
Adam Price: As the Government looked into the idea of a pensions insurance system four times and, by the Secretary of State's own admission, in rejecting it on those occasions they got the decision wrong, do they not have a moral responsibility to those at ASW, Blyth and Blyth and other companies? I urge the Secretary of State to look at the experience of the US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which we are led to believe is the template for his proposal. When it was established in 1974, it brought more than 200 companies retrospectively under its provisions. Surely natural justice dictates that rights promised be rights that are also delivered for the workers who have inspired the Government to change their policy.
Mr. Smith: As I said, the legislation has yet to come forward. The insurance fund is yet to be established. Therefore I cannot give the undertaking that the hon. Gentleman is seeking, but I listen carefully to the points that he makes, and will reflect on them.
Mr. Terry Rooney: My right hon. Friend will have cheered millions of people with his announcement, but can he look into the role of the managing trustees and how quickly they bring about the winding-up of insolvency schemes? The money that they take out of schemes is a scandal. Can he consider the way in which European directive 80/987 was put into legislation, because many of today's problems would not exist if the previous Government had met their responsibilities under that directive?
Mr. Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. We intend, through our simplification procedures, to

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speed up the processes, which, as he rightly says, can take too long and consume too many resources. We have detailed proposals to improve dispute resolution procedures. I shall look at the European directive to which he draws my attention.
Mr. Peter Viggers: We have all been shocked by the losses that have been incurred by some individuals and it is right that the Government should deal with the issue, but does the Secretary of State agree that all he has done today is attempt to set out a portfolio for sharing the grief more widely and perhaps more fairly, and to introduce some more regulation? He has done nothing to diminish the size of the crisis over which the Government have presided.
Mr. Smith: I do not accept that, because I believe that our proposals on the protection fund, on wind-up, on TUPE and the other simplification measures will increase security. I believe that that will rebuild confidence in the system and offer the protection that people desperately want. As I have told hon. Members, the thorough analysis is aimed at reducing costs where those can be reduced, so that the overall impact on business will be to reduce costs. At worst, there will be a neutral impact.
Kali Mountford: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement, but can he tell the House more about his plans for the pension regulator? If funds are to be properly managed and not to be misappropriated, thereby avoiding insolvencies, do we not need to know more about the range and depth of the regulator's powers? If my right hon. Friend has not yet considered including pension liberation schemes under the purview of the regulator, can he consider doing so, so that people are not ripped off by those scandalous schemes?
Mr. Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for her welcome. We envisage a much more proactive pensions regulator. The existing regulatory body was given a job under the legislation and has done it well, but with the benefit of experience, it is clear that it has had to be rather too much of a process-driven, check-box regulator. It has not been able to get proactively involved in cases of maladministration, fraud and incompetence. We want the regulator to be much more active, as my hon. Friend advocates. I will consider the points that she makes about pension liberation.
Dr. Vincent Cable: I warmly welcome the proposals on solvent wind-ups. How would that work where the solvent profitable company is a foreign corporation and the British workers are in a separate legal entity? That has been the case with rogue American companies such Parsons Engineering, EMC Corporation in south-west London, and the former Lufthansa subsidiary GlobeGround, which have effectively stolen a substantial part of their employees' pensions, and also charged them the cost of the wind-up. Employees would have no comeback. In those cases and
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others, what happens when the trustees cannot act in the interests of the employees because they are effectively stooges of their management?
Mr. Smith: The best laid plans need to be proofed against abuse by those who ingeniously engineer things fraudulently to avoid their responsibilities. We will look—we will have teams of high-powered lawyers to look—at how we can best safeguard against precisely the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes. I make it clear that foreign-owned companies will not be allowed to escape their obligations in that way, and we will put measures in place to ensure that those responsibilities are met.
David Winnick: Is the position not well illustrated by the case, which I raised at Question Time on Monday, of my constituent who at 57 has lost all his pension rights, as have other employees at the company that has closed in Wolverhampton? Is that not a disgraceful position? Do not people such as my constituent face a totally uncertain future? Will my right hon. Friend therefore think again about whether the position of those who have already lost out, too, should be seriously considered, as many Labour Members have pressed him to do? I trust that he will do precisely that.
Mr. Smith: I share the concerns of my hon. Friend and other hon. Members who have raised pressing and distressing constituency cases, and I have to give him the same answer. I will listen to and meet hon. Members and look at sensible and constructive suggestions, but I am not raising false hopes.
Mr. David Cameron: Will the review of the wind-up of insolvent companies look at the cases—this comes out of a constituency case—in which companies manage to declare the business insolvent but still profit from the sale of the land by separating the ownership of the two? Does the Secretary of State agree that in such cases the members of the pension fund understandably feel very let down?
Mr. Smith: Yes indeed. We will have to introduce protection against engineering designed to circumvent the intent of our proposals.
Mr. Chris Pond: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, particularly the extension of TUPE protection to pension rights. He will be aware that many people feel anxious that they may lose their pension entitlements not only when their firm goes under but when it is taken over. May I ask for an assurance that one element of his proposals—the reduction in compulsory indexation—will not be retrospective, and that that will not affect existing pensioners or the rights already built up in pension funds?
Mr. Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for his welcome for the TUPE proposals. I share his enthusiasm for ensuring that protection is extended to people who are presently very worried about their position. The 6 per cent. match is a fair and reasonable way of settling an issue that our constituents have long been worried about. As I said in my statement, the changes on

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indexation will not be retrospective. They are only for the future, so they will not affect existing pensioners or existing approved rights.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am conscious that we are going into Opposition time, but there are only a few hon. Members standing. There should be only one question and if questions are brief, I will call all Members who are standing.
Mr. Henry Bellingham: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving very short answers. He will be aware that many small firms will welcome at least part of this package, because they obviously want more portable, more flexible pensions for their employees. But how can he guarantee that the new pension protection fund will not turn out to be yet one more burden on businesses, and how will he protect very small businesses?
Mr. Smith: The premiums charged for the protection fund will be risk-related and therefore proportionate to the size and potential liabilities of the business. Our employers taskforce, the membership of which is listed in the document published today, is made up of a very experienced and good team of people, including representatives from small business. I have already asked them specifically to look at how we can better facilitate pension provision by small businesses.
Rob Marris: Today's Government response to the Select Committee report refers to the £13 billion that tax incentives are costing the Government in encouraging people to save for pensions. The amount of money saved for a pension and the vehicle through which it is saved are key to security in retirement, yet there is precious little evidence—including from my right hon. Friend's Department—that tax incentives encourage saving, rather than merely redistributing savings. What research is his Department undertaking into tax incentives for retirement saving and how they might be changed?
Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend makes a good point, and an important conclusion of Ron Sandler's report was that the main effect of incentives is to redistribute saving, rather than to add to the total level. We need to make people more aware of the benefits of long-term saving, and of the existing considerable incentive in the system—my hon. Friend mentioned the £.13 billion—for saving through a pension. That is why informed choice, our information campaign and our work with the employers taskforce to identify and promote good practice in company pension provision are so important.
Mr. David Heath: Scattered across the country, including my constituency, are Maxwell pensioners who suffered first the theft of their pensions and now further reductions in entitlements under the restructured scheme. Do today's proposals contain anything that will help in what is a clearly
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defined special case in which the Government have directly intervened? If not, can the right hon. Gentleman look into the matter and introduce some proposals?
Mr. Smith: As I said earlier, I have Maxwell pensioners in my area and I have met them in my constituency capacity. As I pointed out, today's proposals look to, and provide protection for, the future; I am not holding out the prospect of retrospective effect. Of course, the Maxwell pensioners' situation arises from an agreement made between the trustees and those who were providing funds, superintended by Lord Cuckney. The matter was dealt with explicitly on a scheme-by-scheme basis.
Mr. Neil Turner: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement, the contents of which I welcome, particularly the pension protection fund. He mentioned the problems that we inherited through mis-selling in respect of the state earnings-related pension scheme and private pensions, which hugely undermined public confidence in the pensions industry. Does he agree that the insurance scheme that he referred to will ensure that ordinary people can have full confidence that, when they put money into pension schemes, they will get it back in the form of a pension for the rest of their lives?
Mr. Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is right: when implemented, the proposals will ensure better protection, which is an important reassurance to working people and an important incentive to pension saving.
Mrs. Ann Cryer: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, but I ask his Department regularly to remind women that it is in their interests, regardless of the reliability and generosity of their husband's pension, to build up their own occupational pensions. If widowed, they may have to choose between a lonely old age with a widow's pension, or remarriage and the loss of the widow's pension to which they indirectly contributed through child care.
Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Of course, in addition to what we have already done through the extension of the state second pension and the introduction of the pension credit—measures that themselves greatly advantage women—today's proposals offer further help. In summary, proposals for those who have been in jobs for a short time will disproportionately benefit women, and the simplification of the arrangements for pension splitting on divorce will enable more women to benefit, in pension terms, from their divorce settlement. Moreover, having listened to consultation, we have decided to retain survivors benefits—a decision that is of enormous consequence for women.
Miss Anne Begg: I add my voice to those who have welcomed today's statement. The pension protection fund obviously applies to funds that got into trouble because the employer became insolvent,

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but will it also apply to funds that got into trouble because they were badly run and therefore could not meet their obligations?
Mr. Smith: Where questions of fraud are involved, our proposals will strengthen protection from 90 per cent. to 100 per cent. On cases that do not involve fraud, I shall write to my hon. Friend.
Julie Morgan: I welcome my right hon. Friend's proposals, but I express my deep disappointment that they do not appear to cover the steel workers from Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff and Sheerness, many of whom are my constituents. Will he look at a possible way of helping those people, who invested their life savings in pensions and are now likely to get nothing? Is there any possibility that they might benefit from this legislation if, by the time that it is introduced, their pension fund has not been wound up?
Mr. Smith: I understand how my hon. Friend and her constituents feel about this issue but as I have said, nothing could be crueller than for me to say that this legislation will offer them help when I do not envisage at this stage that it will apply in the way that she advocates. Every hon. Member knows of the difficulties in introducing such proposals and then applying them retrospectively—not the least of which is the very difficult question of where we draw the line. I am afraid that we will always find tragic cases that fall the wrong side of any line that we draw.
Mr. Andrew Miller: The Pensions Act 1995 failed to protect my constituents, who suffered through the scam undertaken by H. H. Robertson. Ministers promised that they would learn lessons from that, and everyone will undoubtedly welcome the fact that it is clear from today's statement that Ministers have indeed done so. However, I want to pursue a point made by my right hon. Friend the
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Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who must have had H. H. Robertson in mind. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is unable to levy orphan funds, he might be able to borrow from them. Doing so would be cheaper than the cost of the benefits that the state has to pay people as a result of fund failure.
Mr. Smith: I hear what my hon. Friend says, and I said that I would engage with sensible suggestions. The prospect of finding money at no cost without depriving people of their rights can be seductive, but such a prospect does not always stand scrutiny and further investigation. We have to be careful in this area.
Mr. Harry Barnes: The statement contains some welcome proposals, but they arise from a wave of recent and current problems. For people whose funds have been hit, are not the only avenues open to them an appeal to the Office of the Pensions Advisory Service or the pensions ombudsman, which have very limited powers to assist them? Members such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) have suggested an additional avenue for tackling the problem of firms that have gone into administration, such as Coalite in Bolsover. Should not the pension fund itself be a first-line creditor, so that its funds are protected? My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) would undoubtedly have been present for this statement if he had been around and about, and I assure the Secretary of State that he has been pursuing this issue with vigour through other means.
Mr. Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming the statement. His comments underline the importance of taking this opportunity to rebuild the pensions partnership, so that all parties—employees, the financial services industry and, yes, employers as well—meet their obligations. The proposals announced today include measures to strengthen as well as clarify the role of the pensions ombudsman, and plans to introduce a newly proactive regulator who could investigate the sort of problems that my hon. Friend describes.

Point of Order
1.40 pm
Mr. Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You are the custodian of the rights of the Opposition parties as well as those of Back Benchers, and you will be aware that, on page 271, Erskine May says:
"Standing Order No 14 provides that on 20 days in each session, proceedings on business chosen by the opposition parties shall have precedence over Government business."
That raises a long-standing issue in the House: protection—so far as it is possible these days—for Opposition parties. You will also know that it is a convention beyond that Standing Order that Governments do not bring forward Government or ministerial statements on Opposition days. However, on at least two other recent occasions as well as today, the Government have done precisely that.
Mr. Speaker, you have generously and properly allotted considerable time to today's important statement to allow Members to express their concerns and those of their constituents. However, the Opposition's time has now been reduced as a result of the Government statement, which, by any reckoning, could have been given on any number of days before or after today. What can be done to protect the Opposition from that sort of casual action, which eats further into the time available to hold the Government to account? I hope that you will agree that that cannot be allowed to go on.
Mr. Speaker: I have some sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman, but the matter should be dealt with through the usual channels—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to remind me of Erskine May, and I have consulted page 307, which states:
"Prior notice to the Speaker is necessary, but neither his permission nor the leave of the House is required"
to make a Government statement. The usual channels will take note that I would prefer it if, on Opposition Supply days, we do not have Government statements. That is the best comfort that I can provide to the right hon. Gentleman.

BILL PRESENTED
  CHILDREN'S COMMISSIONER FOR ENGLAND
  Mr. Paul Burstow presented a Bill to establish a Children's Commissioner for England; to make provision for the Commissioner's duties including monitoring complaints procedures for children, overseeing arrangements for children's advocacy, monitoring legislation to ensure that the needs of children are taken into account, overseeing child death reviews and carrying out inquiries into major child abuse cases and child deaths; and to make provision to ensure that the work of the Commissioner is compatible with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 July, and to be printed. [Bill 121].

Village Halls (Grants)
1.42 pm
Mr. David Cameron: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision in relation to grants from the Community Fund for village halls.
England's 8,900 village halls play a vital role in community life. In villages such as those in my west Oxfordshire constituency, they are the focus of community life. They provide the venue for the parish council meeting, the pre-school playgroup, the amateur dramatic group, the youth clubs for the young and the lunch clubs for the old. They host public meetings, surgeries, fund-raising events, dance classes, computer training and much else besides. If we want a neighbourly society, where people can do things together for the common good, village halls must play an essential part. If anything, village halls are becoming more rather than less important. As a parish councillor in Hailey in my constituency wrote to me
"The loss of village post offices and village shops more generally makes it more important that there is a focal point in the village for the community."
I should like to explain what my Bill will do, the worrying situation that it is designed to overcome, and the advantages that it will have. Is it framed in such a way that the Government could pick it up and pass it through this place tomorrow? No. But does it contain the germ of an idea that they and my own party should take on and enact? Yes, absolutely.
The Bill amounts to a very simple proposal. If a village hall project for either refurbishment or rebuilding can raise 25 per cent. of the funds required, and if it can get the district or county council to match it with a further 25 per cent., the Community Fund would, under my Bill, have to provide the rest. I am not immovable about the percentages and I recognise that some villages would struggle to raise 25 per cent. I also understand, as a resident from Fifield reminded me, the importance of the small refurbishing projects as well as the larger rebuilding ones. What I am certain of is the need for an automatic mechanism, at least for a part of the project's total. There would also have to be a maximum level of funding and I would seek to consult on the level at which it should be set.
That is a powerful concept. At a stroke, village halls would have a simple, automatic way of accessing funds. It would simplify the endless form-filling necessary to win a lottery grant and focus the lottery on what most of our constituents believe it was set up for—the social fabric of our country. Village halls are perhaps the most visible example of that. Dare I say it, it would make the lottery popular throughout the country as people would see a more direct link between buying a ticket and seeing the beneficial results.
The lottery has achieved great things and I believe that the greatest have been the smallest—not the dome, but the parks, the halls, the cricket pavilions, the small public spaces that have been vastly improved. I believe that that was the essential part of the vision that lay behind the decision, taken by the Conservative Government, to set up a national lottery in the first place—and it was supposed to be nationwide. I am grateful for the help of the Oxfordshire rural community

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council, which does such excellent work, and of its national body—Action with Communities in Rural England.
There is a backlog of village hall projects. In Oxfordshire, 50 are being planned, with total costs of more than £6 million, but the lottery is moving away from funding them. Between 1999 and 2002, our county had 20 successful applications—an average of six a year. In the last 12 months, we have had just two. There have been at least 10 unsuccessful applications since 1999 and many others have been discouraged. The Community Fund is now quite explicit about that. Funds are now targeted on certain geographical areas and groups. Areas such as mine are losing out and people feel that it is not fair. By all means, favour the inner cities and the most deprived overall, but the lottery must be available to all.
According to the Countryside Alliance, funding for village halls is being cut by £17 million. As ACRE put it,
"Major capital projects such as rebuilding, refurbishing and the provision of new community halls are most likely to be unable to access sufficient funding."
There is also a squeeze on the funding of village halls from other angles. Lottery tickets sales are down and other sources of funding are drying up: the landfill tax credit money may be replaced.
The Countryside Agency has a large cost overrun for its mapping exercise for the right to roam. What a waste of money that has been—and costs are increasing all the time. Village halls have to meet all the required disability legislation. I know how much those things matter: disabled access and disabled loos, for example, are essential if disabled people are to take part in all the activities that I have spoken about. However, many village halls were built long ago and the costs of refurbishing and meeting all those requirements are substantial. Salford village hall in west Oxfordshire is planning to spend £140,000, most of it to meet disability legislation.
Let me expand on some of the advantages of an automatic funding scheme. First is the simplicity. One fundraiser from Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, described dealing with the lottery bodies as "disheartening". Another told me that it could take 20 working days to fill in an application form. As a constituent in Northmoor wrote to me, saying:
"A clear straight forward funding path … would be a tremendous boon."
The second advantage would be that it would focus the lottery on such projects. A fundraiser from Fulbrook wrote to me, saying:
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"All our hard earned funds will be to no avail without a change in lottery allocation policy. We do not know where else to turn."
Finally, there is the popularity of the lottery. We all know from our postbags that people feel that the lottery has lost its way. I make no comment about the grants to asylum seeker groups, Venezuelan farmers or anyone else, but why do we not renew the concept that the lottery is about improving the social fabric of our communities—and where better to start in rural areas than village halls? I see the Foreign Secretary in his place, a resident of Minster Lovell in my constituency, and I am sure that he will support me.
I should not paint an entirely depressing picture. There are some fantastic projects going ahead. In Tackley, the community has come up with a very enterprising all-in-one concept of building a new hall that will include a village hall, a shop, information technology facilities, sports facilities and much else. It received a grant of £50,000 from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, alongside grants from the district council and others. In North Leigh, where the memorial hall costs huge amounts of money in repairs and maintenance, planning consent has been obtained for an innovative replacement for use by residents, the school and others. The parish and the district council have committed £200,000 between them, but without lottery funding the benefits will be lost.
In summing up, I have to admit that one or two voices in response to my local consultation that took a slightly different view. Some remained sceptical about the lottery itself. One, a weaver from the Filkins, who provided the late Sir Hardy Amies with some of his finest cloth, wrote to me as follows,
"If there is to be a lottery, the funds should be spent entirely on public fripperies: statues, follies and parks … either very beautiful things or very useless ones, but preferably both. This would discourage people from buying tickets and fill the country with eccentric wonder paid for by the remaining diehard gamblers."
That proves that in west Oxfordshire we have wonderful eccentrics, as well as beautiful villages, churches and halls. I commend my Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. David Cameron, Mr. Nicholas Soames, Mr. Hugo Swire, Gregory Barker, Hugh Robertson, Tony Baldry, Mr. Adrian Flook, Mr. George Osborne, Mr. Paul Goodman, Mr. Andrew Turner and Mr. Andrew Lansley.

Village Halls (Grants)
  VILLAGE HALLS (GRANTS)
  Mr. David Cameron accordingly presented a Bill to make provision in relation to grants from the Community Fund for village hall: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 July, and to be printed [Bill 122].
Opposition Day
[8TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  European Treaty Referendum
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): I must inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  1.51 pm
  Mr. Michael Ancram: I beg to move,
  That this House believes that any Treaty providing a constitution for the European Union should only be ratified by Parliament once it has received the consent of the British people, democratically given in a referendum.
  This is a straightforward and democratic motion that I hope will win widespread support across the House. It is also a timely motion, as it is being debated on the eve of the national referendum on a referendum that is being conducted by the Daily Mail. [Interruption.] I congratulate the Daily Mail on its initiative, and it is not alone. A referendum is also backed by The Sun, The Daily Telegraph, the Yorkshire Post, The Birmingham Post, The Scotsman and many other newspapers, but, most importantly—as shown in opinion poll after opinion poll—it is massively backed by the British people.
  Mr. Frank Field: Let us quickly get back to the mountain heights, rather than the lower hills, of this debate. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that as most Labour voters are in favour of a referendum, and as there is a slight division between some of our leadership and the rank and file, the best course of action today would be for us to have a good debate and to call for many more debates, but for the right hon. Gentleman not to push the motion to a Division? If we divided on the issue, hon. Members would have to take a position in the early stages of this debate, but I am sure that once their constituents had got hold of them they would change their minds.
  Mr. Ancram: I listen with interest to the right hon. Gentleman's comments. The calling of a referendum has been Conservative policy for some six months—[Laughter.] The Foreign Secretary will recall that I announced that call in the House and that he asked me whether it was party policy. It has been our policy for six months, and it remains so. In that light, we will have to consider the comments of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). We welcome his Bill, and we hope that the Government will give it a fair wind, so that the House may play a part in ensuring that people have a right to decide on this important issue in due course. We will try to assist him in any way that we can.
  Mr. Graham Allen: I apologise for missing the right hon. Gentleman's opening remarks. Does he realise that he makes pursuit of the Bill promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), and sponsored by me and many others, more difficult by turning it into a party political issue, when it can be portrayed—as it was at Prime Minister's Question Time by my right hon. Friend the
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  Prime Minister—as a blocking attempt? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that a wiser course would be the one proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead? We could have the debate, which would allow hon. Members and—above all—the Government to think about the issue, so that a policy that is six months old is not made worse by a Government policy that is three months old.
  Mr. Ancram: The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to apologise for not being here for my opening remarks. Had he been, he would have realised that I have not mentioned the Government so far, and I agree with him that the matter should—as I said at the beginning of my remarks—win widespread support across the House. The terms of the motion are simple and straightforward. They are as politically neutral as possible, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will reflect on his position when we reach the end of the debate.
  I hope that as many people as possible will register their opinion tomorrow, if only to show the Government that the British electorate will not readily be sidelined on major issues that involve the transfer of powers from this country.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Ancram: I shall not give way at the moment, because this debate has been severely curtailed by the Government statement. I must make progress, because several of my hon. Friends wish to take part in the debate. At a time when referendums have become an instrument of our political system, and when popular involvement in decisions has become part of our national culture, it would be wrong for an important decision affecting the future of our country to be taken without reference to the people. We should provide them with the opportunity to choose,
  "And then the people will decide".
  Those are not my words, but those of the Secretary of State for Wales on the "Today" programme on 27 May when he thought, perhaps unguidedly—until he was required later to unthink—that next year's elections could be used as some sort of surrogate referendum.
  The words of the Secretary of State for Wales are important, because they reflect the purpose of this motion, which is to enfranchise the people, not through the European elections but through a referendum. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, who—I am sad to see—is not in his place today, will have the intellectual integrity to support us in the Lobby later.
  What of the Liberal Democrats? I was pleased to hear the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) say that
  "If Convention proposals have constitutional implications, there should be a referendum."—[Official Report, 21 May 2003; Vol. 405, c. 1053.]
  That sentiment is broadly reflected in the amendment that they have tabled today. Our motion refers to a
  "Treaty providing a constitution for the European Union".
  It is impossible to see how a constitutional treaty providing a constitution can, by definition, be said not to have constitutional implications. I cannot see how even the Liberal Democrats can, with integrity, avoid supporting our motion today.

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  We will be told that when we were in office we did not propose referendums on European matters of constitutional significance—that attack has been made on previous occasions—but was not it John Major who promised a referendum on the single currency? After six years of commitment from this Government, we are still waiting for that referendum.
  David Wright rose—
  Keith Vaz rose—
  Mr. Ancram: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), because he was Minister for Europe.
  Keith Vaz: Why did the right hon. Gentleman not support a referendum on the Maastricht treaty?
  Mr. Ancram: I shall come to that point in my own time. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has lifted his eyes higher than The Beano since he last intervened in the debate.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: There was a chance for people to exercise a view on Maastricht, because it was negotiated before a general election, in which it formed part of the Conservative party's manifesto, and implemented after it.
  Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I will address the issue in due course, because it is important, but I am reminded that during the debates on Maastricht the Labour party—including the shadow Cabinet—was not exactly united in its view on the need for a referendum.
  We are told that we will still get a referendum on the euro, but we will have to wait and see. All that we are getting at the moment is the Tony and Gordon roadshow—the Government's answer to our ill-fated Eurovision entry Jemini, being ill matched and out of tune. After six years of being told that the single currency was simply an economic decision, with no constitutional significance, suddenly we are told that it has achieved constitutional significance again.
  The Prime Minister said in Warsaw on 30 May that
  "if we recommend entry to the euro, it would be a step of such economic and constitutional significance that a referendum would be sensible, and right, which is why we have promised one."
  The Prime Minister used the phrase "constitutional significance", but what about the Convention? At Question Time today, the Prime Minister said again that he did not believe that the Convention was constitutionally significant, but I ask the question again: if a constitutional treaty providing a constitution for the EU is not of constitutional significance, what on earth is? Surely it would be as sensible and right to have a referendum on the constitution as on the euro?
  Mrs. Angela Browning: On the Government's judgment about whether joining the euro has constitutional implications, I and many other Opposition Members have questioned Ministers over a
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  long period of time about their evaluation and judgment when they determined that there was no constitutional case to answer and that the argument for joining the euro was purely economic. In fact, we demanded that they put the relevant papers in the Library of the House. If the Prime Minister is now saying that there is a constitutional case to answer, should he not place the relevant papers in the Library immediately?
  Mr. Ancram: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Government have changed their position on the matter. We were told for a long time that the issue was solely a matter of economics. However, in order to justify a referendum on the euro and not on the forthcoming treaty, we are suddenly told that the euro has constitutional significance. It would be helpful if the papers relating to that change of view were placed in the Library of the House.
  Mr. Tom Harris rose—
  Alan Howarth rose—
  Mr. Ancram: I want to make progress, as the debate was severely delayed by the Government statement that preceded it. Many Opposition Members want to take part in this debate.
  I am sure that we will also hear the usual attacks for not backing referendums in the past. The answer is straightforward. Ten or 12 years ago, we did not have referendums. Even Labour Members argued in many debates—and I can give the House examples, if necessary—against referendums. However, nowadays we do have referendums, and that is because this Government have made them readily available as a political and constitutional device for allowing people to decide. There has even been legislation on the systems of referendums.
  The Government have used referendums with gusto. There have been 47 referendums since 1997, on matters ranging from the Belfast agreement and devolution for Scotland and Wales to the London Mayor and Assembly and the much-canvassed mayor of Hartlepool; many more are promised on regional assemblies. This Government love referendums, as they have shown over and over again—but not on this matter, the most important and far-reaching issue of the lot. It is their instant ruling-out of one on the European constitution that stands out.
  Why this matter? What are the Government afraid of? If the people's consent to set up a mayor of Hartlepool is so important, why is it to be denied for the setting-up of a European president of a European political Union? The answer, we were told by the Prime Minister again in Warsaw, is that neither the Convention nor the IGC represents
  "a fundamental change to the British Constitution and to our system of parliamentary democracy".
  How does the Prime Minister know what an IGC that has not yet begun is going to represent? On that basis, how can he rule out a referendum now?
  Angus Robertson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Ancram: In a moment.

  709
  Today's amendment changes the criteria. Out goes the phrase
  "a fundamental change to the British Constitution",
  and in comes the phrase
  "do not involve a fundamental change in the relationship between the EU and its Member States".
  Those are two very different sets of criteria. In a sense, it is perhaps all about words, but what matters is the reality.
  Angus Robertson: The right hon. Gentleman is making eminently logical points about a constitution being of constitutional significance, and that therefore citizens should be able to vote on the matter. The Government entered into the Convention process for two reasons, one of which was to reconnect with citizens of the EU. Surely the best way to reconnect with citizens is to give them a choice—in this case, whether they are for or against a constitution?
  Mr. Ancram: I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman. In my later remarks, I shall produce some interesting quotations to underline that point.
  I was saying that it is the reality that matters, not the words. We are at the moment part of an albeit imperfect Europe of nations. I believe that the European Union is in need of reform, but if the Convention proposals as they stand were ratified in a treaty we would be part of something fundamentally different.
  I do not mind whether we call it a superstate, a federal power or—the Prime Minister's preferred option—a superpower. I do not care whether we call it a politically united Europe or even Romano Prodi's "advanced supranational democracy". All I know is that it will not be what we have now. It will be a step change away from that. I do not understand how can the Government can claim that that does not involve a fundamental change of the relationship between the EU and its member states, because it changes that relationship: member states would go from being partners to being subservient components.
  If we look at the overall result of the Convention's proposals, we begin to see what is happening. The proposals will lead to a legal personality, a constitution, a president and a foreign secretary. It will involve fundamental rights, including the right to strike, legally enforceable at a European level. There will be a common foreign and security policy, and a European prosecutor. European law will have explicit primacy, and it will have an increasing role in criminal law, especially in procedure. There will be shared competence over immigration and asylum, with no veto, and Europe's powers will be expanded into vast areas, from transport to energy. There could even be—who knows?—a common currency.
  Each of those elements diminishes our existing national sovereignty in one way or another. Together, they build a new and distinct political entity that has many of the attributes of a country. That is the truth, however hard the Government seek to disguise it. To call this a tidying-up exercise is laughable, and simply not true.
  710
  One of the Convention's leading members, the former Italian Prime Minister Lamberto Dini, said in The Sunday Telegraph of 1 June:
  "The Constitution is not just an intellectual exercise. It will quickly change people's lives … and eventually will become an institution and organisation in its own right."
  That may not suit the Government's agenda, but Lamberto Dini is on the Convention, and that is what he believes will happen. That is the reality.
  Alan Howarth: That is the point of view of that politician, but the right hon. Gentleman anticipates the result of the IGC. Does he not accept that Europe already has a constitution in terms of its working arrangements? If our Government handle our national interests in the IGC as I expect them to, the document that will emerge will not involve a surrender of crucial national powers to a federal structure in Europe, or whatever the right hon. Gentleman cares to call it. Would it not be wiser for us all not to be dogmatic at this stage? If a question arises of a fundamental transfer of power, there should be a referendum. However, should we not refrain from taking dogmatic positions on the point until we are presented with that question?
  Mr. Ancram: I was trying to suggest to the House that we look at the totality of what is being done. I used to practise in the courts, and one could take little bits of evidence and say that none of them amounted to much on its own. What matters is the eventual result of putting them all together. I am suggesting to the House that what is being created, whether one wants it or not, is very different from what we have now. If that is the case, it is of constitutional significance, and it should be the subject of a referendum.
  Sir Teddy Taylor: Has my right hon. Friend seen the proposals for a European foreign minister? Will he try to tell us what that is all about? What would that minister do, and to whom would he be answerable?
  Mr. Ancram: Perhaps I missed the foreign minister out, but I meant to include him in the list of components that will be available at the end of the process. I believe that those components will change the nature of the EU. My hon. Friend makes the point that an EU foreign secretary and a common foreign and security policy would mean that the circumstances of the EU would be very different from what they are at the moment. We must consider that point as we determine whether a referendum is necessary or not.
  The Government know that the proposals are far reaching. The Treasury's own single currency assessments published on Monday state:
  "Many of the issues being considered by the European Convention could have far reaching consequences for the future performance of EU economies whether they are part of the euro area or not."
  That means us, and it does not sound to me like tidying up. It sounds much more like the Prime Minister's criteria of economic significance as well as constitutional significance, about which he spoke in Warsaw, where he said that they make a referendum sensible and right. His words also apply to what we see coming from the Convention.

  711
  My party opposes the constitution, but that is not the point of the motion. The point is to give the British people the right to decide whom they believe and what choice they want to make about how this country goes forward in Europe. That is why we are pressing for a referendum. Parliament is sovereign, but, in my view, that sovereignty is granted to it in trust by the people. Parliament should not be able to alienate sovereignty permanently and irreversibly without the express consent, democratically given, of the electorate. In the absence of a general election, such authority can be given to Parliament only by a referendum.
  Authority has not been given, nor have the Government sought it. There was no mention of a European constitution in their manifesto. That is another reason why a referendum is necessary. That is not just the view of the Conservative party or our country: the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) reminded us of the origins of the Convention, and I shall quote what Valéry Giscard d'Estaing said on 28 February 2002 when he launched it:
  "Treaties are made by states and agreed by Parliaments, but constitutions are created by citizens and adopted by them in referendums."
  That was his view then; I believe it remains his view today. The Danish Prime Minister, Mr. Rasmussen, was reported as saying on 28 May:
  "What is at stake is so new and so big that it is right to hold a referendum".
  From all corners of the debate in Europe, people are telling us that the constitution is a significant move forward and that it is a subject fitting for a referendum. The case for a referendum is compelling.
  The motion refers carefully and deliberately to
  "a treaty providing a constitution for the European Union".
  That makes it even more difficult for me to understand how, without their knowing the eventual shape and contents of the treaty, the Government are able instantly to rule out a referendum. If they do not know what they will be looking at in the long term, how can they say that there will be no referendum? Why are the Government so frightened? Are they frightened that their smokescreen will be blown away, and is that why they dare not let the British people decide? Other countries will let their peoples decide. Denmark and Ireland will let the people decide. France, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Austria may, in various ways, let their people decide. The Netherlands has just decided on a non-binding referendum. Only Britain, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and Greece refuse point blank to let the people decide.
  Mr. Tom Harris: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Ancram: I have taken enough time.
  The Government's position insults the British people. They continue to play what I call the "big lie" card, saying that the debate on Europe is about going right in or coming out of Europe, and that they want in and we want out. That is dishonest spin of the worst sort—the kind of spin that has already brought them into
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  disrepute, a lesson from which I hope they learn. The real Europe debate, which the Government are so keen to avoid, is the debate about the sort of Europe that we want to be in. Is it a Europe of sovereign nations that we seek, or is it the European superpower that the Prime Minister proclaimed in Poland in October 2000 and in Cardiff in November 2002? That is the real choice.
  This motion is about trusting the people. It is a democratic motion. It exposes the arrogance of a Government who will not let the people have their say. What is the betting that the Leader of the House will shortly tell a newspaper that there are rogue elements in the electorate, let alone in the House, who are seeking to undermine the Government, and that that is why we cannot have a referendum? Only six years ago, the Government asked us to trust them. What we are saying is: "Trust the people." Why do they continue to say no?
  We will trust the people. We will not take no for an answer. We will let the people decide. I call on the House to support the motion.
  2.14 pm
  The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "notes that previous governments rejected referendums on previous constitutional treaties such as the Single European Act and Maastricht, both of which involved greater change than the draft Treaty proposed by the Convention on the Future of Europe; believes that since the proposals of the Convention do not involve any fundamental change in the relationship between the EU and its Member States, there is no case for a referendum; and notes that any proposals from the Convention are a matter for unanimous agreement by an Inter-Governmental Conference, and then endorsement by the Parliament of the United Kingdom."
  The heart of the case made by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) is that changes proposed by the Convention are of such a scale that a referendum to endorse them is necessary. We take a different view. What the Convention is proposing—and what the intergovernmental conference is likely ultimately to agree—will not alter the fundamental constitutional balance between the European Union's institutions and the member nation states.
  An important prior point should be made. The Convention can only make recommendations; it cannot decide. The draft constitutional treaty, which the Convention will submit next week to the Heads of Government at the European Council in Thessaloniki, has no legal status whatsoever. Like any draft, it is open to improvement and amendment. Like every other draft treaty in the EU's history, it will be subject to intense negotiations, in this case at the intergovernmental conference later this year, at which all decisions will be taken exclusively by the nation states on the basis of unanimity.
  Mr. John Maples: The main part of the Foreign Secretary's argument that there should not be a referendum is that the constitution as drafted by the Convention does not alter the fundamental relationship between the Union and the member states. I take it from that that if he were to conclude that it did alter that relationship, he would find it difficult to resist a referendum, and I suggest that the incorporation of the

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  charter of fundamental rights, which makes basic individual political rights justiciable by the European Court of Justice, and thereby enforceable on member states, does fundamentally alter that relationship.
  Mr. Straw: I will come to the detailed issue of the charter. I simply say that the horizontal provisions in article II-51 provide a significant number of safeguards against the hon. Gentleman's anxieties.
  Mr. John Redwood: Given that both major parties rightly offered a referendum on the most crucial part of the Maastricht treaty—the common currency—why will the Government not offer a similar referendum on the common foreign and defence policy and the common immigration and justice policy in the draft treaty? Does he understand that I-39 of the draft gives the EU a veto over our foreign policy, which it does not enjoy today?
  Mr. Straw: The reason is exactly that given by the right hon. Gentleman in April 1993 for voting against a referendum on Maastricht, which, on any basis, significantly changed the relationship between the European Union and its member states to a far more fundamental degree than is ever likely to be proposed in the Convention.
  Mr. William Cash: The Foreign Secretary is speaking about changes of a fundamental nature. Does he agree that if and when Parliament were to implement the proposed constitution, that constitution would effectively acquire a greater constitutional superiority over this Parliament?
  Mr. Straw: No. I shall come to the label to be accorded to the treaties: we propose, quite sensibly, to call them a constitution; the Tory party, so far as I know, has a constitution, and that does not, thank God, make it a nation state. The shadow Attorney-General is raising the spectre, which has haunted him for years, of EU laws being able to override the laws made in the House of Commons. That has been a fundamental part of our relationship with the European Union, and in our constitution, since 1972, as shown by section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. There is nothing in the proposals from the Convention that alters or extends that fundamental fact.
  Mr. Graham Allen: Would my right hon. Friend accept that one way of allaying justifiable fears on both sides of the House and, indeed, in the country would be for Parliament to examine the text of the document—whether it is a constitution or a convention—prior to a final decision at the intergovernmental conference. In that way, as well as being executive-led, the constitution would have received serious parliamentary input, provided, of course, that we allow the Executive to negotiate properly at the IGC.
  Mr. Straw: I completely agree with my hon. Friend. There should be the maximum parliamentary involvement and examination that he seeks in the final text for the Convention. I also pay tribute to the Government representatives and especially to the
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  parliamentary representatives, the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and to the right hon. Lord Maclennan for the way in which they have represented in the Convention their parties and the national interest. Week by week and month by month, they have tried to ensure that Parliament is engaged, but I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) that there should be extensive discussion, engagement and examination of the Convention's proposals, both on the Floor and upstairs in committees, and we shall be making proposals for that.
  Sir Michael Spicer: Will the Foreign Secretary veto any proposals that come before the IGC in the autumn for a single or common foreign policy?
  Mr. Straw: There is an issue about whether qualified majority voting should be extended, which we are resisting. The hon. Gentleman has a terribly short memory. Common foreign and security policy is not being put into EU treaties by the Convention; it has been in those treaties since Maastricht, like the requirements for co-operation and so on. We are talking about the collapse of the pillars, but that is a distinction without a difference, as we are excluding what normally goes with pillar 1, namely the justiciability of decisions in the European Court of Justice.
  Angus Robertson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Straw: No. This is only a short debate and, if there is time, I shall give way later on.
  Every decision that we take over the next month, in the run-up to the IGC, and in the IGC, will be based on the national interest. What matters is that we secure the right text. Parliament will be the judge of that. Once a draft has been agreed, the House will have the final say. That was the approach adopted by the Governments of the day in 1986 on the Single European Act and again in 1993 on the Maastricht treaty.
  Mr. Malcolm Savidge: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Straw: I will give way later.
  Maastricht is important, because what happened then tells us so much about today's Tory party and its attitudes towards Europe. Just 10 years ago, the Conservative party was led by someone who at least recognised the need for Britain to maintain a constructive relationship with Europe. He was supported in that—then—by the right hon. Member for Devizes whose speech during the passage of the European Communities (Amendment) Bill—the Maastricht Bill—sang to the tune of engagement with Europe. The right hon. Gentleman said:
  "I fear that those who say that we should turn our backs on Maastricht are taking a tremendous risk—the black risk of a centralised Europe, the risk that Europe will go on without us if necessary, and even if we are part of it, our colleagues will say, `You've had your chance. In future you can take it or leave it."'— [Official Report, 4 November 1992; Vol. 213, c. 343.]

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  The real battle then was not between the Conservative Government and the Labour Opposition; it was a fight within the Tory party between those such as the right hon. Gentleman who—then—wished to see the United Kingdom play a constructive role in the European Union and those who, in truth, wished to see Britain's progressive detachment from Europe. Of course, in those days, the right hon. Gentleman and the sane tendency were in the majority. Not any more: for what 10 years ago was a marginal group of zealots, determined to undermine the UK's position in Europe and to wreck John Major's Government, now constitutes the leadership of today's Tory party. What was once a marginal militant tendency is in control, and the prejudices, myths and fantasies about Europe are confirmed party policy.
  In an excellent speech in the House on 21 May, only two weeks ago, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) described the then Maastricht wreckers as "nutters" I quote directly from Hansard. Well, the nutters have well and truly taken over the asylum.
  Mr. Ancram: I am very grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way. I have two brief questions. First, did he stand in 1983 on a manifesto that committed him to withdrawal from Europe, and what has happened to his view, which I am sure that he held sincerely at the time?
  Secondly, in relation to his comments about our current position, he will have heard today and during the past few months that we have a consistent view: it is right for the people of this country to have a chance to say whether they want to go into a fundamentally different Europe or to stay where they are at present. I am surprised that the Foreign Secretary is using this opportunity to launch a smokescreen political attack, which is part of an agenda that has been running for some weeks, trying to pretend that the argument is about staying in or getting out of Europe. When will he understand that this is a serious debate about the democratic rights of the people of this country and that he should concentrate on that?
  Mr. Straw: The manifesto that I stood on in 1983, along with many other loyal members of the diminishing band of Labour MPs from that era is a matter of record. It proposed that we should leave the European Union. To respond to the right hon. Gentleman, I reinforce an excellent point made yesterday by my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe: in every election since 1970, the party that stood on a rabid anti-European platform was rightly defeated. We were defeated in 1983 and the Conservatives were defeated in 1997 and again in 2001. We learned the lesson; the sad fact is that, far from learning the lesson, the Conservatives have been reinforced in their ignorance and their blind conviction that the policy that led them to defeat in 2001 was right rather than wrong.
  The one person who at least has the merit of consistency is the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) who was the lieutenant-general of the Maastricht wreckers. It is a real delight to see him in his current position, directing the policy of the rest of the
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  Conservative Front Bench. What a humiliation for the right hon. Member for Devizes. We know his real views, yet he is forced—squeezed between the hon. Member for Stone and the leader of the Conservative party—into an excruciating position, in which he palpably does not believe.
  It is hard to reconcile the views of the Tory party with continued United Kingdom membership of the European Union.
  Mr. Richard Shepherd: That is ridiculous.
  Mr. Straw: Well, three weeks ago, an interesting interview was published in the Financial Times about
  "Bill Cash, the shadow attorney-general … who said last night that the 1972 European Communities Act should be amended to reassert the primacy of the UK parliament".
  In other words, that we should get rid of the central requirement of our membership of the EU—that EU laws, if we agree with them in our system, should override United Kingdom law. The article continued:
  "One shadow cabinet member said: 'There's a Bill Cash … camp that want him"—
  the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith)—
  "to commit to renegotiation of Britain's relationship with Europe, which they will deny is code for withdrawal but it is code for withdrawal … There are others, including Michael Ancram … who is saying no, let's say something positive about Europe'."
  The "let's say something positive about Europe" tendency has not been markedly in operation today, or during the past six months.
  Mr. Cash: Every word that the Foreign Secretary utters demonstrates that he does not understand the treaty that he is supposed to be negotiating. The fact is that under our present arrangements, if this treaty went through we would need to change the European Communities Act 1972 in order to guarantee the sovereignty of this Parliament; because otherwise, the constitution would be like a cuckoo in the nest and would take us over.
  Mr. Straw rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps, before the Foreign Secretary replies, I might remind all hon. Members that some reference to the word "referendum" would be helpful.
  Mr. Straw: I simply say, Madam Deputy Speaker—arguing the case against a referendum—that the shadow Attorney-General is yet again drifting into the realm of fantasy. There is no substantive difference between the draft provisions in the draft convention, which yet could still be improved—we will look to that—and what is in section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Straw: I must make progress; this is a short debate.

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  Given that the tendency that now wishes to see the United Kingdom gradually forced out of the European Union is now in control of the Tory party, the British people are presented with a clear choice: a choice between a party that seeks to play a patriotic role in the European Union to boost British jobs, British prosperity and British influence; and a party that seeks—[Interruption.]
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.
  Mr. McLoughlin rose—
  Mr. Straw: I will not give way for the moment because I want to make progress.
  Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, I come to the issue that you asked me to address directly. In the United Kingdom there is no hard and fast rule about which issues should go to a referendum and which should not, and the weight of an issue—its gravity—cannot be the sole test. We have routinely held referendums on second-order issues such as Sunday drinking in Wales. We have never held referendums, nor has any other country of which I am aware, on the most critical question that can ever come before any Government, but particularly a democracy: whether to go to war. Nor have we held referendums, nor would I ever suggest that we should, on crucial issues of taxation or public spending.
  Mr. Allen: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Straw: I promise to give way in a second.
  Although there is no iron rule on the holding of referendums in the UK, in practice we have held referendums to determine whether to change our constitutional arrangements dramatically. Contrary to the implication of what the shadow Foreign Secretary said, there has been only one United Kingdom-wide referendum in our history. That was 28 years ago—the 1975 poll on whether to stay in or leave the European Union. In our judgment—I do not think that it is a matter of argument across the Chamber—whether Britain should adopt the single currency or not belongs in the same category of constitutional importance. However, all the other referendums have taken place in separate parts of the United Kingdom. Thus in the late 1990s we held referendums about whether to have a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly or a London Mayor.
  In each of those examples, he choices have been very stark and the alternative consequences have been clear. You stay in the Common Market or you leave. You have a Scottish Parliament or you do not. You have the euro or you have sterling. What successive Governments have not done is to hold a referendum on whether to approve changes to the existing institutions to which we belong. Back in 1993, the anti-European zealots, led by the hon. Member for Stone and the present Leader of the Opposition, used the referendum device as a tool to disrupt and delay the Maastricht treaty, and for that reason a majority of Conservative MPs would have nothing to do with it. I am glad that the deputy leader of the Conservative party says that he has changed his mind on that in the past six months. I
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  cannot imagine the significance of six months ago—December 2002—given that the Convention has been in operation for the past year.
  Mr. Ancram: The least that the Foreign Secretary could do is to listen to the debate, even if he is not going to answer it. I said that we formulated this policy in relation to the Convention six months ago, when we understood the direction that the Convention was going in. Had we done so a lot earlier, we would have been in exactly the position that he is in, saying that he will not hold a referendum whatever comes out of it.
  Mr. Straw: It is lucky that the Tory party does not have a freedom of information Act; otherwise, we would discover the real reasons for this extraordinary change of policy by the right hon. Gentleman, when he not only voted against a referendum on Maastricht, with 11 other members of the now shadow Cabinet, but actively argued against it on strong grounds. He has turned on his head and changed his mind.
  Mr. Allen: I thank my right hon. Friend for his generosity in giving way yet again and for making it clear today that Parliament will have a role in this matter prior to the IGC. First, will he let us know when he can come to the House or in some other way let hon. Members know the format of such debates? Secondly, obviously the IGC is in the hands of the Executive, but in order that Parliament's decision is not in the hands of the Executive, will he make it clear that he will press for a free vote among all hon. Members, as we go through the steady discussions on these matters? Otherwise, we shall merely be rubber stamping what he is saying at the IGC.
  Mr. Straw: We shall come forward with detailed proposals about examination upstairs. As far as debates on the Floor of the House before we rise for the summer recess are concerned, there will be a full day's debate next Wednesday on the business for the Council at Thessaloniki the next day, on a Government motion for the Adjournment. There will then be the usual statement in response to that Council. We have also already agreed internally—I do not think I am giving anything away; it is too bad if I am—that there should be a full day's debate on the Convention thereafter, before we rise for the summer recess.
  On the other matter about whether we have a free vote, I am afraid that I cannot accommodate my hon. Friend, for reasons of which he was well aware when he was a Whip.
  Mr. McLoughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Straw: I will, but then I must make progress.
  Mr. McLoughlin: The Foreign Secretary says that we want a referendum simply because we want to withdraw from Europe. I do not believe that; that is not our position. But if that is the case, why is the Foreign Secretary so afraid of holding a referendum? I do not believe for a moment that the British people would want to pull out of Europe, but I do think that they might have serious concerns about this constitution. Is the

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  right hon. Gentleman just too afraid of losing the referendum and being in the same position as the Irish Government and the Danish Government were in when they asked the people what they thought?
  Mr. Straw: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give me credit for this. I am not afraid of having an argument with anyone. That is not the issue. There is a serious issue here, and the hon. Gentleman knows very well that there is. It is that the default setting for determining issues, including whether we sign treaties, must be this Parliament. I believe that Parliament should be sovereign. I have spent 25 years in this place arguing for that. I accept that there are sometimes occasions when referendums are appropriate. I have set out the basic rule that Governments of successive parties have tended to follow. As I have said, I do not believe, on any analysis, that this set of proposals involves a fundamental change in the nature of the relationship between the European Union and its member sovereign states and therefore I believe that a referendum is not appropriate.
  Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory rose—
  Mr. Straw: I want to make progress. I am very sorry.
  We must draw on our previous experience. Given the contents of the Single European Act in 1986, or of the Maastricht treaty, each of those changed the nature of the relationship between us and the European Union far more fundamentally than the current proposals would. The Single European Act in 1986 introduced qualified majority voting on all internal market measures, from free movement of workers through transport policy to health and safety of workers. Thousands of directives and regulations have been passed using articles extended to QMV in the 1986 Act.
  Maastricht extended the scope of the Union's activities over a much wider area. It produced the pillar structure, with chapters on justice and home affairs. European political co-operation became a common foreign and security policy and we agreed on a possible future common defence policy. There were new chapters on economic and monetary union, social policy, culture, public health and consumer protection. There were further extensions of QMV, including on visas, public health, education, and mutual assistance in the event of balance of payments difficulties. Maastricht also introduced the concept of citizenship of the Union and it boosted the role of the European Parliament by introducing the co-decision procedure.
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Is the Foreign Secretary saying that whatever the outcome of the Convention, he will deny us a referendum? Let us suppose that he is wrong. Supposing there are very big changes in our relationship with the new Union, supposing all these new constitutional changes come to pass, is he saying that in all eventualities, whatever the outcome, he will deny us a referendum? Is that his clear and settled position?
  Mr. Straw: First, the Convention is deciding nothing, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. The crucial issue is
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  what is decided at the intergovernmental conference. Whatever the Convention decides is a matter for the IGC. The best judgment that we can make is that the outcome of the IGC will not fundamentally alter the nature of the relationship. We shall be one of the countries at the IGC with a veto on what goes in the treaty—there is a completely different operation to that of the Convention—and we shall be able to ensure that safeguards exist. I understand why the right hon. Gentleman asked his question but the situation would not arise.
  Mr. Crispin Blunt rose—
  Mr. Straw: Let me go on and deal with the constitution, because this is the Conservatives' time.
  Let us be clear that the EU already has a constitution. It already has the authority for its laws to override those of member states for matters on which we have agreed that it should be able to do so. The problem is not whether the EU has a constitution but the fact that its constitution is to be found in several lengthy treaties, each of which grants it different powers. The EU already has a legal personality with respect to European Community treaties but the right hon. Member for Devizes maundered on about that as if it were a new idea. It is not a new idea because otherwise it could have not signed up to other treaties at a EU level. However, that situation means that our citizens' ability to access information about the EU is undermined.
  I have consistently supported a single coherent text. The crucial thing is not the text's label but what it contains. We need a document to set out what the EU is, what it does and how it does it. The document should define the role and powers of the Union's institutions and its relationship with member states, and it should improve the Union's ability to deliver practical benefits to Europe's citizens.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Straw: I shall not give way because I want to make progress.
  Contrary to the assertions made by the right hon. Member for Devizes, we have not sacrificed vast swathes of national sovereignty through the Convention and nor shall we do so at the IGC. The Convention's president has declared that the outcome will be a union of states. There are no references to a federal union in the current text, for one good reason: it will not establish a federal union—I would not be part of the process if it did. There will be no such reference in the final draft.
  The right hon. Gentleman failed to mention why it was decided at Laeken two years ago that we needed the Convention on the Future of Europe. The reason was not because there were barking-mad zealots on the other side who were trying to wreck the sense of national identity of the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Estonians and the British and to turn us all into clones of Brussels. The proposals were made at Laeken because the way in which the Union was established in the 1950s was appropriate for a Union of six nations, but not for a Union of 15 nations. The Union can still less operate efficiently or effectively with 25 nations.

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  We are sensibly accepting the case for extending qualified majority voting on several matters. The right hon. Gentleman's arguments implied that several smaller European countries, three of which contain a population of fewer than 1 million people, should have the right of veto over key changes that we believe should be made. We also want the Council of Minister—the council of nation—to operate more strongly and effectively against the Commission, which he completely failed to mention. At the moment, power has shifted from the Council of Minister—the council of nation—to the Commission because the Commission is permanent while the other institutions have a rotating presidency. That is okay with six members and is just about okay with nine members, but the system does not work with 15 members and it would be impossible to make it efficient with 25 members. A permanent chair of the European Council would be directly accountable to member Governments and member states and would create greater efficiency and effectiveness on our behalf.
  I turn to the constitution proposed by the Tory party. I am an assiduous reader of Conservatives.com. [Interruption.] The Tories are not. When I read it, I found that Timothy Kirkhope, the Conservative party's official representative on the European Convention, has unveiled his alternative to the European constitution. He says that he has consulted widely with European colleagues and other Conservatives.
  Timothy Kirkhope proposes an amendment to the Praesidium's draft that would provide that the European Parliament should have the right to initiate legislation. Does the right hon. Member for Devizes understand what the Conservative party is proposing? We have heard about European superstates but we would end up with a European federal superstate if the European Parliament had the right to initiate legislation.
  The Conservative party's official representative on the Convention goes a bit further. He says on Conservatives.com that the Commission should cease to operate between the European Parliament and the Council and should become the civil service of the Parliament. If the Parliament initiated legislation, it would have to do that through representatives. I rather fancy that they would be called Ministers, such as the Minister for social security and the Minister for the economy, and they would have a civil service. Does what the Conservative party's official representative on the Convention has described on Conservatives.com represent official Conservative party policy?
  Mr. Ancram: May I tell the Foreign Secretary that the debate is about letting people decide? We are prepared to let people decide, but is he? That is what we are waiting to hear.
  Mr. Straw: We need to know about policy. I ask the right hon. Gentleman again whether the website outlines official Conservative party policy.
  Mr. Ancram: The document is the view of Timothy Kirkhope. It is not Conservative party policy.
  Mr. Straw: I have a final question: what the devil was the document doing on the Conservative party's official
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  website? Why was Timothy Kirkhope described as the party's official representative on the Convention if his document is not official policy? Even the new model leadership of zealots in the Tory party cannot agree among themselves. The right hon. Member for Devizes protests about minor changes to the nature of the relationship but his colleague, the official representative, has produced page after page of proposals to give the European Parliament legislative power.
  Mr. Cash: While the Foreign Secretary is praying in aid representatives on the Convention, will he repudiate the comments of the Labour representative, Lord Tomlinson, who said in the Standing Committee on the Convention the other day that the Laeken declaration did not give authority to the production of the constitution?
  Mr. Straw: If Lord Tomlinson said that, he was wrong.
  Angus Robertson: On the issue of party unity on key issues, the Foreign Secretary will be aware that the extension of exclusive competence over fisheries is a matter of controversy in Scotland. His colleague, the Labour First Minister of Scotland, told my friend the Leader of the Opposition in Scotland in the Scottish Parliament two weeks ago:
  "Not only is this Administration opposed to it, but the UK Government is opposed to it."—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 29 May 2003; Vol. 1, c. 251.]
  He also said that the UK Government had written to the European Union to oppose the extension of exclusive competence over fisheries. Have the UK Government written to the EU, or is there a split in the Labour party on the issue?
  Mr. Straw: We are an indivisible whole, as ever. With respect, I do not claim expertise on the common fisheries policy but I shall write to the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] Well, either he wants an accurate answer or he does not.
  Angus Robertson: I wrote to the Foreign Secretary last week.
  Mr. Straw: I shall write to the hon. Gentleman.
  Having established that the Conservative party has two policies—one against any change, one in favour of complete change to alter fundamentally the role of the European Parliament—let me say what we want. We want the Convention to define more clearly matters on which the EU has exclusive power, on which powers are shared between the Union and member states and on which the EU should act only to support national policies. There is an emerging consensus in support of the UK's position for the introduction of a new mechanism to ensure that the Union respects the principle of subsidiarity, acting only to achieve things that national or regional Governments cannot do for themselves. Under our proposed system, national Parliaments would quickly review each EU proposal, judging whether action is being taken at the right level and in the appropriate way. That would not amount to a veto, but should a majority of national Parliaments

  723
  judge that a proposal infringed the principle of subsidiarity, the Commission would quickly get the message.
  To deal with an issue raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House, an EU-wide consensus on aspects of foreign policy is sometimes unattainable, as we saw during the months preceding military action in Iraq. As a country with global interests and as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the UK firmly believes that the process must remain intergovernmental, recognising that national Governments have to be accountable to their own Parliaments for their decisions on foreign, security and defence policy. It is in our interests to arrive at a common policy with other member states wherever possible, but to attempt to manufacture a single policy on every issue would be absurd. We have resolutely opposed proposals in the Convention to "communitise" common foreign, security and defence policy. We will continue to do so in the IGC.
  In other areas—not least the single market—qualified majority voting has long served our interests. That was why Mrs. Thatcher supported the principle of QMV. Indeed, the text of the draft constitution, which the right hon. Member for Devizes has clearly not read, proposes that QMV should be the standard method of making decisions unless the treaty provides otherwise. Judging by some of the remarks that we have heard, however, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Opposition are opposed to QMV in any way. One area that is ripe for an extension of QMV is asylum, to help provide firm, collective action to deal with illegal immigration and the criminality that underlies it.
  The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) mentioned the constitution. It will include a statement of rights. I, for one, think that our citizens should be told the rights that they have vis-à-vis European institutions. We can accept such a statement provided that it does not extend the powers of the Union. We have not yet taken a final decision on whether we will agree to the proposals to incorporate the charter. Like much else, that will depend on the precise terms of the final package. Perhaps I should have told the House this earlier, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) are not here because there is an important meeting of the Convention in which both are participating. We still do not have the full text. The right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) has decided to be here, but it is right that my colleagues remained in Brussels.
  Mr. Maples: The point I was making was not whether the Convention extends the competences of the Union, but whether it gives rights to individuals or groups to challenge their domestic legislation on the ground of something that is contained in the charter, which is largely about political rights. If the European Court of Justice is able, on the basis of the charter, to review domestic legislation of a member state, that is a fundamental change.
  Mr. Straw: We have negotiated two important safeguards. To pick up on a point raised by my hon.
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  Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), those should be examined in great detail once we have the Convention's final proposals before we go to the IGC. We want to ensure that what we are doing at the IGC has the support of the House.
  The two safeguards are amendments to the so-called horizontal articles, which apply across the board to all treaties, to help define the scope and meaning of the charter's provisions, in particular those that correspond neither to the European convention on human rights nor to community law. We have also secured agreement to give the commentary on the charter's provisions enhanced status. That, too, is vital in guiding an interpretation of the charter. The net effect of that should be to ensure that the charter does not extend the Union's competence or powers. Those are important safeguards and I hope that we discuss them much further in due course.
  Contrary to much of the hysteria and hyperbole that we have heard today, the current draft constitutional treaty shows that we are making progress towards our kind of Europe: a union of sovereign nations, not a superstate. The Convention's text is a good starting point for the lengthy negotiations in the IGC. It should help to settle the balance between nations and the Union to ensure that it is where it should be—with the nations as the anchor of the Union.
  In the IGC we will continue to play a central role in the process of reform aimed at making Europe more efficient and more easily understood, not least so that we can use it more effectively to advance the interests of the British people. We are not talking about substantive fundamental change in EU-wide powers. There is therefore no case for a referendum. We are talking about a treaty that can bring much needed clarity to European citizens and equip the Union with the machinery that it needs to embrace the challenge of enlargement. This is a great prize for Britain, a prize that we will pursue unrelentingly in the coming months.
  I urge the House to accept the amendment and to reject the motion.
  2.56 pm
  Mr. Michael Moore: In recent debates on Europe we have heard plenty of arguments about the principle of having a referendum on the proposed developments in the European Union. Today that issue is right at the heart of the debate. Once again we have had history lessons which, not for the first time, reach opposing conclusions from the same basic set of facts. I do not want to dwell on those spats between those on the Conservative and Labour Front Benches. What is surely of importance now is that we make clear how we should assess the need for any future referendum, and at what stage that might take place.
  In the absence of written constitutional guidance, the development of the use of referendums in this country has been haphazard. On Second Reading of the European Union (Accessions) Bill on 21 May, the Foreign Secretary gave a fair account of the complexity of the issue. Indeed, he was in danger of plagiarising his own remarks when he repeated much of the same argument today. He said then, and again today, that the gravity of the issue should not be the sole determinant:

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  we may hold a referendum on Sunday drinking in Wales, but have not, and would not, on the issue of going to war. However, he also said:
  "Although there is no iron rule, in practice we have had referendums to determine whether to change dramatically our constitutional arrangements."—[Official Report, 21 May 2003; Vol. 405, c. 1031.]
  That may not be an iron rule, but it is surely not a bad basis for the tests that we should set.
  We also need to understand the context. Talk of referendums tends to get people rather excitable—so before we all get too carried away we need to reflect on what is at stake for the United Kingdom. Last week we completed the Commons stages of the European Union (Accessions) Bill, welcoming 10 new states into the Union, and so marking the most significant development in Europe in decades.
  The impact of enlargement of the EU from 15 to 25 has yet to be realised, or even to sink in, but it will be unlike anything we have seen before. For many of the accession countries it is a further symbolic and real break from their communist past. It offers unprecedented opportunities for them to enjoy greater security, for their economies to grow significantly and for democracy to become further entrenched. As we see from the referendums held so far in the new member states, those benefits are widely recognised and supported by the people in each country. Existing members, too, stand to gain from significantly enhanced trade and greater European security.
  The scale of change is unprecedented. Never before have so many new members been admitted at one time. Indeed, more countries are expected to join the EU in one go next May than in all the previous enlargements put together. Nobody can fail to realise that that scale of development requires significant change in the way in which the EU operates. In the Convention on the Future of Europe, delegates have been toiling for months to produce a new template. In a few days' time, it will be offered to Heads of State and Governments as a draft treaty for consideration. At that point, we will be able to begin the assessment of what the treaty may mean for the United Kingdom.
  Regardless of enlargement, the EU is in need of reform. Successive treaties and laws have made the European institutions hugely complex, bureaucratic and increasingly remote from the people whom they are meant to serve. What is needed is clarification and rationalisation—a codification of the purpose of the European Union making clear links with its citizens, setting out what it can and cannot do, enshrining the principle of subsidiarity, and making it clear that it is a union of sovereign nation states, not a putative European superstate.
  Ann Winterton: The hon. Gentleman is doing something which is often done in the House. He is giving a wish list, and is describing the way in which he would like the European Union to develop. That is not on offer. When the treaty is made, it will deepen the role of institutions in the European Union, and will not achieve what the hon. Gentleman wants.
  Mr. Moore: The hon. Lady will have an opportunity to set out her case if she catches your eye, Mr. Deputy
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  Speaker. Surely, however, we are having this debate because at this stage we do not know what the Convention's final solutions or suggestions will be.
  Mr. Allen: Are not the people who want to move fastest on the European project its greatest enemies? Without taking others with them, they will produce a wider distance between the project and the people who are meant to be supporting Europe. People fall into that trap by not, for example, going out and campaigning now for a referendum on the euro, or by not campaigning for one, two, or perhaps even three years on a European constitution. That helps to confirm the Opposition in their view of the content of that constitution, so we are in danger yet again of distancing the people from the European project.
  Mr. Moore: I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. On the euro, for example, we have long argued that a case needed to be made for it, and we should get on and make it. As for what is on offer as the Convention and the IGC proceed, I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear with me for a few minutes, as I am about to set out our position.
  I was saying that we need clarification and rationalisation of the EU. It is right that there should be a statement of rights for individuals, which is the key to citizens understanding their direct link to the EU and what it means for them. It is also right that there should be an explicit statement of the respective roles of national Parliaments, Governments and the EU institutions. Beyond those important principles, it is right that new structures should be developed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the European institutions.
  Mr. Paul Tyler: I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend. Is it not a simple fact that if John Major had pursued his policy of subsidiarity, which many of us feel is an integral part of this exercise, there would have had to be a constitutional settlement in Europe? I do not understand why some Conservatives oppose any constitution for Europe.
  Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend makes a good point.
  We do not yet know how far the Convention's final draft treaty will go, but clear statements of principle, simplifying the complex mess of existing treaties and embracing reform, should scare nobody. If that type of reform were packaged and described as a constitution, that would not be particularly dramatic. If, however, there were major shifts of control, such as transferring significant new powers from member states to the European institutions or altering the existing balance between the states and those institutions, we would have to assess the constitutional implications for this country. Those are the tests against which any call for a referendum should be measured. However, we do not know the outcome of the Convention's deliberations and it would be foolish to prejudge them.
  We must hope that when the Convention's deliberations are completed the Government and parliamentary representatives, as the Foreign Secretary suggested, will report back to the House and we will have the chance for a full and proper debate on its

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  conclusions. That would also provide an opportunity for the Government finally to publish a White Paper on their policy for the intergovernmental conference which will follow.
  Mr. Allen: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Moore: If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will not, as I have given way a number of times.
  Ministers have resisted calls for a policy paper, but surely once the draft treaty has been published they cannot resist any longer. As we are talking about increasing openness and accountability in the European Union, why should the Government not lead by example and set out their proposals clearly and concisely? We hear much about the diplomatic red lines around issues that they will not concede, but what about the vision? Where is the grand plan? The IGC will no doubt be long and arduous, but it may surprise us and surpass historically low expectations, delivering more the proposals with which it began. We will not hold our breath but, whatever our expectations, only when a final treaty is available will we be able to assess the constitutional impact for this country and for Europe. Only then should we decide whether or not a referendum is needed.
  Mr. Ancram: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with Lord Ashdown, who said some time ago:
  "The only way to debate these issues and to arrive at a popular conclusion that will stick is through a referendum in which voters are, at last, welcomed in the secret garden of European policy"?
  That is a sensible comment. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with it?
  Mr. Moore: My noble Friend has made a number of very sensible speeches over the years, and that is one of them. If the right hon. Gentleman had been listening to me, he would have learned which tests we think are necessary to establish whether or not there should be a referendum.
  Already the Government and Opposition spokesmen have run for cover, digging themselves into their bunkers and making decisions before common sense suggests that it is wise to do so. Having set out a perfectly sensible case for determining the need for a referendum, the Government have now prejudged everything. Without even a final draft from the Convention, never mind the IGC, their amendment states boldly:
  "there is no case for a referendum".
  We cannot support the amendment in the form in which it has been drawn up, and will vote against it if we have the opportunity.
  As for the Conservative spokesmen, let me try to be charitable. Perhaps their efforts today are not simply a response to the cries from certain hysterical sections of the press. Perhaps their motion is not simply a device to allow them under the cover of a referendum to question the UK's continued membership of the European Union. But it seems strange that they, too, have prejudged matters. If what emerges from this process is long-needed reform of the EU, a clear statement of the
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  citizen's place in Europe, and a better codification of the relationship between member states and European institutions, that will be very welcome. But the changes will not necessarily have constitutional implications for this country, whether the word "constitution" is slapped across the front of the treaty or not. We should not prejudge that process, and for that reason we cannot support the Conservative motion.
  As the Convention concludes its work and the Government prepare their position for the IGC, we should turn our attention to the specific proposals that have been made. It is crazy to rule a referendum out, but it is equally daft to demand one now. Let us see the treaty, judge its character and then make the decision.
  3.8 pm
  Keith Vaz: I shall be brief because I know that time is short. It is right that the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore) should remind the House of why the Convention was set up. What depresses me about the Conservatives' policy on this issue, and, indeed, more generally on Europe, is the fact that they keep trying to tell the House and the country that they are in favour of enlargement but, at the same time, they want to use every opportunity to send a message to this country and the countries that will be part of the European Union that they are against enlargement. The Convention's purpose is to modernise the way in which the European Union operates and prepare it for enlargement. What was good enough for six countries was just about good enough for 15, but it will not be good enough when the 25 are formed on 1 May. The right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) will join me and others, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin) and the shadow Minister for Europe, at a reception that is being held today in the Members Dining Room, where representatives of the applicant countries and the descendants of people from the enlargement countries will participate in the first enlargement celebration here in the House of Commons.
  What a sad message the right hon. Gentleman is sending out. The Conservatives' policy was opposed to the Nice treaty. They wanted a referendum on the Nice treaty. In other words, they wanted to block enlargement. That would have been the effect of their campaign. [Interruption.] Exactly. The referendum would have been lost and enlargement would have been blocked—exactly what the Conservatives wanted. The purpose of Nice, of the decisions taken at Laeken and of the Convention is to prepare us, as the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale has just said, for the enlargement process.
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: None of the applicant state members on the Convention, of which I am a member, has ever made the point that the constitution is necessary for enlargement. They are joining on the basis of the Nice treaty, and they will probably join on I May next year, before the constitution is even ratified, so the hon. Gentleman's comments are very wide of the mark.
  Keith Vaz: No, they are not. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, after the proposals are put forward,

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  as the Foreign Secretary said, there will have to be a discussion at the IGC, of which the applicant states—the new members, as they will become on 1 May—may well be a part. If the IGC is concluded when they are members, they will have an opportunity of participating in those important decisions, as they have been observers to the Convention. I have met a number of people from applicant countries, and I have heard nobody say to me that they are unhappy about the position taken by the United Kingdom.
  As a former Minister, the right hon. Gentleman will know that when he went to the Council of Ministers, as did other former Ministers on the Opposition Benches, he went there to fight for the interests of Britain. He did nothing that was not in the national interests of Britain. That is exactly what my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary do when they go to European Union Councils of Ministers. They go to represent our country and to do what is best for us.
  What has been set out is a simple process. The Convention will put forward its proposals. As backing for that assertion, I can quote Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on the "Today" programme on 16 April, when he made it clear that those were proposals. They will eventually have to go to an IGC and be agreed by the Heads of Government, which means by our Prime Minister. That will be the opportunity for us to block anything that is not acceptable.
  I respect the views of the right hon. Member for Devizes on a number of issues, and I am saddened that he is not prepared to be more specific as to why he supported parliamentary scrutiny of the Maastricht treaty, but suddenly, because there is a referendum in Hartlepool, he has changed his mind and decided that we must have a referendum on every single aspect of European policy.
  The right hon. Gentleman knows, as does his hon. Friend the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), the huge implications of the Maastricht treaty. That is why the hon. Member for Stone has been so consistent, and I respect him for his consistency. He called for a referendum on Maastricht because of the huge significance of its proposals for the common foreign and security policy, qualified majority voting and all the other issues. But that was not the opportunity, in his mind, for a referendum on the Maastricht treaty, and there is no need for a referendum on the Convention. The work of the Convention is still not over.
  Mr. Shepherd: As the mover of an amendment in the debates on a referendum on Maastricht, I am conscious that many hon. Members across the House appreciated that it was a major constitutional issue. The gathering together of such major constitutional issues without any endorsement, validation or action of consent by the people has diminished the effectiveness of the European Community in this country. That is a matter of principle. Nothwithstanding the minor amendments to the treaty that the Government postulate—although I do not think that that will happen—ought not the Government to give the people an opportunity to take a view? They have had many years' experience of the ever increasing powers of the institutional arrangements.
  Keith Vaz: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but what diminishes Europe in the eyes of our people is
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  not the failure to hold a referendum, but the hysteria that surrounds every discussion of a European issue. Right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Front Bench will jump on any passing European bandwagon in order to do down Europe. It is the intention of Members such as the hon. Member for Stone to get Britain out of the European Union. That is the purpose that they are trying to achieve.
  The failure is our failure as a Parliament, and the failure of our press properly to reflect the views of the country, as expressed in a general election. I should like us to campaign much more as a Parliament and as individual Members of Parliament about the benefits of Europe. I know that the Minister for Europe is doing exactly that, with his excellent campaign to go to 100 towns and cities in the United Kingdom to tell the people about enlargement. That is what the Prime Minister spoke about on Monday and Tuesday, when he spoke about the need for us to talk about the euro in a positive and constructive way.
  We will have a referendum on that, but if we start screaming and shouting every time the word "Europe" is mentioned, and we have referendums conducted by the Daily Mail, why bother about Parliament? We can get the Daily Mail to conduct the next general election. People can cut out tokens from the Daily Mail to vote for their local MP. The point of Parliament is that it should scrutinise major constitutional issues.
  Angus Robertson: Why does the hon. Gentleman refuse to view the option of a referendum as a tremendous opportunity to put the case for a European Union that is a confederation of sovereign states, not a Eurosceptic vision? There are many in the House and elsewhere, including the principal opposition party in Scotland, who are committed to a referendum so that we can make the case for a reformed European Union. Why not jump at the opportunity and make the case?
  Keith Vaz: There would then be no point in having a Parliament. What is the point of Members of Parliament? What is the point of the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) going to represent Parliament? I do not agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has done and said, but I pay tribute to him for his hard work. What is the point of having Members of Parliament and Ministers? Let us have a referendum on everything. I know that that is the policy of the Scottish national party.
  We are to have a referendum on the euro—in the lifetime of this Parliament, I hope—if the conditions are met, but I do not believe it is necessary to have a referendum on every single aspect of European policy. If it was not good enough for Maastricht, which massively increased QMV, then it is not good enough for the Convention. We are dealing with the first stage of the proposals. The House need not take that from me—take it from the President of the Convention. The Heads of Government have not even considered it. Ministers in our Government have not done what all Ministers have done for the past 20 years, which is to look at the final proposals and act in the interests of the United Kingdom.
  My final point is about the necessity for the proposals described by the Foreign Secretary to come before Parliament at the earliest opportunity. I hope that the

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  Minister for Europe will tell us more about those when he winds up the debate. I valued the fact that the right hon. Member for Wells and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston have come before the House in Committee on a number of occasions to tell us about the work that they are doing. Those proceedings have been chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) in a Room on the Committee Corridor. There has not been enough time to go through all the various issues that have been raised and I hope that the Committee will have more sittings before the Convention completes its work. But it would be good if that Committee had an opportunity to go round the country to our major cities and listen to what people have to say about Europe. It would provide us with the opportunity to listen to local people on the issue. The final decision must be made by Parliament, but we should listen to local people, and that is one way in which we can take Europe to the people. Making Europe more accessible to ordinary people is exactly what the Convention intended to do, and perhaps we can achieve that by using our Standing Committee procedure.
  I shall support the Government amendment today. This is not the kind of matter that should be put to a referendum. It is quite different from the deliberations on the euro. I hope that the process of going out to the country will embrace all hon. Members, not just the so-called pro-Europeans. We all—including the shadow Foreign Secretary, the deputy leader of the Conservative party—have an interest in going out and selling the benefits of Europe. If the right hon. Member for Devizes does not do it, it will mean that he backs the hon. Member for Stone in his desire to take Britain out of the European Union.
  3.21 pm
  Mr. John Maples: The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) seems to inhabit, as do so many other enthusiasts for the ever-advancing European Union, an Alice in Wonderland world in which they consistently pretend that things are otherwise than they are. If one listens to what people say, talks to a German Christian Democrat in the European Parliament, listens to Mr. Prodi or most of the Commission, or reads what is in the Convention's output, it is pretty clear that we are on an inexorable road towards a federal Europe, or whatever one wants to call it. To deny that seems to be to deny reality.
  There is a perfectly respectable argument for a united states of Europe. It is a position held by some Liberal Democrats, some Labour Members and some Conservative Members. One can argue that the only way that Europe can be successful in the modern world is to group its resources, power and influence, and that the price of sacrificing a great deal, if not all, of one's national sovereignty is worth paying. Or one can argue the case that I and a great many of my colleagues argue. But what one cannot do is pretend that what is happening is what I want to see happen, because it is not. It is radically different.
  Last week, a team of Members of the House of Commons competed in a sort of "University Challenge" against members of a team from The Times. I will not
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  mention who was on the team, but they did not do very well. I want to ask the Minister—if the Foreign Secretary were here, I would ask him too—to imagine that we were on that team and that the following question was posed to us. I think that it is one that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) would have answered correctly, but I think that I know what the Minister would have said. The question is this: what does one call an organisation that has a constitution, a president, a foreign minister, a parliament, a Bill of individual rights, a supreme court, a currency, a central bank, citizenship, the power to accede to international treaties, a police force, a public prosecutor, a common foreign and security policy, military capability and common criminal law and procedure, and where federal law overrides state law?
  Apparently, the Minister and his boss the Foreign Secretary would answer that question by saying, "That sounds to me like a grouping of individual sovereign states that have pooled limited amounts of sovereignty to achieve specific objectives." I suggest that they would have done no better than my hon. Friend and his team. My hon. Friend would have answered, "It sounds to me like a state." The fact is that it does sound like a state. Those are the characteristics of a state. I suggest to the Minister and the House that that is where we are heading. I do not think that we are there yet, but in a series of inexorable steps, over the past 20 years and during the next five or ten years, that is where we are going.
  There will come a point down that road at which most of us will want to call a halt and at least examine some of the things that are being done. Let us stop pretending that we are not heading there. Let us stop pretending that that is not what the great engines of the European Union—the French and particularly the German Governments, the Benelux countries, the German parliamentarians in the Commission itself—want, because it is. It is even where most Italian and Spanish centre-right politicians of the European Parliament want to go too. It may be t hat we are in a small minority, but the fact is that they are at least honest about it, which is more than the Government are, and more than most of the proponents are.
  The Minister for Europe (Mr. Denis MacShane): Could the hon. Gentleman name a single Head of Government—Mr. Aznar, Mr. Chirac, Mr. Schröder who is up for abolishing the national identity of his country to merge into a European superstate?
  Mr. Maples: Certainly the Prime Minister of Belgium is a pretty willing participant in that process, and I would suggest that Herr Schröder is too. They are willing to have an awful lot of their national identities subsumed. I am not saying that we are there now. I am not saying that the draft constitution will get us there, but it is another step on the road.
  Let me set out for the Minister six fundamental points. If they are dealt with in the negotiations of the IGC, I would be reasonably happy with the treaty, but if they are not, I shall be unhappy with it.
  The first is the pillar structure. The Convention proposes the final collapse of pillar three—that home affairs matters should come under the Commission with

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  qualified majority voting in almost all cases. This is a perfect example of how the EU advances. Home affairs started at Maastricht as pillar three. At Amsterdam, a bit of it came into pillar one. Now the rest of it has gone into pillar one, and we have gradually moved from unanimity to qualified majority voting. That is what happens. When it starts, it all looks perfectly innocent as intergovernmental co-operation, but we end up with the supranational organisation making our laws about nationality and asylum.
  Secondly, I have some real issues about the common foreign and security policy, but the Government have dealt with the most important one, which is maintaining unanimity on setting that policy and in anything to do with defence. But I am concerned about the dual-hatted foreign minister. The position that Solana occupies is perfectly acceptable. We need an instrument for a common voice in areas where we can and do agree. No one would deny that. We have a lot of interests in common and we need to be able to promote them. Senor Solana does a magnificent job in that respect. His position as secretary-general of the Council is right. But if that person is to be the foreign minister with a position in the Council, and dual-hatted as a vice-president of the Commission, I do not see how that will work. He will have divided and dual loyalties with different responsibilities to both. But what worries me far more is that this is the start of the collapse of pillar two. This is the start of bringing the Commission into foreign and security policy. That must remain intergovernmental. That is a fundamental sticking point, and I hope that the Government will resist the dual-hatting of the foreign minister. I do not particularly care what they call him. I would rather that he stayed as secretary-general, but it is important that he does not have a role or responsibility in the Commission.
  Thirdly, as I said to the Foreign Secretary, I am very concerned about the charter of fundamental rights. If it were like the United States Bill of Rights—about freedom of speech, due process and cruel and unusual punishments—few would have much objection to it. We certainly would not want this House ever to pass a law that we felt breached those things. However, it does not deal with that. It is a Bill of political aspirations. It is not a Bill of fundamental legal rights.
  For instance, everyone has a right to a free placement service. Everyone has a right of access to preventive health care. I think that another says that everyone has a right to vocational and continuing training. I am concerned that eventually that will mean that somebody who does not like the provisions that the elected British Government have made in this place for continuing training or preventive health care will be able to challenge them in the European Court of Justice. That is a fundamental alteration in the relationship between member states and the European Union.
  I have looked at the so-called parallel articles. I am continually told by intelligent British diplomats, "Oh, we can get around all this incorporation." The fact is that the Government did not want incorporation. They did not want it in the Nice treaty. They did not want it in this constitution. I hope that they will fight to get it out. I do not believe that any of the articles that they have got in, or for that matter any parallel articles that they could draft, will protect us from the consequences that I have tried to outline. We know about the
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  constructivist nature of the European Court of Justice. If there is a chink in the armour, they will find their way around it, and before we know it they will be telling us, as the United States Supreme Court tells the United States Congress, what we can and cannot pass as legislation.
  Keith Vaz: The charter of fundamental rights does not go one iota beyond existing British law.
  Mr. Maples: It goes way beyond it. It allows a supreme court—the European Court of Justice—to say that everyone has a right to a free placement service. I do not know quite what that means; I assume that it is something to do with helping people to find jobs. I am happy for us to pass laws about that, because we can repeal them, but if the European Court of Justice can tell us that such laws are unconstitutional, that is a central ingredient—a keystone—of a federal European state.
  Fourthly, we need to strengthen subsidiarity, which is weakened by these articles. We are told that, if enough national Parliaments do not like that, they can—to use the Foreign Secretary's words—deliver a message to the European Commission; a fat lot of use that is. The Commission is not democratically responsible to us, or indeed to anybody, and in the past it has taken no notice at all of the subsidiarity provisions. If subsidiarity is to mean anything, those provisions must be strengthened.
  Fifthly, articles 95 and 308 of the treaty establishing the European Community—which essentially allow the Council to do virtually anything in pursuit of establishing the internal market, and go very wide indeed—must be reined in, because although that mechanism has not yet been exploited to the full, it might well be.
  My sixth point concerns the provision on the right to withdraw. I hope that that remains. That is not to say that I want to withdraw—[Interruption.] I think that the hon. Member for Leicester, East knows that I do not. None the less, the fact that it is there gives us some comfort, because we know that we will not need to have a civil war to decide what the constitution means—if there comes a point when we do not like it, we can get out. That is fundamental.
  Sir Teddy Taylor: Does my hon. Friend accept that it is not actually the right to withdraw, but the right to withdraw subject to the approval of the European Parliament?
  Mr. Maples: I have to say that I did not read it quite like that, but perhaps it needs some clarification.
  Mr. Cash: It is subject to QMV.
  Mr. Maples: Yes, I understand that the European Parliament has a role under QMV. However, the right to leave is pretty clearly established. If any member state were to decide that it wanted to do so, it would surely want to negotiate a treaty with the European Union that set out what its relations would be in future. I take my hon. Friend's point, but I think that of my six tests, the Government have comprehensively met that one.
  People will say that a lot of what is in the constitution is in the existing texts. That is of course true, although not all of it is there. That shows how far we have come

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  in 20 years. By a series of salami slices—the Single European Act, Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, the Convention—
  Keith Vaz: The Conservatives did some of it.
  Mr. Maples: I am not saying that we did not play a part in it, but that by a series of salami slices we have come an enormous distance from a grouping for economic purposes—[Interruption.] I wonder if my hon. Friend the Member for Stone could keep his conversation a bit quieter—he is rather putting me off.
  We have come an awful long way from the situation in 1984 to that implied by the Convention. We have moved from a simple grouping of sovereign states to what is very close to a united states of Europe, and we have done so without realising that it has happened. It is an inexorable process that always starts as a series of aspirations—for example, the social charter winds up as the social chapter—that are ultimately enforceable by qualified majority voting. We see that again and again. On any particular matter, one need only get a competence, get it to QMV, get it into pillar one, and that is it—the end of national decision making.
  I should like to propose an alternative. The Minister and the Foreign Secretary say that the Conservative party just wants to get out of Europe, but I do not. My alternative—I first proposed it when I held the job of my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram)—is to have a more flexible Europe. Some articles in the treaty, which are repeated in the new constitution, allow for flexibility. They allow a group of member states that want to continue through enhanced co-operation to do so. If a group of member states want to set a similar policy on nationality, asylum, continuing education or the right to placement services, I am all for their being able to do so, but such policies should not be imposed. There should be a core of trade and business—a single market. I am perfectly prepared to subscribe to that, because it is of great benefit to us. In fact, for the sake of argument, I would be prepared to draw the line where we are now and go no further, although I should prefer to roll the clock back a little to before Nice. There is a real role for Europe and for a constitution that builds in such flexibility and makes it clear what people's rights are.
  The federalists argue that the only way in which to make a 25-state European Union work is through qualified majority voting everywhere and the Commission having a role in everything. However, I believe that there is an alternative method, through flexibility. That would be a better model.
  The European Union is constantly guilty of trying to run before it can walk. It has a massive unfinished agenda of completing the internal market and its free trade agenda—15,000 individual external tariffs remain—successfully completing enlargement and the long overdue reform of the dreadful common agricultural policy. It would have been far more productive and better for all of us if the huge energy and brainpower that has convened in Brussels to dream up the Convention had been applied to trying to solve some of the problems.
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  We are on the wrong track. We are heading inexorably, piece by piece, year by year, competence by competence, QMV session by QMV session towards a united states of Europe. We should be heading in a different direction, towards flexibility. We should stop pretending that our action is other than what it is.
  Before I became a Member of Parliament, I was a lawyer dealing with tax matters. We tried to dream up tax planning methods and schemes that would pretend that something was not quite what it was—for example an insurance policy that did not resemble one. It would be slightly different and have a few characteristics that enabled one to argue that it was not an insurance policy. I asked an American lawyer whether he thought that it would work with the internal revenue service. He replied, "John, the IRS takes the view that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck." This is a duck.
  3.36 pm
  Mr. Wayne David: It would be useful to begin by briefly examining the point that we have reached in the debate about the future of Europe. It is worth remembering that the Convention on the Future of Europe has not concluded its deliberations. When it does, it will present a report to the intergovernmental conference, which will begin its consideration. The IGC has not determined its timetable for consideration; it has not even met. Nobody is clear about the timetable or the exact way in which it will consider the Convention's report. However, it is clear that the British Government have made several points of principle clear. Time and again, they have made it abundantly clear that they oppose the idea of creating some European federal superstate. They have stated clearly that, if necessary, they will draw lines in the sand on the extension of qualified majority voting and will not accept it for defence, tax or treaty changes.
  If hon. Members are not prepared to accept the comments of our Government representatives, it is worth noting the objective comments of the former President of France, Mr. Giscard d'Estaing, who is president of the Convention. On "Today" on 16 April, he said:
  "The decision will be taken later in what is called an intergovernmental conference, and the decision will be taken by unanimity. So if Britain or another country does not agree, it has a perfect right and a practical right to oppose".
  In other words, if Britain does not want a set of proposals that other countries make—I do not believe that they will make such proposals—the Government have the right of veto. They can say no and that such proposals are unacceptable. Nobody can force them on the United Kingdom. Nobody can dictate to us. What we accept is up to the Government, and their position is clear.
  Nevertheless, the Opposition claim that whatever comes from the Convention and whatever the intergovernmental conference agrees, a referendum must be held. I therefore deduce that they are articulating a point of principle: there must be a referendum, whatever the circumstances and terms. However, if the position is to be credible, it must have some consistency.
  Let us consider the broad development of the European Union since the treaty of Rome in 1957. There are two historic landmarks in its development.

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  Two significant treaty changes brought about fundamental alterations in the nature of the European project.
  The first was the Single European Act in 1986, which was introduced and agreed when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. That was the treaty change that effectively brought about the European Union as we know it today, and made possible the single market, with the free movement of capital, labour, services and goods. That was all made possible by a huge extension of qualified majority voting—the biggest extension of QMV that we have seen to date. But did we have a referendum on that? No, we did not. Was a referendum suggested by the Government of the time? No, it was not. If the Conservatives had wanted to make a principled case for a referendum, they should have made it then. They did not. In fact, the opposite was the case. As I understand it, a guillotine was introduced by the Government of the day to get the measure through as quickly as possible.
  That was one major landmark. The second was the treaty of Maastricht, which brought about a huge extension of the powers of the European Union. It introduced the pillar structure and brought about the basis for economic and monetary union, which we have been debating in earnest this week, and a still further extension of qualified majority voting. It also introduced the concept of European citizenship and a major extension of the powers of the European Parliament. I was an MEP at that time, and I remember being delirious with joy in Strasbourg at the new process of co-decision that was being introduced with the full support of the United Kingdom, which effectively gave the European Parliament the same powers as a nation state over certain issues of policy. But did we have a referendum on that? No, we did not. In fact, as has been mentioned, the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) argued passionately against a referendum on that profound change in the European Union.
  When we look back, from 1957 to the Single European Act in 1986 to the treaty of Maastricht in 1992, we see that Conservative Members argued against any formal consultation of the British people in the form of a referendum. Yet today they argue for a referendum on something that might come forward some time in the future when all the discussions and debates have come to an end. I have to say that that smacks of supreme political expediency.
  I also have to conclude that many Conservative Members—there are exceptions—do not seem interested in having a debate on these complex issues. Sadly, they are not interested in having a treaty that will make the European Union function more effectively. That is a great shame, because it seems likely that 10 new countries will join the European Union next year, and they will want to join a European Union that functions effectively in their own best interests. I suspect that that is what all citizens in all European countries want. That is what the debate in the Convention has been all about, and it is what the debate in the intergovernmental conference will be about as well.
  Ann Winterton: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that the new countries that will come into Europe in May, if their referendums go well, have already signed up to the acquis communautaire. They have, therefore,
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  signed up to Europe exactly as it is today. What would their reaction be, having worked very hard to meet the criteria and to bring their people along with them, if there were any major changes in what they had signed up to? Will they not be able to use their own veto if they do not like some of the ways in which the European constitution is developing?
  Mr. David: The hon. Lady asks an interesting question. It is worth noting that we have seen the prospective accession countries play a full and active role in the deliberations of the Convention. Without exception, their contribution has been positive. They have not agreed with every point, but they have not disagreed with every point either. They have been very involved in the process. I believe that that involvement will continue, and as soon as those countries become full members of the European Union in May 2004, they will have a full legal involvement in the intergovernmental conference. I welcome that.
  It is also important to recognise that one interesting political configuration that is developing between the United Kingdom and many of the accession countries is a unity of purpose. I genuinely believe in the Government's vision of a Europe of people working together that is also a Europe of sovereign independent nations that decide to pool their sovereignty from time to time. Countries seeking to join the EU have the same vision.
  I know that the Poles—who have suffered under German domination in the past and, in the more recent past, under the Soviet Union—will not celebrate their new nationhood by accepting domination from Brussels. They realise that that is not what the European project is all about. They are proud of their independent sovereign status, and want to celebrate it within the European Union. They believe, rightly and perceptively, that the EU will preserve and enhance their new sense of identity. I think that much can be learned from countries in central and eastern Europe.
  I am glad that the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) mentioned the attitude of the accession countries. It would be a huge shame if the House sent a negative message to other EU members and the accession countries, suggesting that some Members of Parliament wanted to destabilise the EU, provoke a crisis and make the Union dysfunctional. We must map out a way forward, sensibly and rationally.
  The Convention has brought a range of issues to the attention of the people of Europe. Although it has yet to reach definitive conclusions, I suspect that much will emerge that many of us will welcome. A few proposals may prove unacceptable, but we should recognise that such differences in opinion must be discussed by our representatives and the people of Europe, and that those discussions will be reflected in decisions made at the intergovernmental conference.
  The Government's commitment to parliamentary democracy means that we will have a full and honest debate, on the Floor of the House and elsewhere, on the merits of the final treaty change and the new so-called constitution that will emerge from the IGC. If we engage in a sensible, rational debate rather than one laced with unfortunate nationalism, we can have a new constitution that will take the enlarged European Union into a new era of peace and prosperity.
  3.48 pm
  Mr. Richard Shepherd: The Government's position, and the Foreign Secretary's typically sophistic speech, have been characterised by a fear of seeking popular endorsement of what the Government have set out to do. The Foreign Secretary ably charted the huge changes that have taken place in the character of what we have come to call the European Union. What was once a common market is now a European union. He made much of his argument that huge constitutional changes had taken place in the Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty, and that at each stage Governments had rejected the idea of a referendum.
  Before the 1992 election I tabled a Bill demanding a referendum, and during the debates on the Maastricht treaty I tabled an amendment to the same effect. I believe that only through a referendum can the people to whom we are accountable express the oldest notion of democratic government: consent. We seek more than acquiescence. We seek consent—or, at least, that is what the Government should do.
  In a very revealing response during Question Time today, the Prime Minister said that people want a referendum because they want to paralyse the European Union. That was part of the Foreign Secretary's argument—that, in some way or other, it would derail the European Union. There is no open mind when the fear is that what they personally believe in and personally promote may be rejected if it is put to the British people. That is the dichotomy that faces the Government.
  I oppose these profound constitutional changes because they strike at the heart of our constitutional arrangements, bearing in mind that it took 200 years to bring about democratic and accountable government. A distinguished Member of Parliament left the Government Benches at the last election: Mr. Tony Benn. He used to ask the House, when looking at constitutions and Governments, what are their powers? Where did they get them from? In whose interest are they exercised? To whom are they accountable, and how do we get rid of them?
  Under our constitutional arrangements, we know how to get rid of a Government and how to change the law. The Convention's constitutional proposals do not amount merely to tidying arrangements. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) said, they set out a constitution—it quacks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it is a constitution. We heard the sophistry of the Foreign Secretary, who says that it is nothing very much, but we heard that sophistry from Lord Hurd and from John Major That sophistry has run through the debate on the European Union. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, each stage is a salami stage. We used to call it a ratchet. One starts at a very low base, and each stage is gained and then claimed as absolute.
  The Maastricht treaty sought something that this constitution could never countenance—no democracy could, in truth—and, similarly, these constitutional arrangements seek something that is, in the words of the Maastricht treaty, irrevocable and irreversible. Therefore, it is not a trivial matter. We know that the Convention is trying to overset deep constitutional
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  principles of accountable government, whereby each generation may make provision for the matters and affairs of state that they regard as important, and legislation passed yesteryear can be gainsaid by the judgment of a new generation expressed through the ballot box.
  I come back to Tony Benn's questions. To whom are these institutions accountable? To whom is the Commission, the sole initiator of legislation, accountable? How does the citizen in Aldridge-Brownhills say, "I will not wear this Bill"? They cannot. In what way can they sack these people? They cannot. That is why the aim is to make the arrangements irrevocable and irreversible. The principle—that is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), the shadow Foreign Secretary, was arguing for—is that this generation should give or withhold its consent.
  I am not a soothsayer, unlike the Prime Minister, who is now, ridiculously, trying to sell Europe. The former Minister for Europe went around the nation trying to meet Eurosceptics. I think that Kevin and Keith were the only two Eurosceptics whom he met when he did the Foreign Office bus trip around Britain to try to sell the euro. If we descend to those levels, things become farcical. The principle that is being enunciated is shared by those who deeply believe in the integration of Europe, and by those, such as me, who believe that this is an abnegation of democracy. That is the essence of this debate—not the fripperies of Ministers, who are playing around, as I have often seen Ministers play around before.
  The Government need to raise their game. Yesterday, the Prime Minister suggested that they were going to sell Europe. Heaven only knows, we have had nearly 20 years of being told that everything that happens in the European camp is for the benefit of this country. If that is so, let the British people announce it loud and clear in a referendum—but no, the Government fear it.
  The Liberal Democrats used to be in favour of referendums. I say that because I sought the support of their then leader, Lord Ashdown, for a referendum on Maastricht. He was for it, because the Liberal Democrats believed in these matters. However, we heard a very curious contribution from the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore). He spoke of wee advances, wee this and wee that, as though it were just a little matter. It is not a little matter; it is the gathering together of all that forms a constitution.
  Mr. Allen: Is the hon. Gentleman not in fact making a case for including in the constitution provisions that would reassure him, many of his colleagues and many of those outside this place who are sceptical—thereby making it the sort of constitution that would command widespread support in the House—rather than merely calling for a referendum? To many on the Labour Benches, such a call looks like an excuse to stop a constitution, rather than to build a constitution that would give the hon. Gentleman the guarantees that he seeks.
  Mr. Shepherd: No—there is no conspiracy here. I am not trying to sell to the British people the idea that the

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  loss of all these features of democratic and accountable government is a good. I believe in this institution, and in my nation as a democratic centre. I know how difficult it is to grasp what Governments do. Only last Wednesday, the Prime Minister told us about security and intelligence matters. How do we get him before a Committee? We know how difficult that is, but how difficult will it be to control Governments here, when all the apparatus is moved some 1,000 miles to a place where our voice does not prevail, and into the hands of other people? That is why many people in this country—with no ill will whatsoever to any continental power; many of them believe, as I do, in the comity of nations—feel that they should be able to express a view on being governed in an undemocratic, unaccountable form, whereby this House votes itself out of existence.
  This motion is really about a principle. The hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) is right: we do not know what the outcome will be. But whatever it is, the people must be asked: is this right?
  3.58 pm
  Andrew Mackinlay: I am very pleased at the news of the referendum in Poland. In my maiden speech in 1992, I spoke about my desire and hope for the enlargement of the European Union and of NATO to take in the various countries that are now indeed joining, such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Their joining is important not just for them but for us, and it is the final closure of the awful events of 1939 and the disfigurement of Europe through the Yalta decisions.
  I also note that there is talk in the press of a Government reshuffle. I shall not be standing by my telephone this weekend, but I mention the fact because there have been six Ministers for Europe since my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister took office, which is too many. I certainly hope that he does not move my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane). I say that not because of the great affection that I have for my hon. Friend, but for the more important reason that it is not in the interests of the United Kingdom to keep changing our Ministers for Europe. I hope that that point will be noted.
  This debate has some resonance for me, and my observation that I will not be hanging around by the telephone this weekend is also relevant. My diary records a Liberal Democrat half-day debate in the House, when the Conservatives were in office, during Lord Ashdown's leadership of the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats called for a referendum on Europe. I thought that that was a rather good idea, as I do this afternoon. Later, I may intervene and supply the Hansard references.
  The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster), then our Chief Whip, sent for me and said, "Andrew, I hope that you are not going to vote for this nonsense." I said that I was not only going to vote for it, but speak in favour of it—and I did. The House was like the Mary Celeste, with neither of the two major parties applying a Whip. Only a few Liberals and a few people like me spoke in favour, but we placed on record our view—still my view this afternoon, as an enthusiastic pro-European—that we needed to go out and sell Europe. It has all been one-way traffic, with the hon.
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  Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) and my good friend with whom I disagree, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor), making all the arguments. The other side has never been out, campaigning and evangelising the positive case for Europe. I believe that a referendum would help us pro-Europeans to concentrate our efforts and take the issue to the people. I therefore disagree with Ministers.
  The debate illustrates how Parliament can be brought into disrepute by the synthetic anger between the rival Front Benchers, with one side saying that the other side did not do this or that in office, and vice versa. I reminded my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday that he and I campaigned for a referendum in the early 1970s after Harold Wilson had, as they say, had a fundamental negotiation of Common Market entry terms. My right hon. Friend was generous enough to concede that he voted no in that referendum. I voted yes and have continued to vote and argue in favour of European union ever since. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend is now in my camp.
  My diary also records the fact that in the debate on the Maastricht treaty the current Leader of the Opposition was pinned to the wall just outside the doors of the Chamber by a current member of the shadow Cabinet who did not want him to move in one particular direction. At the same time, another hon. Member, also in his place today, was pulling him by his tie in the other direction. Hence the confusion caused when the public see Front Benchers in each epoch altering their positions. Some hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East and me, have at least been consistent and never taken the Major or the Blair shillings—though I was never offered them. The hon. Gentleman has been consistently opposed, and I have been consistently in favour of Europe.
  Mr. Allenrose—
  Andrew Mackinlay: I hope that my hon. Friend will not think me discourteous, but I am going to move on, as promised.
  We are prematurely working ourselves into a lather on the narrow issue of the Convention, because it has not yet been finalised. I believe that some of its proposals will have to be watered down because they are unlikely to be acceptable to 25 member states. Although it is not entirely satisfactory, I believe that we can reach agreement largely on the basis of existing arrangements that facilitate the enlarged Community.
  I said to the Foreign Secretary yesterday that it is a pity that we become obsessed with the term "president", which does not translate well into our language. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as our Chairman, would be a president in any other Assembly. I cannot think why, in an English translation of any subsequent treaty, we cannot think of an English word for "president" that would be an acceptable substitute to colleagues elsewhere. In my view, that would help our electorate to understand the issues, which is preferable to allowing the malevolent press to imply that we need another term to describe someone such as the President of the United States.
  Mr. MacShane: A small footnote to the process is my suggestion that the term "president" be changed to

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  "chair" or "chairman". That now increasingly appears in the English text and I hope that it will be in the final text of the constitutional treaty.
  Andrew Mackinlay: That is very good news, and I hope that other Front Benchers follow the initiative of the Minister for Europe by using that terminology time and again. If the Convention and subsequent treaty are agreed, we need to be clear about the functions of the new person, who effectively amounts to a Secretary-General, as understood in many international bodies.
  Mr. Ian Davidson: May I suggest that we use the good Scottish term "convener"?
  Andrew Mackinlay: I have made my point and I promised not to take long, so I cannot pursue that comment.
  I am pleased to place on the record my renewed enthusiasm for the European project, which I do not fear at all. However, it is in the best interests of Parliament that we take the people with us. We should have a reaffirmation by the British people of their support for our membership of Europe. It is logical and a matter of common sense, so we could persuade them. We should have the full consent of both Parliament and the people, not only because of the treaty on the constitution but because of the numerous treaties that have reinforced and deepened the project since the early 1970s. There will come a time—perhaps not this year, but in a few years' time—when we need to reaffirm our commitment to Europe.
  4.5 pm
  Sir Teddy Taylor: Time is short, so instead of the long and brilliant speech that I was going to make, I shall make a few brief points. The Foreign Secretary has not been in his place since he made his own speech and it is sad to see the Government treating the House of Commons with the same contempt as we have had year after year, whenever a European treaty has come forward.
  Every time a treaty is presented to us, we are told, "Don't worry, there's nothing in it. It is all in previous legislation and there's nothing new." Of course, on every occasion, the reverse has been true. The Single European Act is a perfect example: we were told that it was only a means of extending free trade within Europe, and we know that that was not the case. It is appalling that on this occasion, as on all previous ones, the Foreign Secretary simply concentrated on saying nasty things about delightful Conservatives, instead of saying something about the treaty.
  I hope that the Minister will answer a few questions when he winds up. Why do we need a European Foreign Minister? The proposal, set out in article 127, is something new. What will that Minister actually do? Where will his office be? For whom will he speak? We will also have a European ombudsman. Well, we have an ombudsman in Britain who does not appear to be a wonderful success. What will the European ombudsman do? To whom will he be responsible? How much will it
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  cost? What is it all about? [Interruption.] There should be no confusion, because the provision is on page 21, article 148.
  Is article 159, about voluntary withdrawal from the EU, a load of the usual nonsense or is it real? A country that decides that it wants to leave the EU voluntarily has to come to an agreement, which could take about two years, and then it has to be approved by the Council, after the consent of the European Parliament has been obtained. I hope that the Minister will answer those straight questions, instead of blethering his usual nonsense. Will a nation have the right to withdraw or will that be totally subject to the Council and the Parliament?
  We should have a referendum, because people are fed up to the back teeth with the European Union, although that is probably why the Government are not having one. People were enthusiastic some years ago, but now most people are fed up. They point out that the EU costs us a great deal of money—£1.4 million every hour. I am sure that other hon. Members could think of better ways to spend that money. Most of the money we send to Europe is wasted on the most silly things. More than £1 billion will be spent this year on growing high tar tobacco in Greece. We do not want to consume that because it s bad for our health, but it is dumped on the third world and eastern Europe, and we can do nothing about it.
  People are annoyed about the instructions to the Government to change their policies and do daft things. For example, the winter fuel payment was introduced to help old people in cold weather. As the Minister will be aware—and he probably approves, being the sort of person that he is—the EU instructed us that we had to make that payment to people in the overseas territories of the EU, including those in Guadalupe, Martinique and other places with year-round sunshine. That costs the taxpayer £10 million a year—on the Government's figures—but what can we do about it?
  We find that people are fed up to the back teeth with what is being done to the fishing industry, but again Parliament is basically useless.
  Whenever the powers of the EU are extended, the Government say that we must accept it because of the advantage to our trade. I hope that the Minister will read the document entitled "Global Britain Briefing Note", the latest edition of which was published this week. It makes the simple point that, although the single market was established to help our trade, exports to the EU from the US—which had to overcome the hurdle of not being in the EU—grew twice as fast as those from France and Germany. It also states that Japanese exports to the single market grew 27 per cent. faster than French and German exports to the same destination.
  My final point concerns a matter that I hope that the Government will consider. Why have we eliminated a number of matters from the treaties that appear to me to be rather important but which unfortunately seem to have been treated as of no significance? The draft constitution states:
  "Member States shall actively and unreservedly support the Union's common foreign and security policy".
  What does that mean for a democratic Parliament and Government? What is the obligation that means that we must support such policies "unreservedly"?

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  The draft also states that the constitution
  "shall have primacy over the law of the Member States."
  That is not entirely new, but what does it mean?
  I have 10 seconds left, so my final point for the Minister is to ask him what is meant when article 11.19 on page 5 states that nobody will be removed by any member state when there is a risk that that person could be subject to the death penalty. Does that mean that we cannot send a person out of our country who is here illegally if the result will be that he is sent to a country that has the death penalty?
  I could offer many other examples, but unfortunately do not have time to do so. My point is that the draft constitution contains a huge number of provisions that are major extensions of European power that would undermine our democracy in important ways. It is time that the Government woke up to the fact, and gave the people the right to say whether they want to proceed with the proposals, or not.
  4.12 pm
  Mr. Cash: This debate is about the freedom of the voters whom we represent. It is their Parliament. It should be their referendum, which would be authorised by Parliament, recognising the people's right of consent. The motion is not about the merits or demerits of the EU, and neither is it about being in or out. It is not anti-European to be pro-democracy.
  Above all, the debate is about the voters, their families, their children and their daily lives. It is about what took young men to war—in the past and recently—to fight for the freedom of their country. It is about whom the voters choose to govern them, and how that is to be done. Ours is the patriotic case in the national interest—national, that is, not nationalistic.
  The Prime Minister claimed the patriotic ground yesterday, and the Foreign Secretary did so again today, yet he refuses a referendum on how we are to be governed. That is because he knows that he will not win. and he dares not face the voters with the truth. The Prime Minister's version of patriotism is the last refuge of the loser.
  The "Oxford English Dictionary" defines patriotism as the quality possessed by people who are devoted to their country, and who are ready to support or defend it. The proposed constitution cynically turns truth on its head, and freedom with it. It is the ultimate betrayal of the nation.
  We have heard some notable contributions, among them those from my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), the shadow Foreign Secretary, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). We insist that there must be a referendum if the constitutional treaty is agreed by the Government. That referendum must be held before the treaty is brought to Parliament.
  This is an exceptional case for an exceptional treaty. It is exceptional because the Government have agreed with the principle of a European constitution, without a shred of legal, constitutional or political authority. The Government will use their Whips to drive the constitution through the House. No Member of Parliament, including the Prime Minister, has the right to undermine the rights of the voters of this country to
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  decide their own form of Government, or the right to usurp the authority of the House of Commons. The decision must be the decision of the voters, in a fair referendum with a fair question based on full information.
  The Government of no member state has so far objected in principle to the proposed constitution. It is therefore right to assume that it will go through the intergovernmental conference. Then the voters must have their say, and that say must be based on an explanation about the constitutional and legal implications in a White Paper, like the one issued by the Labour Government in 1967 even before European government became an issue. If then, why not now? I have repeatedly asked the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House for such a White Paper, and he has refused point blank. He does not want the voters—our constituents—to know the truth: that is the reality. The voters do not believe a word he says, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition stated last week.
  The Government call the constitution a tidying-up exercise and say that it is not a major constitutional shift. Yet we do not know what constitutional arrangements the document will contain. Who do they think they are kidding? They clearly have not read the constitution, so let me outline what it says.
  Mr. Allen: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Cash: I am afraid that I cannot; the Government took up a great deal of our time.
  We should note the words of the constitution. The opening words are:
  "Reflecting the will of the citizens and the States of Europe to build a common future".
  Notice the distinction drawn between the will of the citizens and the will of the states: if there is no referendum, there is no will, and no connection with the citizen. It goes on, crucially:
  "this constitution establishes the European Union",
  adding reference to the competences to be conferred. It then says: "The constitution,"—that comma may be the biggest constitutional comma in modern European history—
  "shall have primacy over the law of the Member States."
  That means this Parliament. That principle, with legal personality and exclusive and shared competences in the field of government, and the protocol that reduces national parliaments to mere involvement, steal the right of every voter in this country to govern themselves through their elected representatives.
  John Bruton, former Prime Minister of Ireland and now a member of the Praesidium, has said, in effect, that the national parliaments are wasting their time and had better come to terms with it. Even apart from the other components of further integration, the Convention moves the strategic plan from theory to constitutional politics. It is no reply to say that the constitution states:
  "The Union shall respect the national identities of its Member States inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional".
  Identity is neither law nor constitution.
  The constitution will repeal all existing treaties. Contrary to the Government's amendment to our motion, it goes far beyond any existing treaty, both in

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  content and in principle. It incarnates a new treaty. It turns the European Court into the supreme court of Europe, adjudicating over the European constitution, which will absorb our courts and our parliament. The Government amendment breathtakingly claims that the proposed constitution does
  "not involve any fundamental change in the relationship between the EU and its Member States".
  The Minister for Europe said as much to me in answer to a parliamentary question. It is simply untrue.
  The only justifiable means of giving our voters a free choice on such a vital issue must be to give them their say in a referendum. The onus is on those who are against the referendum to justify their refusal to allow the people to have their say. If the treaty went straight into a Bill under the European Communities Act 1972, who imagines that there would not be a programme motion and a three-line Whip? At the very least, the 1972 Act would need an express and unambiguous amendment to protect the voters' rights to govern themselves.
  On 28 May, in The Times, the Foreign Secretary stated that
  "the new European Constitution is also something Britain supports".
  How on earth does he know? It was not in the Labour manifesto. Nor was it authorised by the Laeken declaration, as Lord Tomlinson indicated in the Convention the other day. The Foreign Secretary continued:
  "It will create a stable rule book setting out clearly the primacy of nation states."
  That is pure nonsense.
  To bring in the constitution through the 1972 Act, without a referendum, would be constitutional suicide, establishing by reverse takeover a constitutional sovereignty higher than that of Parliament itself. By any standards, that is a greater constitutional shift than any in recent centuries, even going back as far as 1688. In 1649, there was regicide; now, it would be suicide.
  I have five constitutional tests for the Prime Minister, so that he can explain the proposed new constitution to the British people in plain English. First, what does the constitution really do? What does it tidy up, and how? What do the Government mean by "substantive" and "fundamental"?
  Secondly, how is our national primacy to be preserved under the constitution? Thirdly, how much control will our Parliament retain, and how? Fourthly, why will not the Prime Minister give the British people a White Paper? Fifthly, how can he expect the voters to trust him without a referendum?
  The Prime Minister has conceded a referendum on the principle of the loss of sovereignty involved in the euro yet, like a Russian doll, that inner principle is separate from, but encased in, the greater principle of the constitution itself, under the constitutional treaty. If one deserves a referendum so, irrefutably, must the other. The truth is that the Prime Minister refuses to let British voters decide because he knows that they will not give him the answer he wants.
  Who governs us, and how? The difference between the Opposition and the Government is that we trust the British people and they do not. I commend the motion to the House.
  4.21 pm
  The Minister for Europe (Mr. Denis MacShane): This has been a good debate. Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House did not announce it last Thursday, so hon. Members did not know about it until Tuesday morning. As the debate has had to be compressed, I shall not take interventions.
  The debate has reflected the concern of the House, as is right. We have intensively debated the Convention both in Westminster Hall and in this Chamber. The European Scrutiny Committee has considered it. Next Tuesday, 17 June, a parliamentary seminar on the Convention on the Future of Europe will be held in the Foreign Office, and I invite all hon. Members to attend. I can confirm that once the Convention text has been published, we shall find a day in Government time for the House to debate these matters before it rises. Neither the Government nor I have any problem about debating them as thoroughly as possible.
  We have heard some good contributions, especially from my hon. Friends the Members for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and for Caerphilly (Mr. David). My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly, like my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), mentioned Poland where, on Sunday, we heard a strong yes to Europe.
  It is interesting that only Labour Members have mentioned the historic decision of the Poles to vote positively for Europe. The Poles are working hard in the Convention. They look forward to a new constitutional treaty because the Europe that they want to join cannot be run on the existing rules, which may satisfy the Opposition but do not satisfy the incoming member states.
  The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) made a passionate statement about the strength of the House, and I hope to return to his speech before I conclude.
  The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor) said that an EU ombudsman had been sneaked into the new Convention treaty. In fact, that institution has been part of the EU since 1991, and was voted on by the House. Similarly, language about loyal co-operation is also part of the EU. I realise that loyal co-operation is a concept unknown to the Opposition, but it is generally helpful when nation states have to work together.
  The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), who has just spoken, looked deeply shocked when he heard that his party's policy in favour of a referendum was only six months old—of course it has been his policy, and that of the leader of the Conservative party, for more than a decade. It was not ever thus: the hon. Member for Stone, who was then the hon. Member for Stafford, told the House:
  "I have for many years been a supporter of the European Community in the broadest possible terms … We tend to exaggerate the dangers of majority voting."—[Official Report, 23 April 1986; Vol. 96, c. 378.]
  That was in 1986, but at some stage the hon. Gentleman saw the light.

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  The Opposition speeches did not contain much about the referendum. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) made a very good speech but did not mention the referendum once, and yet the Order Paper states that the debate is about the referendum. He, of course, was the Conservative party's original nominee to sit on the Convention but was dismissed—cast aside, because he is too sensible on Europe. Similarly, I regret the fact that it is not my opposite number, the shadow Minister for Europe, who is speaking in the debate, but the hon. Member for Stone, who has usurped his task and returned to the Front Bench to give us the benefit of his views on Europe.
  This is about a return to the Conservative party of the 1930s, because it is about tomorrow's anti-European propaganda stunt, organised by the Rothermere press. I am a great fan of the Rothermere press. The Daily Mail has been telling us that under the constitutional treaty, we will all have to drive on the right, Napoleon will replace Nelson on top of Nelson's column, and trial by jury will be abused. What else have we got? Oh yes, that under compulsory metrication, shopkeepers will be put
  "in jail for three years for daring to sell potatoes by the pound".
  I am a great fan of the Daily Mail, but I prefer its solid and sensible articles. Among those that I have read recently were, "Mission Impossible: How a squirrrel cracked the toughest problem to reach a prize of nuts" and, "After weeks of research in hundreds of shops we present the best bras in Britain—Bra none!" But I seriously warn the House that when Rothermere editors turn their attention to Europe, they often get it wrong. Those of us who know our history remember the isolationism of the Rothermere press in the 1930s, their slavish admiration of Neville Chamberlain and his description of Europe as a faraway country of which we know nothing.
  Mr. Allen: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. MacShane: I will not, I am afraid, because I really do not have time.
  That demand to isolate us from Europe has been reiterated today, and is again in front of the British people. When the Leader of the Opposition tells newspapers:
  "The public is ready to go for Britain repatriating its powers from the EU, which could eventually mean pulling out",
  we should take him at his word. He told the Irish Times:
  "I welcome everything that moves us closer to the point where we can say 'No' on Europe."
  That is why he is calling for this referendum; to be fair, he did the same in 1992.
  The hon. Member for Stone, too, did the same in a Bill put before the House in 1996. He also did it for the Amsterdam treaty and the Nice treaty. He has taken every opportunity to insist on a referendum, because he wants to say no to Europe; he wants us to withdraw from Europe. The hon. Gentleman told the Sunday Telegraph:
  "We would prefer it if the EU did not exist".
  He suffers, as do so many Conservative Members, from irritable vowel syndrome: he and his leader cannot say E and U without feeling very disturbed and ill indeed.
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  However, the hon. Gentleman has always been consistent. He told the Bruges group:
  "We have to get down to the serious business within the Conservative party of recognising that the arguments that those like myself have been presenting, have got to be adopted by the Conservative party as a whole."
  I advise him not to worry; his party is nearly there. As a Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer, said in his newsletter, "Straight Talking", last month:
  "It is not yet party policy to withdraw from the EU. But it is, perhaps, an idea whose time is coming."
  That is the golden thread that weaves through all the Opposition speeches that we heard this afternoon, and their incessant clamour for a referendum.
  I genuinely do not see how anyone can call for a referendum on a proposition that is not even before the British people. The Conservative party and the Rothermere press do not want a referendum to find out what the British people want; they want a referendum to enable them to say no to Europe.
  Their slogan is "No to Europe. Europe, Europe, Europe: out, out, out." They are saying that, while the people of Poland and our other great friends and allies in central and eastern Europe and the Baltic states are saying yes to Europe. The hon. Member for Stone wants every member of his party to sew on a nametape to identify them as saying yes to a referendum and no to Europe. That represents traditional populist politics, aimed at parliamentary democracy. As Walter Bagehot rightly said:
  "The distinguishing quality of Parliamentary Government is, that in each stage of a public transaction there is a discussion; that the public assist at this discussion; that it can, through Parliament, turn out an administration which is not doing as it likes, and can put in an administration which will do as it likes."
  The Conservative party is calling for the power and authority of this Parliament to be handed over to the Rothermere press and its populist plebiscites of the 1930s.
  I say to the House, as I have said before, that the people will decide, just as they decided in 1983, 1997 and 2001 when they rejected the anti-European party. People and Parliament will decide, not the press and those in the Conservative party who call for us to withdraw from Europe. I ask my hon. Friends to vote for Parliament and the people of Britain, and to reject the Opposition motion.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 155, Noes 293.

  Division No. 226]

  [4:31 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Amess, David

  Blunt, Crispin

  Ancram, rh Michael

  Boswell, Tim

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Bottomley, rh Virginia (SW Surrey)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Baldry, Tony

  Brady, Graham

  Barker, Gregory

  Brazier, Julian

  Baron, John (Billericay)

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Beggs, Roy (E Antrim)

  Burns, Simon

  Bellingham, Henry

  Burnside, David

  751

  Burt, Alistair

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Butterfill, John

  Malins, Humfrey

  Cameron, David

  Maples, John

  Campbell, Gregory (E Lond'y)

  Mates, Michael

  Cash, William

  Maude, rh Francis

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Mercer, Patrick

  Chope, Christopher

  Mitchell, Andrew (Sutton Coldfield)

  Clappison, James

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Moss, Malcolm

  Collins, Tim

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Cran, James (Beverley)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Davies, rh Denzil (Llanelli)

  Page, Richard

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham & Stamford)

  Paterson, Owen

  Portillo, rh Michael

  Davis, rh David (Haltemprice & Howden)

  Price, Adam (E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

  Dodds, Nigel

  Prisk, Mark (Hertford)

  Dorrell, rh Stephen

  Randall, John

  Duncan, Alan (Rutland)

  Redwood, rh John

  Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

  Robathan, Andrew

  Duncan Smith, rh lain

  Robertson, Angus (Moray)

  Evans, Nigel

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham & M-Kent)

  Ewing, Annabelle

  Fabricant, Michael

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  Fallon, Michael

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

  Field, Mark(Cities of London & Westminster)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Ruffley, David

  Flight, Howard

  Salmond, Alex

  Flook, Adrian

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Forth, rh Eric

  Selous, Andrew

  Fox, Dr. Liam

  Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

  Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

  Shepherd, Richard

  Gibb, Nick (Bognor Regis)

  Simmonds, Mark

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Simpson, Keith (M-Norfolk)

  Goodman, Paul

  Smyth, Rev. Martin (Belfast S)

  Grayling, Chris

  Soames, Nicholas

  Green, Damian (Ashford)

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Greenway, John

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Grieve, Dominic

  Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

  Hague, rh William

  Spring, Richard

  Hammond, Philip

  Stanley, rh Sir John

  Hawkins, Nick

  Streeter, Gary

  Hayes, John (S Holland)

  Syms, Robert

  Heald, Oliver

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Heathcoat-Amory, rh David

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Hendry, Charles

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Hermon, Lady

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Hoban, Mark (Fareham)

  Tredinnick, David

  Hogg, rh Douglas

  Trend, Michael

  Horam, John (Orpington)

  Trimble, rh David

  Howard, rh Michael

  Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Hunter, Andrew

  Viggers, Peter

  Jack, rh Michael

  Waterson, Nigel

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Watkinson, Angela

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Weir, Michael

  Johnson, Boris (Henley)

  Whittingdale, John

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Widdecombe, rh Miss Ann

  Knight, rh Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Wiggin, Bill

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Willetts, David

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

  Lansley, Andrew

  Winterton, Ann (Congleton)

  Leigh, Edward

  Winterton, Sir Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Letwin, rh Oliver

  Lewis, Dr. Julian (New Forest E)

  Wishart, Pete

  Lilley, rh Peter

  Yeo, Tim (S Suffolk)

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Young, rh Sir George

  Loughton, Tim

  Luff, Peter (M-Worcs)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Mackay, rh Andrew

  Mr. David Wilshire and

  Maclean, rh David

  Mr. Mark Francois

  752

  NOES

  Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

  Dismore, Andrew

  Ainger, Nick

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

  Dowd, Jim (Lewisham W)

  Alexander, Douglas

  Drew, David (Stroud)

  Allen, Graham

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Anderson, rh Donald (Swansea E)

  Edwards, Huw

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale & Darwen)

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Etherington, Bill

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Follett, Barbara

  Austin, John

  Foster, rh Derek

  Bailey, Adrian

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings & Rye)

  Baird, Vera

  Banks, Tony

  Foulkes, rh George

  Barron, rh Kevin

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  Battle, John

  Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Gardiner, Barry

  Benn, Hilary

  George, rh Bruce (Walsall S)

  Bennett, Andrew

  Gerrard, Neil

  Benton, Joe (Bootle)

  Gibson, Dr. Ian

  Berry, Roger

  Gilroy, Linda

  Best, Harold

  Goggins, Paul

  Betts, Clive

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Blackman, Liz

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Grogan, John

  Blizzard, Bob

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Bradley, rh Keith (Withington)

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Brown, rh Nicholas (Newcastle E Wallsend)

  Hanson, David

  Harman, rh Ms Harriet

  Bryant, Chris

  Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

  Burden, Richard

  Burgon, Colin

  Healey, John

  Burnham, Andy

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Caplin, Ivor

  Heppell, John

  Casale, Roger

  Hesford, Stephen

  Caton, Martin

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Challen, Colin

  Hinchliffe, David

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Hodge, Margaret

  Chaytor, David

  Hoon, rh Geoffrey

  Clapham, Michael

  Hope, Phil (Corby)

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

  Clark, Dr. Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Clarke, rh Charles (Norwich S)

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford & Urmston)

  Clarke, rh Tom (Coatbridge & Chrystion)

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Clelland, David

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Coaker, Vernon

  Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Hutton, rh John

  Coleman, Iain

  Iddon, Dr. Brian

  Colman, Tony

  Illsley, Eric

  Cook, rh Robin (Livingston)

  Ingram, rh Adam

  Cooper, Yvette

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Corston, Jean

  Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead & Highgate)

  Cranston, Ross

  Crausby, David

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Cruddas, Jon

  Jenkins, Brian

  Cryer, Ann (Keighley)

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Cunningham, Jim (Coventry S)

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

  Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Darling, rh Alistair

  Keen, Ann (Brentford)

  David, Wayne

  Kemp, Fraser

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Dawson, Hilton

  Kidney, David

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Denham, rh John

  King, Andy (Rugby)

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  753

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Raynsford, rh Nick

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Lammy, David

  Reid, rh Dr. John (Hamilton N & Bellshill)

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Lazarowicz, Mark

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Lepper, David

  Leslie, Christopher

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

  Rooney, Terry

  Linton, Martin

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Ruane, Chris

  Love, Andrew

  Ruddock, Joan

  Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

  Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

  Luke, Iain (Dundee E)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Ryan, Joan (Enfield N)

  McCabe, Stephen

  Salter, Martin

  McCafferty, Chris

  Savidge, Malcolm

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Sawford, Phil

  MacDonald, Calum

  Sedgemore, Brian

  McGrady, Eddie

  Shaw, Jonathan

  McIsaac, Shona

  Sheridan, Jim

  McKechin, Ann

  Simon, Siôn (B'ham Erdington)

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

  McNamara, Kevin

  McNulty, Tony

  Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

  MacShane, Denis

  McWalter, Tony

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  McWilliam, John

  Soley, Clive

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Southworth, Helen

  Mallaber, Judy

  Spellar, rh John

  Mandelson, rh Peter

  Squire, Rachel

  Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Marshall, David (Glasgow Shettlestion)

  Stevenson, George

  Stewart, David (Inverness E & Lochaber)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Merron, Gillian

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Michael, rh Alun

  Stoate, Dr. Howard

  Miliband, David

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Miller, Andrew

  Straw, rh Jack

  Moffatt, Laura

  Stringer, Graham

  Mole, Chris

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Tami, Mark (Alyn)

  Moran, Margaret

  Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

  Morgan, Julie

  Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

  Morley, Elliot

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Mountford, Kali

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Mullin, Chris

  Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Timms, Stephen

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Tipping, Paddy

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

  O'Hara, Edward

  Trickett, Jon

  Olner, Bill

  Truswell, Paul

  Organ, Diana

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Owen, Albert

  Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptown)

  Palmer, Dr. Nick

  Perham, Linda

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Picking, Anne

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Pike, Peter (Burnley)

  Vaz, Keith (Leicester E)

  Pollard, Kerry

  Vis, Dr. Rudi

  Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Pope, Greg (Hyndburn)

  Ward, Claire

  Pound, Stephen

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

  Watts, David

  Prescott, rh John

  White, Brian

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Purchase, Ken

  Williams, rh Alan (Swansea W)

  Purnell, James

  Williams, Betty (Conwy)

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Wills, Michael

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Winnick, David

  Rammell, Bill

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

  754

  Wood, Mike (Batley)

  Wright, Anthony D. (Gt Yarmouth)

  Woodward, Shaun

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Woolas, Phil

  Wyatt, Derek

  Worthington, Tony

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Wray, James (Glasgow Bailliestion)

  Mr. Jim Murphy and

  Jim Fitzpatrick

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
  The House divided: Ayes 283, Noes 178.

  Division No. 227]

  [4:46 pm

  AYES

  Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

  Cranston, Ross

  Ainger, Nick

  Crausby, David

  Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

  Cryer, Ann (Keighley)

  Alexander, Douglas

  Cunningham, Jim (Coventry S)

  Allen, Graham

  Dalyell, Tam

  Anderson, rh Donald (Swansea E)

  Darling, rh Alistair

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale & Darwen)

  David, Wayne

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Dawson, Hilton

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Austin, John

  Denham, rh John

  Bailey, Adrian

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Baird, Vera

  Dismore, Andrew

  Banks, Tony

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  Barron, rh Kevin

  Dowd, Jim (Lewisham W)

  Battle, John

  Eagle Angela (Wallasey)

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Edwards, Huw

  Benn, Hilary

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Bennett, Andrew

  Etherington, Bill

  Benton, Joe (Bootle)

  Farrelly, Paul

  Berry, Roger

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Best, Harold

  Follett, Barbara

  Betts, Clive

  Foster, rh Derek

  Blackman, Liz

  Foster, Michael (Worcester)

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Foster Michael Jgbez (Hastings & Rye)

  Blizzard. Bob

  Bradley, rh Keith (Withington)

  Foulkes, rh George

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

  Brown rh Nicholas (Newcastle E Wallsend)

  Gardiner, Barry

  George, rh Bruce (Walsall S)

  Bryant, Chris

  Gerrard, Neil

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Gllroy, Linda

  Burden, Richard

  Goggins, Paul

  Burgon, Colin

  Grifflths, Jane (Reading E)

  Burnham, Andy

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Grogan, Jonn

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Hall Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Caplin, Ivor

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Casale, Roger

  Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

  Caton, Martin

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Challen, Colin

  Hanson, David

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Harman, rh Ms Harriet

  Chaytor, David

  Harris, Torm (Glasgow Cathcart)

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

  Clark, Dr. Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Clarke, rh Charles (Norwich S)

  Healey, John

  Clarke, rh Tom (Coatbridge & Chrystion)

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Clelland, David

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Coaker, Vernon

  Heppell, John

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Hesford, Stephen

  Coleman, Iain

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Colman, Tony

  Hinchliffe, David

  Cook, rh Robin (Livingston)

  Hodge, Margaret

  Cooper, Yvette

  Hope, Phil (Corby)

  Corston, Jean

  Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

  755

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Mullin, Chris

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford & Urmstion)

  Norris, Dan (Wansdyke)

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  O'Hara, Edward

  Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

  Olner, Bill

  Hutton, rh John

  Organ, Diana

  Iddon, Dr. Brian

  Owen, Albert

  Illsley, Eric

  Palmer, Dr. Nick

  Ingram, rh Adam

  Perham, Linda

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Picking, Anne

  Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead & Highgate)

  Pike, Peter (Burnley)

  Pollard, Kerry

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

  Jenkins, Brian

  Pope, Greg (Hyndburn)

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Pound, Stephen

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

  Prescott, rh John

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Keen, Alan (Feltham)

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Kemp, Fraser

  Purchase, Ken

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Purnell, James

  Kidney, David

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Quinn, Lawrie

  King, Andy (Rugby)

  Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Reid, rh Dr. John (Hamilton N & Bellshill)

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Lammy, David

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Lazarowicz, Mark

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Lepper, David

  Rooney, Terry

  Leslie, Christopher

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

  Ruane, Chris

  Linton, Martin

  Ruddock, Joan

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

  Love, Andrew

  Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

  Ryan, Joan (Enfield N)

  Luke, Iain (Dundee E)

  Salter, Martin

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Savidge, Malcolm

  McCabe, Stephen

  Sawford, Phil

  McCafferty, Chris

  Sedgemore, Brian

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Shaw, Jonathan

  MacDonald, Calum

  Sheerman, Barry

  McGrady, Eddie

  Sheridan, Jim

  McIsaac, Shona

  Simon, Siôn (B'ham Erdington)

  McKechin, Ann

  Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  McNamara, Kevin

  Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

  McNulty, Tony

  MacShane, Denis

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  McWalter, Tony

  Soley, Give

  McWilliam, John

  Southworth, Helen

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Spellar, rh John

  Mallaber, Judy

  Squire, Rachel

  Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Marshall, David (Glasgow Shettlestion)

  Stevenson, George

  Stewart, David (Inverness E & Lochaber)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Merron, Gillian

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Michael, rh Alun

  Stoate, Dr. Howard

  Miliband, David

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Miller, Andrew

  Stringer, Graham

  Moffatt, Laura

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Mole, Chris

  Tami, Mark (Alyn)

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

  Moran, Margaret

  Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

  Morgan, Julie

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Morley, Elliot

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Mountford, Kali

  Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

  756

  Timms, Stephen

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Tipping, Paddy

  Williams, Betty (Conwy)

  Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

  Wills, Michael

  Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

  Wilson, Brian

  Trickett, Jon

  Winnick, David

  Truswell Paul

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptown)

  Wood' Mike (Batley)

  Woodward, Shaun

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Woolas, Phil

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Worthington, Tony

  Vaz, Keith (Leicester E)

  Wray, James (Glasgow Baukkuebston)

  ViS, Dr. Rudi

  Wright, Anthony D. (Gt Yarmouth)

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Ward, Claire

  Wright, David (Tefford)

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Wyatt, Derek

  Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

  Watts, David

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  White, Brian

  Mr. Jim Murphy and

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Jim Fitzpatrick

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Evans, Nigel

  Allan, Richard

  Ewing, Annabelle

  Amess, David

  Fabricant, Michael

  Ancram, rh Michael

  Fallen, Michael

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  Field, Mark (Cities of London & Westminster)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Flight, Howard

  Baker, Norman

  Flook, Adrian

  Baldry, Tony

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Barker, Gregory

  Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

  Baron, John (Billericay)

  Gibb, Nick (Bognor Regis)

  Barrett, John

  Gidley, Sandra

  Beggs, Roy (E Antrim)

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Beith, rh A. J.

  Goodman, Paul

  Bellingham, Henry

  Grayling, Chris

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Blunt, Crispin

  Greenway, John

  Boswell, Tim

  Grieve, Dominic

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Hague, rh William

  Bottomley, rh Virginia (SW Surrey)

  Hammond, Philip

  Hancock, Mike

  Brady, Graham

  Harvey, Nick

  Brake, Tom (Carshalton)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Brazier, Julian

  Heald, Oliver

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Heath, David

  Bruce, Malcolm

  Heathcoat-Amory, rh David

  Burnett, John

  Hendry, Charles

  Burns, Simon

  Hermon, Lady

  Burnside, David

  Hoban, Mark (Fareham)

  Burstow, Paul

  Hogg, rh Douglas

  Burt, Alistair

  Holmes, Paul

  Butterfill, John

  Horam, John (Orpington)

  Cable, Dr. Vincent

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Cameron, David

  Hunter, Andrew

  Campbell, Gregory (E Lond'y)

  Jack, rh Michael

  Campbell, rh Menzies (NE Fife)

  Johnson, Boris (Henley)

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Keetch, Paul

  Cash, William

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  Kirkwood, Sir Archy

  Knight, rh Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Chope, Christopher

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Clappison, James

  Lansley, Andrew

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Laws, David (Yeovil)

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Leigh, Edward

  Cotter, Brian

  Lewis, Dr. Julian (New Forest E)

  Cran, James (Beverley)

  Lilley, rh Peter

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Dodds, Nigel

  Loughton, Tim

  Dorrell, rh Stephen

  Luff, Peter (M-Worcs)

  Doughty, Sue

  Mackay, rh Andrew

  Duncan, Alan (Rutland)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

  Malins, Humfrey

  757

  Maples, John

  Simpson, Keith (M-Norfolk)

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury & Atcham)

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

  Mates, Michael

  Smyth, Rev. Martin (Belfast S)

  Maude, rh Francis

  Soames, Nicholas

  Mercer, Patrick

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Mitchell, Andrew (Sutton Coldfield)

  Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

  Spring, Richard

  Moore, Michael

  Stanley, rh Sir John

  Moss, Malcolm

  Streeter, Gary

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Stunell, Andrew

  Oaten, Mark (Winchester)

  Syms, Robert

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Öpik, Lembit

  Taylor, Jonn (Solihull)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Page, Richard

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Paterson, Owen

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Portillo, rh Michael

  Thurso, John

  Price, Adam (E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

  Tredinnick, David

  Trend, Michael

  Prisk, Mark (Hertford)

  Trimble, rh David

  Pugh, Dr. John

  Turner Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Randall, John

  Tyler, Paul (N Cornwall)

  Redwood, rh John

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Rendel, David

  Viggers, Peter

  Robathan, Andrew

  Waterson, Nigel

  Robertson, Angus (Moray)

  Watkinson, Angela

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham & M-Kent)

  Webb, Steve (Northavon)

  Weir, Michael

  Widdecombe, rh Miss Ann

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  wiggin, Bill

  Robinson, Mrs Iris (Strangford)

  Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

  Williams, Roger (Brecon)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Willis, Phil

  Ruffley, David

  Winterton, Ann (Congleton)

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Winterton, Sir Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Salmond, Alex

  Sanders, Adrian

  Wishart, Pete

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Young, rh Sir George

  Selous, Andrew

  Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Shepherd, Richard

  Mr. Mark Francois and

  Simmonds, Mark

  Mr. David Wilshire

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House notes that previous governments rejected referendums on previous constitutional treaties such as the Single European Act and Maastricht, both of which involved greater change than the draft Treaty proposed by the Convention on the Future of Europe; believes that since the proposals of the Convention do not involve any fundamental change in the relationship between the EU and its Member States, there is no case for a referendum; and notes that any proposals from the Convention are a matter for unanimous agreement by an Inter-Governmental Conference, and then endorsement by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Post Office Card Accounts
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): We now come to the debate on Post Office card accounts. Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
5.1 pm
Mr. Oliver Heald: I beg to move,
That this House believes that those Post Office customers who wish to continue receiving their benefits, pension payments and tax credits through the Post Office, following the introduction of ACT in April, should be allowed to do so through a post office card account opened at the counter of a post office or sub-post office; further believes that customers should be offered a genuine choice between the options available, including a post office card account; supports the National Federation of Subpostmasters' call that there should be no administrative obstacles to customers opening a post office card account; notes the importance of post office card accounts to the future financial viability of sub-post offices; and calls upon the Government to ensure that there is a level playing field in the marketing, promotion and advertising of the banking options from all Government departments and agencies, including the Department for Work and Pensions, the Inland Revenue and the Veterans Agency.
Hon. Members will note that the text of the motion is identical to early-day motion 572 in the name of the hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill). I pay tribute to him for his work and to other members of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry as they conduct their inquiry. Nearly 400 hon. Members from all parties, including more than 170 Labour Members, supported the early-day motion and I have high hopes that the House will agree to our motion today.
The support of nearly 400 Members highlights the seriousness of the issue for millions of our constituents throughout the country. It is right to record that those affected include many of the most vulnerable people in our society—the elderly and infirm and those who rely on what they receive each week at the post office to feed and clothe themselves and their families.
In the past few months, I have received hundreds of letters from people who are desperately worried about the changes. Many elderly constituents are simply not used to the sort of technology that the Government are forcing on them through the changes. Many are not familiar with the world of the PIN number or the plastic card and run their finances on a cash basis. Doubtless that is why so many have continued to collect their pensions at the post office.
Mr. Steve Webb: What is the hon. Gentleman's position on pension books? The sort of pensioner whom he describes likes the pension book system and does not understand why it should change. The motion understandably covers Post Office card accounts, but will he clarify whether Conservative Members believe that pensioners should retain the right to collect their pensions with a pension book?
Mr. Heald: We believe that pensioners should be able to collect their pensions by that method or through a simple Post Office card account. Pensioners and other vulnerable people should be able to continue to do as they have been doing—go to their post office, receive the cash and manage their finances in the way in which they

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wish. The answer to the question is therefore yes, but I stress that the Post Office card account could have been good, but it has been ruined by Government incompetence.
It is clear from evidence to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry that, to many elderly people, it appears as though the scheme is aimed at 86-year-olds but devised by 26-year-olds. It is not appropriate to the audience at which it is directed. Last week, at the Select Committee hearing, the Chairman asked the chief executive of Royal Mail whether it would be unreasonable to direct most of the blame at the Department for Work and Pensions for devising the most awkward and inconvenient way of setting up a Post Office card account. Mr. Mills, the chief executive, replied:
"It is not too unreasonable, Chairman."
And no wonder. If we look at the problems involved in opening an account, we see that the complex system put in place by the Government—not the Post Office—has led to difficulties and confusion for hundreds of thousands of people.
One pensioner wrote to me to describe what had happened when she tried to open a Post Office card account, saying:
"It was 25 times of trying before I got through to the number … As a worker in the Citizens Advice Bureau I am meeting many elderly pensioners who feel very threatened by the whole process … Why can't the government have application forms available in Post Offices?"
Why, indeed? The answer given to the Select Committee on this point by the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Croydon, North (Malcolm Wicks), was:
"If we just had application forms hanging round the Post Office I can see problems in that this is an account system, the Post Office Card Account, designed just for our customers, the Department for Work and Pensions customers … It is not for the general citizenry".
That shows just how out of touch the Minister is, because every person in the country who is over pension age is entitled to open one of these accounts, as are all those with children. Surely that is sufficient justification for having simple forms available in the post office. After all, driving licence application forms are only for customers of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, but they are available in post offices. Passport application forms are only for customers of the Passport Agency, but they too are available in post offices. Is the Minister seriously suggesting that the millions of customers of the Department for Work and Pensions who receive cash at the post office do not deserve the same consideration?
Mr. Ronnie Campbell: In my constituency, the last Crown posh office in south-east Northumberland has closed. I asked the Post Office to keep it open for two years while the Post Office card account got off the ground because, although a lot of people were signing up, there were not enough. Many people were finding it complicated, as the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, but, given time, there would have been enough of them. The Post Office denied
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me those two years, and closed the post office last week. Why should the people of Blyth be loyal to the Post Office, when the Post Office has not been loyal to them?
Mr. Heald: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. As a result of these changes, there will be a drop of something like 40 per cent. in business in post offices across the country, according to the sub-postmasters. The effect of that in loss of footfall will be that many post office products will not be purchased. Furthermore, in a small community, it will not just be the post office that suffers but all the other small shops that rely on people purchasing things after they have been to the post office to obtain their money.
Kate Hoey: I agree totally that pensioners should be able to use their pension books while they continue to draw their pension. That is basic justice. Does the hon. Gentleman share the concern of pensioners in my constituency about the security issues relating to the card account? Many of them walk to the post office and, I am afraid that, in constituencies such as mine, people are mugged for all sorts of things. They are worried that they will be mugged, that their card will be taken off them and that they will be forced to give the mugger their PIN number. Many elderly people are wary of the security problems involved in the scheme. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should now say that, whatever the situation, if someone wants to keep on using their pension book, they should be able to do so?
Mr. Heald: I agree with the hon. Lady. Many people who collect their money at the post office are elderly and are not going to be collecting their money for many more years, to be frank. Some of the people who have written to me are in their 90s, and even in these days of good public health, they will be using these services for only a short period. To them, however, it matters greatly that they are able to do so. To have a massive change inflicted upon them at that age really is wrong.
It is difficult to open a Post Office card account. One would have thought that the Government would have made a massive effort to explain the options and to help customers. In fact, many letters went out to customers that did not even refer to the option of a Post Office card account. The advertising started only after the scheme had been implemented.
Mr. Nick Gibb: On Friday a sub-postmaster in my constituency told me of complaints that he had received from customers about obstacles that had been placed in the way of opening current accounts. It is hugely burdensome for pensioners to go to all the trouble of opening accounts simply to draw their pensions from the post office, and it is doubly burdensome when obstacles are deliberately placed in their way.
Mr. Heald: Indeed. A pensioner wrote to me saying that, having got through to the helpline, she was subjected to
"a tirade in favour of bank accounts but I stated that I wanted to keep getting paid in my local post office. The girl on the phone kept telling me it was much more convenient to have it at a bank".

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An 85-year old pensioner from Doncaster wrote to me at the end of last month to say:
young friend … phoned to get more information regarding her child allowance … During her call, she was very heavily pressed to use the bank and not the Post Office."
Mr. Michael Weir: I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman is saying, but is it not even worse than that? In many areas, there is no bank branch to use, because the major banks have been implementing a branch closure programme for at least 10 years. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), the only way of obtaining money from a bank may be to use a "hole in the wall", and there are serious problems with a number of those machines.
Mr. Heald: That just goes to show that the system has not been thought through adequately.
The system is complex, and it was not advertised properly. Individuals are being pushed away from the Post Office card account. [Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head and says "No, no." Let us consider whether there might be a reason for what is happening. When he was questioned last week, the Minister admitted that Post Office card accounts cost the Department for Work and Pensions money, and that it had been funded for only 3 million of all the millions of customers. He said that if that was reduced any further, he would have to go cap in hand and
"open up discussions with our good friends in the Treasury".
There we have it. The evidence on the ground and the money that is available point in the same direction: the Department is dissuading customers from using Post Office card accounts. Is it any wonder that 800,000 of the 2.5 million who have been written to so far have failed to respond?
Geraldine Smith: In fact, a great many people want their pensions to be paid through bank accounts. We must accept that things move on. I acknowledge that there have been problems in the past for people who have wanted to have Post Office cards, but a lot of work has been done to resolve those problems. In the window of my constituency office is a massive poster from the Post Office telling people that they can still collect their pensions and have a Post Office card. I have leaflets, and I have tried phoning the hotline—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady cannot make a speech during an intervention.
Mr. Heald: Like me, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and many others, the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) signed the early-day motion. We want a genuine choice, and we want it to be easy to open a Post Office card account. I hope that she will vote with us tonight, because the wording of the motion is exactly the same as that of the early-day motion that she signed.
Geraldine Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Heald: I had better make some progress. There is very little time.
Mr. Roger Gale: My hon. Friend said that this was cost-driven. Has he considered the social cost of the damage that will be done not just to post offices but to individuals? Those of us whose constituencies contain a large number of elderly people know that the post office is often where they meet their friends just once a week. This Government could not care less about that, and are trying to take it away.
Mr. Heald: That point has been made to me in letters from people all over the country. We are talking about a social loss. It is also wrong to impose on vulnerable people uncertainty about something that is so important to them. They rely on the money that they collect, week by week, and to impose on them a confusing system that they do not understand is just plain wrong.
Even those who can open a Post Office card account may not be able to use it all the time. Many of those who use order books get their carer to collect their pensions if they are not well. However, they may have to use more than one carer. That is fine under the current system but the Post Office card account will allow only one person to be nominated for that purpose. How will that affect the pensioner from Oldham who wrote to me? That pensioner stated:
"I have no relatives, and most of my friends have died. If I am ill … I may be allocated a home carer who can collect my retirement pension … Each time this has happened, it has been a different home carer … I have been told that unless I can nominate someone to act as agent for me, should I not be able to collect my pension … I shall simply get no money … No thought has been given to the plight of older people, or younger disabled people, who simply have no-one to appoint".
Another pensioner from Kent wrote:
"I understand that the carer will also be given a separate PIN … In my local Post Office I see home carers collect for 3 to 4 pensioners at one time … If they have to use PINs this means memorising several at one time, and as they do this job five days a week, they will have to know and use something like 20 PINs. Some memory needed there! Has any thought been given to this situation?"
Surely, the Government should be able to explain how those difficulties are to be surmounted. What is the answer? I hope that the Minister will address those points.
The Government need to be clearer on what is happening with the key pads that have been installed. Are they to be ripped out or modified? What is to happen to all 38,000 of them and how is it that the Minister's Department allowed those problems to arise in the first place?
The Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness told the Select Committee last week that the Post Office was looking to develop new technology for secure alternatives to PIN pads. What is the timetable for its introduction? Is it separate from the exceptions service for those who are simply unable to open or use any of the direct payment options available, including Post Office card accounts? The National Federation of Sub-Postmasters has pointed out that no details of an exceptions service have been released and there is no mention of it in any of the publicity. The federation states that that causes concern and uncertainty for those claimants who cannot manage on the options available.
I have raised the exceptions service on a number of occasions in the House but the answers that I have received have not shed much light on the position. At

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questions on Monday, I asked the Secretary of State whether he would say what criteria would qualify a person for the exceptions service. He replied:
we shall consult closely … with representative groups of older people, disabled people and others to ensure that those criteria are sensible and meet people's needs".—[Official Report, 9 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 390.]
With the greatest possible respect ro him, that was a non-answer. Saying that the criteria will be "sensible" and that they will "meet people's needs" does not tell us what they are. Many customers simply do not know about the exceptions service because they have not been told. They do not know that they can keep their order books for up to two years while the service is being developed.
When the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Croydon, North, was pressed to explain whether people are aware of that, what was his reply to the Select Committee? He said:
"I cannot, to be straight with you, guarantee that they are sufficiently aware. I think some are but I think there is still some confusion."
One would think that it was a pretty big issue and should be dealt with urgently. The question arises, what were the Government going to do to let people know? The answer given by the Under-Secretary was:
"In every local radio interview, I do stress that. I say 'Look: the advice to people at the moment is, do not panic'".
It is very Corporal Jones but we were looking for something a bit more Captain Mainwaring, not least because the Government intend to spend two years developing the exceptions service when they already know how it is going to work.
The Under-Secretary told the Select Committee last week that the exceptions service would "almost certainly" be a cheque through the post. It is hardly rocket science. It really is "Dad's Army" at the DWP. Although it knows what form the service will take, it has not even asked, consulted or told the Post Office about it yet, as the chief executive confirmed last week.
Of course, it is not even clear whom the exceptions service is going to be for. Last Tuesday, the Under-Secretary told me that it would be for those who
"genuinely are unable to manage an account". —[Official Report, 3 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 50W]
However, a day later, at the Select Committee, he described the exceptions service as applying
"where people … feel that none of the existing accounts including the Post Office card account was suitable".
So who decides and on what basis? Will the service be available to customers who feel that none of the account-based options is suitable, or do they need to be assessed by the DWP as medically unable? It is a vital question, because the people concerned are elderly customers and those suffering from blindness, Alzheimer's disease, severe arthritis, autism and other serious conditions. They deserve answers and should not be left in the dark.
Bob Spink: Could we also address the question of how many the exception will apply to? We know that 40 per cent. of the people who have been
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asked by the Government to transfer to the new system have not yet done so. What will happen to them? Will the exception apply to 40 per cent. of the people?
Mr. Heald: We simply do not know. I have asked the question and been told that the number is very small. I have asked what will happen to the nearly 40 per cent. who have not responded to the letters of invitation when the order books are phased out. The answer comes back, "We will contact them again," but there is no clarity as to when the exceptions service will be introduced, whom it will apply to and what it is about. We do not even know whether it is the same thing as the technological changes that the Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness talked about.
Chris Grayling: Of course, there is another group who will be affected by this. Those who suffer from learning disabilities will certainly be unable to respond to the Government's letters and invitations, and they are probably not following the Under-Secretary very closely on local radio. They will also lose out.
Mr. Heald: Of course, the sad thing about the point that my hon. Friend makes so aptly is that many people—parents, many professionals and even the individuals concerned—have spent years encouraging a little independence and the ability to manage one's own affairs. Then the Government come along with their flashy new system and suddenly, people are supposed to say, "Oh well, a carer can do it for me." That is against the whole trend of our efforts to consider and help disabled people.
The Under-Secretary really must answer the pensioner in Kent, who says:
"I am used to going to the Post Office each week and getting cash with no problems and like many of our generation am not happy with PIN numbers and plastic cards, but it seems there will be no alternative."
That pensioner feels that none of the options on offer is satisfactory. In those circumstances, if she feels—to paraphrase the Under-Secretary—that account-based systems are unsuitable, will she be able to use the exceptions service?
The effect of all this is likely to be fewer customers using local post offices to collect their money, or the other services that they provide.
Mr. David Kidney: In such instances, what is wrong with people having a bank account and cashing cheques at a time and a post office of their choice?
Mr. Heald: Nothing at all. There is no argument between the hon. Gentleman and ourselves; indeed, he signed the early-day motion that relates to the motion that we are proposing today. All that we ask for is an easy system for applying for a post office card account and proper information—points that are in the motion, and with which he agrees. We are all for choice and for people being able to do exactly what they wish to do, and they should have the option of a Post Office card account and easy access to it.
In small communities, neighbouring shops will also suffer. This is a deliberate policy of the Government, which will damage communities throughout the country as post offices are forced to close. It is vital that we save our local post offices.

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I have placed before the House practical examples from real people. I have included many quotations from letters that I have received, and I hope that the Government respond positively during this debate to the problems highlighted by evidence from some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Those people deserve better than they have got and better than they are getting, and it is time that the Government listened to their concerns.
I invite not only my right hon. and hon. Friends but the two independent Members, the three Social Democratic and Labour party Members, the four Democratic Unionist party Members, the four Ulster Unionist party Members, the four Plaid Cymru Members, the five Scottish National party Members, the 51 Liberal Democrat Members and the 175 Labour Members—all of whom have already supported this motion as an early-day motion—to demonstrate their continuing support in the Lobby this evening. I commend the motion to the House.
5.24 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Malcolm Wicks): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
"recognises that more people than ever are choosing to receive their benefits and pensions straight into accounts and welcomes the significant steps the Government has taken to modernise the payment of benefits and enable customers to choose the account that suits them best; welcomes the introduction of the Post Office Card Account as one important option; further recognises the major benefits the move to Direct Payment will have in cutting fraud and crime and the important role it will play in extending financial inclusion; recognises the importance of this programme, which alongside other initiatives such as Pension Credit, increases opportunities for elderly people; applauds the Post Office and the cross-departmental programme that ensured the new system was delivered on time at the start of April; and believes that the move to Direct Payment is central to the future of a successful modern Post Office."
I am pleased to move the amendment standing in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and other ministerial colleagues. I welcome the opportunity afforded by the debate. Changes to the way in which we pay benefits and pensions will ensure a more modern, efficient and reliable service that will increase customer choice, provide better value for the taxpayer. cut fraud and boost financial inclusion.
May I say at the outset that I recognise that legitimate worries and concerns will always arise when changes of this sort are proposed and implemented? However, the whole House will agree that there is a difference between debating legitimate concerns and playing politics with the issues by going for inaccurate scaremongering. In view of the vulnerability of some of the people described by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), we all have duties to attend to in the House and in our constituencies on this matter.
Gregory Barker: The Minister's claim that changes in payment will give rise to more choice and modernisation will ring very hollow indeed among to my constituents in Old Town in Bexhill. whose post office is closing. The branch closure letter expressly states as one of the reasons for closure:
"Benefits are paid with the introduction of Direct Payment into accounts."
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My constituents, many of whom are elderly and frail, will be left without a local post office and will have to pay to travel by taxi to collect their pension elsewhere, which is a poor deal for them.
Malcolm Wicks: I hope to address some of those concerns during my speech. However, the present Government, unlike the previous Conservative Government, have invested record levels in the post office network—[Interruption.] I have already said that I am not interested in playing politics with the issues, so I shall not compare the record number of post office closures under the previous Government with what is occurring now. We are going for record investment, including £450 million in the rural post office network. After the debate, I would be happy to compare records, if that is the game that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) wants to play.
Mr. Weir: The Minister refers to changing over the system, but the Government amendment ends by saying that
"the move to Direct Payment is central to the future of a successful modern Post Office".
How can that be, if it is estimated that 40 per cent. of income from the Post Office will disappear? If it is true, why will the Minister not market the Post Office card account as the main means of moving towards such direct payment?
Malcolm Wicks: We added that sentence to our amendment mainly because we view the future of the Post Office, in part, as a modern banking system, through which people exercising choices can secure money for their pensions or benefits. However, I shall return to that later.
Geraldine Smith: The Minister refers to the previous Government. Is he aware that Morecambe nearly lost a Crown post office when the Conservative Government tried to privatise the Post Office? Only campaigns by the Labour party and residents saved our main Crown office.
Malcolm Wicks: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I hope that we can all unite on a programme that includes direct payment modernisation, which will ensure the future of the post office network. We all share that objective in common. I hope that I can now make some progress and take interventions as they arise.
It is important to understand what has been happening. People were already voting with their feet. The number of customers paid by direct payment into a bank or building society account increased by nearly 1 million last year. Six out of 10 of the new cohort of pensioners and people retiring asked for their pension to be paid into a bank or building society account, and six out of 10 new child benefit payments are made through direct payment. Those are important trends.
Mr. Heald: If everything is working out so swimmingly with people being paid their money directly to their bank and building society accounts, why force

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people who do not want to do that into the new system? Many of them have spent their whole lives managing with cash. What is the point?
Malcolm Wicks: We are not forcing anyone. The whole point—
Mr. Peter Luff: Yes, you are.
Malcolm Wicks: The whole point is about giving people choice. If we did not make this change, the post office network would be bled dry by people increasingly choosing to have their benefit or pension paid into a bank or building society. It is only by offering choice that we offer some safeguard to the future of the post office network. This is not rocket science.
Kate Hoey: I appreciate parts of what my hon. Friend is saying, but will he give me a clear statement—yes or no—on whether we will still allow payment by benefit book to that smallish number of people who, for particular reasons, want to continue with that system of payment? I thought that we wanted to give people a real choice.
Malcolm Wicks: The pension books, order books and giros that we have now will be phased out by 2005. That is why we need to offer other choices, including—where necessary—an exceptions service. I cannot give my hon. Friend the reassurance she seeks, because that is the logic of the scheme.
Mrs. Angela Browning: It is important to repeat, for the record, something that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) did as Secretary of State. As the Conservatives left office, we considered the question of choice, but we also considered the social impact on an elderly population. The old system does cost more money, but we thought that it was worth it for those people who—as the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) suggested—need to have the security of collecting the money personally through their books. We decided to continue that system until those people were deceased or moved away. There is an important social case to be made for that, but the Minister does not seem to value it.
Malcolm Wicks: We do agree on the absolute right, and need, for many current pensioners and other benefit customers to be able to go to the post office and access their money in cash, if that is their choice. We are finding ways to enable that to happen.
Most people—although perhaps not all—recognise that order books, which came in with ration books, have had their day. The world has changed enormously since then. Most people now have bank accounts, into which their wages are paid. People are also used to using plastic cards and cash machines. If anyone were designing a new payment system today, the last thing they would suggest would be order books. Indeed, a former Secretary of State has said that
"the process of distributing benefits by order books was one of the most costly, inefficient and fraud-prone ways of delivering money."—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 12 April 2000; Vol. 348, c. 62WH.]
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That was the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), who was drawing on his experience.
We announced on 24 May 1999 that we were cancelling the benefit payment card. That project was initiated by the previous Administration and the House may recall that the project suffered from considerable delays and setbacks and that we were left with no option but to cancel it. Had it been successful, order books would already have been abolished and replaced by an electronic card-based system accessible at post offices.
We have put in place a new system that still allows people to access their cash at the post office and that provides the Post Office with new business opportunities. That is a major part of the strategy. What is more, we have done it on time. The Post Office and all those involved should be congratulated on having universal banking up and running on 1 April 2003.
I turn now to direct payments. Customers will have more choice about where they collect their money from, which will include the post office, if that is what they wish. In the spirit of consensus, I must say that there appears to be some genuine misunderstanding among Opposition Members about this matter. At the post office, customers will be able to use a current account, if their bank has a network banking arrangement with the Post Office, or a basic bank account, or a Post Office card account.
Customers will be contacted on the matter over the next two years, and that process is starting already. They do not need to do anything until they hear from the Government. In radio interviews, I have used the phrase "Don't panic!" to make that clear and, if that amuses Opposition Members on a hot afternoon, I am pleased that it does so. In fact, the real Dad's Army was a valued institution at a time of some difficulty and change for this country. I am therefore not too worried about that.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: The Minister has tried to do what Ministers always do when they want to defend the indefensible—he has said that he does not want to make a political point out of the matter, and that he is seeking consensus across the House. However, if he genuinely wants that consensus, will he say what the Government's objection to the Opposition motion is? It states that
"there should be no administrative obstacles to customers opening a post office card account; notes the importance of post office card accounts to the future viability"
of sub-post offices. What is the Government's objection to that?
Malcolm Wicks: I agree with much of the Opposition motion, but we are concerned with setting up a Post Office card account, and I shall come to that.
Mrs. Anne Campbell: One of the causes of social and financial exclusion is the fact that many people in this country do not have their own bank accounts. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government's proposals are an important contribution to encouraging people to take up that facility and use it for their own benefit?
Malcolm Wicks: I agree absolutely. Many people have highlighted the problems associated with financial

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exclusion, not least in terms of our quest to get more jobless people into work. That quest is a feature of what the Government are about.
We are writing to our customers and setting out the options. Most importantly, only the way in which benefits and pensions are paid will be affected. Customers will still get their money as regularly as they do now, and it is important to note that that will include weekly payments for pensioners.
The Government's plans, and their funding for the post office network, have taken account of the move to direct payment. In order for the network to have a bright future, post offices need to become providers of high-quality banking services that people want to use. The Government have provided funding to enable them to do that, and to support the network.
I shall outline the Government's reasons for making the move. They include many of the factors that caused a previous Government to be interested in doing the same.
Direct payment has several advantages.
Bob Spink: Will the Minister give way?
Malcolm Wicks: I am a generous person—possibly too generous, as the House will tire of me if my speech lasts too long.
Hon. Members: No!
Bob Spink: The Minister is indeed generous. He said that he would set out how the Post Office card accounts work, so how will he answer my constituent in Benfleet? She wrote to me this week to state:
"I work at the post office on the counter and the palaver we have in opening the P.O. card accounts is quite unbelievable.
So far our office has only opened three accounts since March, which isn't a very good sign for our jobs."
I received that letter on 6 June.
Malcolm Wicks: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman telling the House of that experience. I shall deal with some of the numbers involved in a moment, which should in part answer that point.
What are the advantages of direct payment? As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) noted, one such advantage is financial inclusion. Most of us take for granted the advantages of having a bank account, and 87 per cent. of benefit customers already have access to a suitable account. The figure for pensioners is slightly higher, at 90 per cent. Like all hon. Members, I am concerned about the important minorities, but we should not typecast all elderly people as people who are not in the financial mainstream, as nine out of 10 already have accounts with banks or building societies. However, that leaves about 3.5 million adults in the United Kingdom without access to a bank account and unable to take advantages such as savings to utility bills that come through making payments by direct debit. Some of those people are unemployed and will need a bank account when they get work. That is important to what we are doing at Jobcentre Plus to ready people for jobs.
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Direct payment will help to spread financial inclusion by increasing the number of people who have bank accounts, giving them opportunities to benefit. The banks have introduced straightforward basic bank accounts over the past few years that are ideal for people who have never used an account before. Many can now be used at post office branches.
Mr. Andrew Robathan: I notice that the Minister has not so far mentioned choice. Will he reply to the National Consumer Council, a statutory body, which commented on universal banking in its document, "Everyday Essentials":
"The object of addressing the financial exclusion of some low-income customers is submerged in a wider agenda to reduce government expenditure."?
Malcolm Wicks: As I make progress, my position on that will become clear. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning choice, to which I was about to turn. To be fair to myself—I like to do that sometimes—I should say that I have mentioned it already.
Some people think that customers should be persuaded to open a Post Office card account regardless of whether it is the best option for them. We believe in choice. At the end of the day, choice will be determined not by what any Minister or the Post Office or any other vested interest group says, but by what the customer says. Customers should choose the account that best meets their needs and circumstances. People using post offices in future will do so because they want to, not because they have to. In future, a pensioner may well access her money at the post office through the card account while, on either side of her in the queue, a doctor may be accessing money through his or her bank account and a young unemployed man is using a basic bank account. People will use different methods to get money, but will choose to do so at the post office if it suits them.
Mr. Luff: Why, then, is a pensioner in my constituency being forced—she has no choice—to open a bank account? She wanted to pay her Royal Mail pension—I stress Royal Mail—into the Post Office card account. Because the Government has limited the terms of the Post Office card account, she is not allowed to do so. At the age of 91, she is being obliged, forced and compelled to open a bank account for the first time in her life.
Malcolm Wicks: State benefits, including pensions, can be paid into a Post Office card account; private or occupational pensions cannot.
Kate Hoey: Why?
Malcolm Wicks: That is the nature of the product. It is not for me to advise the person in question, but another kind of account may be useful in her situation.
A second reason why we are moving towards payment modernisation and direct payments is the concern about fraud, which we all share. We lose about £80 million a year in giro and order book fraud. On average, more than 100 pensioners a week have their order books stolen. Cards can be stolen, and we

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understand that there are such risks in our society, but let us bear it in mind that too many people are mugged and have their cash and pension books stolen. A spokesperson for the Association of Chief Police Officers said:
"Anything that reduces the opportunities for crime is a benefit. In particular this move will hopefully protect the more vulnerable members of society and enable them to feel safer."
One advantage of the Post Office card account is that the pensioner or other benefit recipient no longer has to draw all their money. If a pensioner wants to take half of it, or whatever, the rest can remain in the account. Most people would concede that that is an advantage over the current system.
A second advantage is that there are administrative cost savings. I make no apology for that; it is right to cut unnecessary administrative expenditure. Each pension book foil costs 68p and every giro costs £1.47, while payment into a bank account costs only 1p. I am sure that the Opposition do not really want to spend more money on social security administration just for the sake of it.
Mr. Gibb: The hon. Gentleman refers to the administrative savings, but is he aware of the extra transport costs for pensioners in the Pagham area of my constituency? Pagham post office is going to be closed and they will have to make a two-mile round trip to collect their pensions. Can the Minister explain why the Post Office counter in Pagham is not being offered, as a matter of course, to other shops on the Pagham parade so that there will be a service for pensioners in the area?
Malcolm Wicks: I suspect that my hon. Friend the Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness may deal with such issues in the wind-up. The Government cannot guarantee that every post office will stay open. The hon. Gentleman is a fair man and will accept that we have seen many, many closures over several decades. Obviously, in such situations, we are all sensitive to how people, whether in his constituency or mine, can access money. We have to think through the details of the individual cases.
What is the process for opening a Post Office card account? In effect, customers have to take only three steps. First, after hearing from us, they ring the customer conversion centre to discuss their options. It is important that those options are spelled out. Secondly, they await a personal invitation document from our Department to take to the Post Office branch to collect a Post Office card account application form to complete. Thirdly, as with all accounts, they then send the required account details back to the Department of Work and Pensions.
Mr. Heald: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Malcolm Wicks: Not just yet.
People have accused us of making the process of opening a card account difficult—I think that the hon. Gentleman might have done so—and have said that the customer conversion centre is trying to dissuade people from opening a card account.
Mr. Luff: It is.
Malcolm Wicks: That is simply not true.
Kate Hoey: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Malcolm Wicks: Not just yet.
At the risk of bringing evidence to bear on the debate, independent research by Postwatch, the consumer watchdog, has shown that 88 per cent. of pensioners said that they felt that advice from the customer conversion centre
"was given in a clear and unbiased manner".
Mr. Richard Page: So what?
Malcolm Wicks: Well, that is the Postwatch evidence.
Postwatch also found that 94 per cent. of those ringing the centre to open a card account felt that the information they were given was "clear and unbiased", and 91 per cent. of pensioners who rang the centre did not feel that staff were seeking to persuade them to choose one option over the others.
We are spending a good deal of money on communicating the direct payment message. It is right that we do so. When I told the Select Committee on Trade and Industry that I realised that there was still confusion, I was being honest. This is a major change and, understandably, many of our constituents have not yet fully understood the choices available to them.
We are spending £25 million over the next three years on advertising. Many hon. Members will have already seen the advertisements. All the material that we are sending customers mentions post office access and the Post Office card account. Government material is complemented by the Post Office's own leaflets and advertising. Postwatch research shows that 93 per cent. of pensioners described my Department's customer information material as "of good quality".
Mr. Gale: Why do our pensioner constituents have to jump through hoops, make phone calls and await a form when they could perfectly easily go to the post office, collect the form and fill it in, as they do for other services such as driving licences and passports?
Malcolm Wicks: Opening any bank account is more complicated than the hon. Gentleman suggests, and rightly so. We are concerned about fraud and impersonation—people pinching other people's identities. It is also important to note that the Post Office card account is only for customers of the Department of Work and Pensions—pensioners or benefit claimants. I said "only", but there are, of course, millions of them. Sending people the personal invitation document is verification from the Government that it is a bona fide application for the Post Office card account. In terms of security and fraud and identification, the document is a very important component. I hope that satisfies the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Heald: Will the Minister give way?
Malcolm Wicks: Not just yet. I will of course give way in a moment, but I think that I have been relatively generous.
Mr. Heald: Very generous.
Malcolm Wicks: Thank you very much.

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I shall now report on the progress that we are making, because colleagues are interested in what is happening. So far we have sent out 2.5 million letters inviting customers to convert to direct payments. We are doing that gradually, phased over two years. It is important that we do so, given the numbers involved. One and a half million customers have responded with bank details. There will of course be a lag, and people should not make too much of the fact that not everyone has yet replied. Some have only just heard.
More than 300,000 customers have requested a Post Office card account. However. the customers contacted so far are not representative of the whole benefit population, because we have gone for certain client groups early on, so simple arithmetic, such as division, of these statistics would not stand up to analysis. We need to take care in extrapolating from the figures. However, even though migration is still at a very early stage, a large number of customers are already requesting a Post Office card account. The latest figures that I have, for 30 May, show that the proportion of pensioners requesting a card account was around 50 per cent.—I say "around" because that figure will fluctuate. It is not a reflection of what it will eventually be, but it is around 50 per cent. Some 40 per cent. of Jobcentre Plus customers and 12 per cent. of child benefit customers have requested a card account.
Many of those opting for a current or basic bank account are also choosing to use them at post office branches. If, as some allege—I think unfairly—that is difficult, why is the Post Office card account proving a success, with many people opting for it? We shall provide regularly updated figures to the House by regularly placing a report in the Library.
Mr. Page: No sane organisation embarks on such a massive change without proper evaluation or surveys or pilot studies. What pilot studies and evaluations did the Government carry out before starting this exercise? For example, how many of those people will convert to Post Office card accounts? What percentage do the Government expect that figure to reach?
Malcolm Wicks: I have given percentages of what is happening—
Mr. Page: I know, but what are we going to get to?
Malcolm Wicks: They are the crucial percentages, yes, but I emphasise that they depend on what people choose to do. Of course we evaluated all aspects of this. There was research—the Post Office did its own work, and so on. We talked to all the obvious groups and they were very helpful. Our planning assumption has been that 3 million Post Office card accounts might be opened, and that under the terms of our contract with the Post Office between 2003 and 2010 that could be worth £1 billion to the Post Office. However, that is a planning assumption; it could be less, and it could well be more, depending on choice. I hope that the hon. Gentleman finds that helpful.
I move on to some of the issues about the more vulnerable groups that we are all concerned about. We have been sensitive to the needs of vulnerable customers. Third party access will continue to be available under
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direct payment. There are a number of tried and tested options for bank or building society accounts, including power of attorney arrangements, arranging a third party mandate, and having payments, where appropriate, paid into a joint account. People with a Post Office card account will be able to obtain a second card, with a separate PIN, to enable a nominated person to access their account. However, we have always recognised that there will be some people whom we cannot pay by direct payment. They could include those who cannot get any sort of account, although they are a tiny number, and some people who need casual agents—perhaps people with serious learning difficulties, or some who may be suffering from Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia. I hesitate when I talk about those with serious learning difficulties because I know many people with learning difficulties who are perfectly able to access their accounts, and none of us wants to stereotype in that way, but of course there will be some of whom we need to take special care because of the nature of their disability—I mentioned Alzheimer's as an example. We also need a way to make urgent payments, such as those through crisis loans.
Order books will continue to be available for people who cannot manage the new arrangements until conversion to direct payment is completed in 2005, which means that we have time to get things right. People will be able to keep their order books during that period and the exceptions service will be in place before order books are phased out.
We want to design the exceptions service to meet people's needs properly. We need a better understanding of the problems that some people will face. Rather than guessing the circumstances with which the service will be required to deal, we will closely monitor the way in which the new arrangements for direct payment operate in practice and work with customer representative groups to design a secure and efficient service that meets people's needs. We are in regular contact with those groups; indeed, I have held a meeting with them. However, the service will not be an alternative to direct payment or a fourth option. It will be available only to those who really need it.
Mr. Heald: What will the criteria be? The Minister gave the Select Committee on Trade and Industry an example of people who consider that they are unable to use the options. Could such a person use the exceptions service, and will medical evidence be required for that? Will he give us more detail on how decisions will be made? If he cannot do that, will he explain why, having introduced a new measure that is bound to cause concern, the Government did not design an exceptions service in the first place, especially if people will just be sent a cheque in the post, as he told the Select Committee?
Malcolm Wicksrose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the Minister resumes his speech, I tell the House that I hope that there will be an opportunity for Back Benchers to participate in the debate.
Malcolm Wicks: I apologise for my excessive generosity.

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At the moment, we favour a cheque-based system to meet the needs of the exceptions service. It will have additional security features so that it will be less prone to fraud than the current giro system. My hon. Friend the Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness may deal with issues relating to PIN pads and the Post Office's current plans.
We are making sensible changes and offering customers a genuine choice. We are listening to customers and their representatives so that we provide a system that meets their individual needs. We are also listening to hon. Members of all parties. All customers who want to continue to receive their pension, benefit or tax credit through the Post Office may do so—just as we promised. They may continue to receive payments at the same frequency as they do now—just as we promised. That can be achieved with a range of account options: basic bank accounts, several current accounts and, of course, the Post Office card account. Anyone who wants a card account may have one, and more than 300,000 people have already chosen that option.
We are proposing a more modern, efficient and secure system. We are increasing customer choice while providing better value for money for the taxpayer, tackling fraud and increasing financial inclusion. Those are the facts, and I hope that the House will welcome this long overdue social reform.
5.58 pm
Dr. Vincent Cable: Opposition days usually present an opportunity for a bout of tribalism and sectarianism across the political divides. However, the motion is spot on and I have no problem with it whatsoever. It reflects faithfully the theme of many speeches that I have made about the Post Office and the spirit of the early-day motion that I signed along with many hon. Members of all parties, including the distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill). I would have hoped that almost all hon. Members would reach a consensus that the motion was agreeable, so I am surprised that it has created such division.
I shall bring the debate to a ground-level reality by mentioning an event from the Whitsun recess. People at my local Age Concern centre organised, among the bingo and tea dances, an advisory session on how local pensioners could deal with the changes. They brought along all the Post Office leaflets and the pensioners gathered round to ask practical and non-political questions about how the new system would affect them. The group was quite large. The nature of the centre meant that all those present were agile younger pensioners who were physically fit And mentally active. Every one of them had a bank account and wanted to continue to use the post office. That simple choice should not cause any great difficulty and the system should easily be able to accommodate those people.
The main question the pensioners asked was whether there would be a problem with them using their current accounts in the post office. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) asked the same question. The answer was, "Yes, sort of. It depends which bank you
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are with." The problem, which was immediately identified, was that people can use their current accounts if they bank with Barclays, Lloyds TSB, the Alliance and Leicester or the Co-operative.
Just to complicate matters further, one of the brighter pensioners popped up from the back and waved one of the Post Office's newspapers with the headline "Great News. Granddad gets his money for free at the Post Office". However, the article refers to only two banks, the Alliance and Leicester and Barclays. So we needed an explanation of how those differed from the other two banks. It appears that they are willing to offer automated cash access at the post office. The other two offer cheque cashing facilities. Those are different and it is confusing for pensioners. None the less, the basic principle is right. As the hon. Member for Stafford said, people who bank at those banks can get cash from the post office. That pledge is honoured in a general way and there is no problem for those people.
However, the majority of people in the meeting did not bank at those banks. Like 55 per cent. of the British banking population, they banked at the NatWest, the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Halifax Bank of Scotland, the Midland—now HSBC—and the Abbey National, which do not offer the same facility. So the pensioners asked, "How do we get cash from the post office?" The answer was, "Well, if you want to continue using your bank to get access to post office facilities, you have to open a basic bank account in addition to your current account." They had never heard of it and were told that it was a simple account, to which they replied, "We are not simple people. Why do we need a simple account?"
The people giving the advice explained that the account is different from other accounts and that its features are restricted. They went on to set out some of those restrictions. The Department for Work and Pensions also sets them out in its document. It is not, for example, possible to run an overdraft, as has been mentioned. The Department states:
"But you need to make sure you have enough money in your account or the payment will not be made and you may be charged for this."
It does not say what the charges are and that information is not easy to access.
The audience then said, "If this is how the basic bank accounts operate, surely we'll need to find out from the post office that we go into what state our accounts are in so that we don't inadvertently become overdrawn." The Department helpfully says a little later on in its document:
"With some basic bank accounts, you will also be able to check your balance there."
It does not say which accounts or banks. That is left unclear. So 60 per cent. of the audience—55 per cent. of the general public—will not be able to access the service in the post office. They will have to go through a basic bank account if they want to continue to use its banking services.
Mr. Weir: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the situation is worse in Scotland, where a greater number of people bank with the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Bank of Scotland and the Clydesdale than with the banks that offer the post office service?
Dr. Cable: The hon. Gentleman is right. I tabled a question to the Secretary of State for Scotland a couple of weeks ago. We did not reach it, but it made precisely that point. I think that in Scotland about 90 per cent. of the public will not have access to the service. They will have access only through the basic bank account, with all its limitations. For those people and the people who do not have bank accounts at all, the Post Office card account is clearly the mechanism of choice if they have an unrestricted choice between the three mechanisms open to them.
Mr. Kidney: Before the hon. Gentleman goes on to discuss the Post Office card account, will he say whether he agrees that it is as important for the future of our post offices that those bank accounts work through the Post Office, as the Post Office card account does? They are both important—it is not a case of one or the other.
Dr. Cable: I completely agree. We can criticise the Post Office card account, but the Government are at fault for failing to pursue banks that are not operating the full service. They should be named and shamed, particularly in Scotland. The banks have got off lightly. They have not been regulated after the Cruickshank report, which pointed to overcharging. They have offered a minimal service, and they think that they can get away with it. The Government should be demanding that NatWest, Abbey National and the rest offer the same services as their competitors. On that basis, the hon. Member for Stafford is right.
Mr. Kidney: I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman has just said, and shall give another example of sub-postmasters' complaints. One sub-postmistress rang one of the banks to say that she had a customer who wanted a basic bank account, but the person at the bank said, "I don't know what that means."
Dr. Cable: I shall press on specifically with the Post Office card account. The Conservative spokesman made two criticisms of the way in which the Government have approached that account. First, there is the absence of a level playing field for the three options. Secondly, there is the problem of complexity. Opposition parties can make such points, but I want to refer to a neutral source. In his speech, the Minister referred admiringly to Postwatch, the regulator. However, he may not have noticed what Postwatch, in its evidence to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, said about those specific points. Ms Foster from Postwatch said:
"Post Office Limited had an agreement with the Department for Work and Pensions … that all three accounts have to be mentioned at the same time and the fact that the Post Office card account had to come third on that list … our main concern is that it is appearing to be much more difficult to open a card account at the post office than to open a basic bank account. Consumers have to go through eight steps, which have been outlined to you in this submission, and for a lot of people who are not familiar with these account systems and banking systems, these seem to us to present unreasonable barriers."
My colleague, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) asked Ms Foster:
"Can you think of any reason why they have been put at a disadvantage?"
She replied:
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"I am mystified as to why the DWP has made it quite so difficult."
That is the impartial Postwatch, which the Minister prayed in aid a few moments ago. It is also worth reminding him that Postwatch offered to help the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office with the pilot studies, but the Government refused to accept that offer.
However, Postwatch may be too committed a source of evidence, so may I cite some remarks by the Deputy Prime Minister? The Minister may recall that a few weeks ago, the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, having despaired of getting anything out of the Department for Work and Pensions, asked to seek the Prime Minister. However, he was busy with the war in Iraq, so he referred the federation to the Deputy Prime Minister, who had a look at the problem. In Deputy Prime Minister's questions I asked him specifically about the fact that the application had eight stages which, through his intervention, he had managed to reduce to seven. He replied:
"I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's remarks. He makes a fair point that the postmasters felt there was too much bureaucracy in the development of the new card system".—[Official Report, 2 April 2003; Vol. 402, c. 905.]
The problem was therefore acknowledged by the Deputy Prime Minister himself.
I have read carefully the Minister's testimony to the Select Committee, in which he gave a series of reasons why the process is complicated. There are issues of security and, in addition, all the problems involved in applying for a bank account, such as the problem of establishing identity. We acknowledge that those are genuine problems. However, given the people we are talking about, those obstacles should be reduced to the absolute minimum. I shall cite some more testimony given to the Select Committee—a particularly valuable exchange between the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) and Mr. Mills, the chief executive of Post Office Counters. It reads as follows:
"Mr. Berry: So there is nothing that can be done to make the system easier than it currently is?
Mr. Mills: I absolutely did not say that.
Mr. Berry: Yes, but, with the greatest respect, I would like to be perfectly clear about what you are saying. You are saying, therefore, that it could be made easier?
Mr. Mills: Yes.
Mr. Berry: There would be no technical problems, in your view, to making it easier?
Mr. Mills: No, absolutely."
So the Post Office says categorically that the system could be made easier. Any obstructions are not coming from within the Post Office. They are not inherent in the process of ordering a Post Office account. They are being created in the Department. We have not just the views of Opposition parties or dissident Back Benchers; we have the testimony of Post Office management, the Post Office consumers body and everybody outside who has examined the issue.
Chris Grayling: There was printed evidence as well, in that all the material distributed by the Department for the launch of the child benefit alternative of

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withdrawing money from the post office placed the Post Office card account on the back page, at the bottom, in small print, and the other alternatives in the front, highlighted, with big flashing neon arrows pointing towards them, effectively.
Dr. Cable: That sounds like a fair summary of what took place, and I endorse it.
I turn not to my pensioners in Twickenham, who want to operate through the banking system, not to the people who, despite the obstacles, will eventually be able to get the Post Office card account, but to the people who will not be able to access the system at all and who will fall within the exemption system. What worries me—again, evidence of this came before the Select Committee—is the total lack of preparation. The Minister seemed to imply that there was a process going on. If it is going on, he has not told the Post Office. Mr. Mills, the chief executive, was taxed about the problem by Labour Back Benchers.
The exchange was initiated by the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Linda Perham), who asked:
"Can you think of any other alternative for people who obviously cannot use a bank account or the Post Office card account?"
Mr. Mills replied:
"I am sure we could. We have not been asked to yet."
The hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mrs. Lawrence) asked:
"Have you been consulted about what it should be?"
to which Mr. Mills responded:
"No, not yet."
Nobody has asked the Post Office what the exemption service involves. I do not know whether the Minister sees that as the Post Office working independently, but surely the people at the sharp end, the people who run the post office network, should have some idea of what an exceptions service entails, and they say that they have not even been asked.
I return to the basic economics of the network. We all agree that if pensioners and others need access to the post office in order to draw their cash, the post offices must be there. One of the fundamental problems is that if post offices are closing, it becomes more difficult for that to happen. We see that in our constituencies. There is a programme—the ludicrously entitled urban reinvention programme—that is cutting a third of all branches. We have all seen it beginning, but we do not know where it will end because we are not told and we are not given a list of closures. So far I have two in my constituency. The immediate consequences are greater difficulty of access for those in the areas affected, and greater crowding at post offices and longer queues. Access is being reduced daily under the closure programme.
Joyce Quin: I apologise to the House for not being present at the beginning of the debate, as I was attending a long-planned event on EU enlargement. There are post office closures in my constituency, and I know that consultations are part of the closure process. Can the
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hon. Gentleman tell me whether any consultations have resulted in a reversal of the proposal to close? If he cannot tell me that, perhaps he can ask my hon. Friend the Minister to tell us, when he replies, whether there are any such examples.
Dr. Cable: To be fair to the system, there are one or two cases in which the decision has been reversed. but it is clear from conversations with the people involved that Postwatch, the organisation charged with the inquiries, is overwhelmed by the volume. It does not have the resources to give detailed attention to every individual decision. Closures are happening even though a handful of decisions have been reversed.
If the closure programme is to be slowed down, the Post Office must find alternative sources of income. That has been the problem from the beginning, which was identified in the excellent Cabinet Office study a few years ago. Where can income come from? First, the easier Post Office card accounts are to access, the more people use them, and the more income comes to the Post Office, directly and from footfall. Secondly—this goes back to the exchange that I had with the hon. Member for Stafford—it does not matter whether people use the banks provided that they can use their bank account in the Post Office and cash cheques. If that system works efficiently and fairly, the Post Office receives income, the people still come to the Post Office and the problem is alleviated. Insufficient pressure is being put on the banks, which are effectively opting out of that system at present.
Thirdly, we have the question of new sources of income. The postmasters have already had the disappointment of the "Your Guide" system being pulled from under them. I have seen the finances of that scheme and it did not make commercial sense for the Post Office, so I can see why it did not go ahead with it. Other options are being explored. I understand that a good e-shopping system is now being developed in post offices in Cornwall. That development has been entirely spontaneous, it is profitable and may offer a future for substantial parts of the system. The Government really do need to give it the kind of support that it deserves.
Mr. Chris Mole: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the development of internet shopping provides an increasing opportunity for goods to be delivered and picked up at local post offices rather than people having to go through the experience of receiving a card that says that a delivery attempt has been made but that the parcel has been taken away again?
Dr. Cable: The hon. Gentleman is right. There are major potential synergies between the different parts of the Post Office that have only just begun to be explored.
We are faced with an unnecessary disaster here. If those different elements of additional income were brought on stream, if the Post Office card account were made accessible, if cheque cashing were made easily accessible through all the banks, the process of transition for Post Office Counters Ltd. would be easily manageable and not painful.
To set matters right, the Government have only to make Post Office card accounts easily accessible, on a par with the other streams of drawing cash from post

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offices, bring more pressure to bear on the banks and be much more proactive about helping new sources of income generation.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: At the risk of stating the obvious, there is a very short time left for Back Benchers. I am sure that it will be appreciated across the House if speeches could be fairly brief so that we can try to improve the breadth of the debate as far as possible.
6.17 pm
Mr. David Kidney: I shall do my best to be as brief as you have urged us to be, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I do not think that it is right to say that the Post Office card account might be the saviour of post offices. Just before Christmas in Stafford I faced a big audience of sub-postmasters and sub-post mistresses and local and parish councillors who were all concerned about the future of their post offices and wanted a great campaign to ensure that everybody signed up for a Post Office card account. I sympathised with them for their struggling businesses and the obstacles in the way of people opening Post Office card accounts, so I had meetings with Ministers, asked parliamentary questions and wrote to Ministers about the obstacles. I endorse everything that the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) said on that subject. But I had the feeling that people were clinging to a diminishing market that in the end would see them out of business, and I recognised that it was as important to ensure that there were other opportunities for post offices.
This year in Stafford, jointly with my Staffordshire Parish Councils Association, I held a working lunch for all the people whom we could think of who could help with post offices. They included the Post Office and Postwatch, for obvious reasons; the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, which has money from the Government's Phoenix fund to offer advice and assistance to its members; the Countryside Agency, because of the support that it can give in rural areas with its community services grants and so on; and Business Link, because of its help to small businesses, the chief executive of which said there and then that it could give free and subsidised help to any post office or small business that asked for it and subsequently agreed to make that clear to every post office in Staffordshire.
Also present was our regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands, which is responsible for economic development. It provided a list of people who could offer venture capital funds, including an enterprising fund in north Staffordshire dispensing very small amounts to give people access at the bottom end of the market. BT was there because it sponsored the lunch and already has a significant working relationship with the Post Office, which it wants to continue. It is particularly interested in broadband connections in rural areas. The Learning and Skills Council was represented because of its responsibility for training and life-long learning.
That brings me to what happened next. This week, we had a meeting at Rodbaston college of further education, which we chose because it already has experience of such issues through offering courses on business diversification. Those are used mostly by farmers, but it occurred to me that many post offices
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might want advice and training on diversification. At the meeting, the college said that it could help in many ways—not only through that course, but by advising post offices about marketing, business management, book-keeping, and disseminating best practice between themselves, perhaps going on to form clusters of post offices that can support each other. We are hoping to put together a package to offer those options to every post office in Staffordshire.
I want to mention, as did the hon. Member for Twickenham, the follow-up to "Your Guide". The evaluation was not quite positive enough about increased footfall and sales, and the Government therefore decided not to pursue it at their own expense. Now, private enterprise is trying to make it successful, with the first opening, by E-Daily, taking place in Cornwall in May. E-Daily has an ambitious programme of making touch screens available in 15,000 places around the country by the end of next year, which would be an impressive achievement. Next week, I am due to go to its Bayswater office to look at the technology to see whether there is something in it. It has an e-shopping aspect. The touch screens also give access to information on local government and the goods and services that are available in the immediate locality. That represents an exciting possibility. I had hoped that BT could offer such a service, but E-Daily got in first.
Nationally, there are the TV advertising campaign, with the three choices that were mentioned; the Post Office's own campaign, "Carry on Collecting", with which it has now been allowed to proceed; and the campaign by the Communication Workers Union, "Do your banking at the Post Office".
Each one of us individually can play our part, just like the people I listed, in helping post offices in our areas to expand their business base and to increase their footfall. They should not keep looking back to the business that they used to get from the Government and try to cling to as much of it as possible for as long as possible, but try to develop modern successful businesses in which people can feel that they have a future. That is my ambition in my area, and I hope that it is every other Member's ambition in their area.
6.22 pm
Mr. James Arbuthnot: Some extremely valuable points have been made on both sides of the House. In view of the pressure of time, I shall make only three points.My first point concerns the promotion of the card account. On Monday, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions:
"Why are sub-post offices not allowed to promote it to their customers?"
The Secretary of State replied:
"Many sub-postmasters and postmistresses have been energetic in promoting the Post Office card accounts."
He continued:
"As I said … in my initial answer, around half of the pensioners who have responded requested the Post Office card account. That hardly points to failure to promote it."—[Official Report, 9 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 387.]
I understood that to be a clear statement that sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses are allowed to promote the card account. I hope that that is true, and

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that if the Minister says that is wrong the Government will change their mind. The sub-postmasters in my constituency believe that they are under instruction not to promote the card account. They are angry about that, and I hope that any such instruction will be reversed.
My second point concerns the complexity of the card account. I believe that Ministers have been actively trying to discourage the card account. In April, a memo went out from head office saying that an instruction had been issued to the effect that when post offices applied for card accounts, two forms had to be attached to each other, and that if they were not, the application would thereby be rendered invalid. However, the memo also stated that everything would be changed and that the two forms were not to be attached to each other after all. Moreover, it stated that attached forms would render the application invalid.
That might sound like a funny bureaucratic muddle, but it is not funny; it is serious. It is not surprising that another memo went out from head office last week. It stated that the process of applying for card accounts was so complicated that 25 per cent. of applications had been rejected. Consequently, the applicants whose applications have been rejected must undergo the whole awful rigmarole again. The vulnerable in our society are being worn down to persuade them to accept the Government's options. It will not do.
Pensioners are being discouraged. In April, I visited seven sub-post offices in my constituency, and I spoke to some sub-postmasters again today. One told me that pensioners in my constituency understand that they will not be able to collect their benefits from post offices but will have do that through their bank accounts. Many who have bank accounts are being panicked into giving details of them, and to them, that means that they will not be able to collect benefits from a post office.
My third point is that this is a serious matter. In south Warnborough in my constituency, the sub-post office is also the village shop, the local coffee house, the meeting place and the informal social services centre. For many pensioners, the walk to the post oflice every week is the only time that they get out and meet anybody. It may be the only time that they get any company. Some pensioners stay in the post office for hours, doing nothing except enjoying the company of those who come in at the same time. In that way, they can be checked on. If they do not turn up, the post office sends out the local rural support group. It is informal but effective. The Government have not fully understood the effect of their proposals on rural areas.
After my recent tour of the sub-post offices in my constituency, Mr. Tony James, the sub-postmaster at Selborne, a lovely rural village, which, like so many, revolves around the village post office, said that he believed that it was too late. He said that,
"by actively encouraging the payment of benefits and pensions via bank accounts, the Government is taking the lifeblood away from the post office".
We look to the Minister to prove him wrong.
6.27 pm
Vernon Coaker: I want to speak only briefly so that other hon. Members can contribute. Clearly, the Post Office card account is crucial to the future of the
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Post Office, but people who want such an account have experienced problems. We all have constituents who have told us that they are not being encouraged to take up the option. Labour Front-Bench Members should listen to some of the points that have been made in the debate if we are to give people a genuine choice.
The last line in the Government amendment states that
"the move to Direct Payment is central to the future of a successful modern Post Office."
That is true to an extent, but I want to emphasise the points that have been made to me. Dispelling some of the ignorance about the services that are available at a post office is also central to the future of a modern Post Office. The Government should consider the way in which they will deal with that ignorance and make more of the public aware of what they can do at the post office. Part of that must surely involve looking at the kind of campaign we can have to encourage people. There was once a campaign for village shops and facilities—and, indeed, facilities in certain urban areas—which urged people to "use it or lose it". We need to say to people that post offices cannot live on emotional good will alone, and that they have to generate new business that will support them.
We can subsidise post offices. Indeed, we are considering doing that in rural areas and in some of the deprived urban communities. As well as that, however, we need to consider how we support post offices in terms of generating business and allowing them to have the business that will support them, so that they can remain available to people. This is of fundamental importance when we are talking about financial exclusion and about making the facilities that post offices offer available to everyone. In communities in which the bank has gone and many of the village shops have gone, the post office is often the last thing that is left. In terms of access, we need to regard the post office as a community bank—almost a people's bank.
The Post Office clearly has to modernise, and part of that modernisation will involve Post Office card accounts and the installation of the new computer equipment. It must also involve the Government supporting sub-postmasters in generating new business to help them to keep their post offices alive. The Government must support them in the advertising that they are producing to make clear the kinds of services that are available.
Joyce Quin: The situation that my hon. Friend describes is certainly familiar to me in my inner urban constituency. Having heard what has been said about rural post offices, I think that rural and urban areas have a lot in common in this sense, because in some urban areas, the post office is sometimes the main commercial outlet for an estate or a community. I would like to support what my hon. Friend said about diversification. Would he agree with me that it is important to—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Lady seems to be inserting a speech into her intervention and we are very short of time. She has not been here for the whole of the debate.
Vernon Coaker: I agree with the points that my right hon. Friend has made so well. Diversification is crucial, and the Government need to do what they can to support the generation of that new business if we are to have an extensive post office network that offers the opportunities that we want to all our people.
6.32 pm
Andrew Selous: I think that we would all agree with the valid point made by the Minister earlier that it is important to reduce the administration costs of social security. However, when he was pressed on the question of retaining pension books by the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), he effectively said that there was no choice. He gave a clear answer to her question on that. For existing pensioners, that is a great shame. They should be allowed to keep that choice.
The hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) said that pensioners and others should be encouraged to have bank accounts. That sentiment will have widespread support in the House, but not giving people any choice is a funny way of encouraging them; it is more like forcing them. We should also be aware of the social costs to existing pensioners who want to keep their pension book and to go into the post office once a week because of the support that that gives them.
The National Federation of Post Office and British Telecom Pensioners, which has 100,000 members and is headquartered in my constituency, has told me that it is ridiculous that there should be seven steps involved in setting up a Post Office card account. The fact that someone can get a passport application form from a post office counter is really a killer argument, because what could be more important or secure than a passport?
I hope that the Minister will respond to the point about home helps having to memorise the PIN numbers of perhaps 20 different people. I mention that point in the hope that he will respond to it specifically when he winds up. I also hope that we shall get an answer to the question about what happens when a carer, who can hold a person's second Post Office card account, goes on holiday. From the information that I have seen, there is no answer to that, which must be a great worry to many people.
Post offices are losing 41 per cent. of their income through automated credit transfer, although, as we have heard, in some cases there are good reasons for that. Of course diversification is important—I agree with the hon. Member for Stafford (M r. Kidney) that we need to encourage future viable businesses—but if there is no post office in the first place, because the income is gone and it has closed, it will be too late. Studham, the village where I live in my constituency, has lost its post office, as has Totternhoe, and an urban post office in Downside has also gone in the last month or so—although I am pursuing that closure actively, and have not yet given up.
Mr. John Horam: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Andrew Selous: I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not. I have only one minute left, and another Member wishes to speak before the winding-up speeches.
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I do not think ghat the vital importance of the Post Office card account has been stressed enough today. It is the only account that requires people to go into post offices. That is critical, because post offices cannot survive solely on the basis of transaction payments for the processing of benefits. They need people to go in and buy other goods.
6.36 pm
Mr. Michael Weir: Every speaker today has talked about choice, but listening to the Minister talk about choice reminded me of Henry Ford's dictum on the model T: "Any colour so long as it's black". According to the picture that he painted, post offices will be used for all sorts of banking facilities; but that is not what will happen. As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), many bank accounts cannot be used in post offices—and, as I said earlier in an intervention, the situation is even worse in Scotland.
The Minister said that choice was already being exercised, and that six out of 10 new applications for child benefit involved direct payment. That is hardly surprising, as those applying for child benefit are much younger than the many pensioners who are deeply concerned about the move to bank accounts. That move, however, will not just affect our constituents; it will affect the Post Office badly. Thirty-five per cent. of the network's overall annual revenue already comes from contracts with the Benefits Agency and its Northern Ireland equivalent. In many areas, more than 40 per cent. of small post offices' income comes from benefit payments.
The argument that claimants will be able to collect benefits at banks will not wash, as over the past 10 years, banks have been steadily cutting branches in rural areas and small towns. But those are not the only areas affected. A fast-expanding town in my constituency, Monifieth, has just lost the last of its bank agencies. As in many rural areas, a local solicitor had become the agency for the Halifax, which has recently closed. There are now no banking facilities in an expanding town where there are many new people and much new building. People in that town will not have the option of using banks if the post office cannot deal with their requirements.
I think we would all be happy if ordinary bank accounts could be used at the post office, but that is not the case. Many people who receive benefits will face a long journey, whose cost will eat into their already meagre incomes.
There are also serious problems for those who have no bank accounts or Post Office card accounts. That was discussed only this week during Trade and Industry questions. The Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness, the hon. Member for East Ham (Mr. Timms), said that 3.5 million people in the UK currently had neither a bank account nor a Post Office card account. Not all of them will be benefit claimants, but it is a fair guess that most of them are. What will happen to those people? Will they all be able to obtain bank accounts? What if they want Post Office card accounts? Will they be able to get them, given the complications of the system?
The Minister spoke of the number of card accounts that had been opened. I asked a parliamentary question about that, and I think that on 9 May there were about

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a quarter of a million. Now the Minister quotes a figure of about 300,000. That is still a very small amount of card accounts. Unless there is a way to ensure that all those who want one can get one easily, there is a serious problem. A total of 3.5 million do not have a bank account or card account.There is a substantial demand for benefits to be paid in the traditional way. If it ain't broke, why fix it?
Like all other hon. Members, I have heard from a stream of people who are concerned about the matter. They have tried to get a Post Office card account and felt that they have been put off. At trade and industry questions, the Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness said:
"I have seen a variety of quite bright and attractive literature from the Post Office about direct payment, in which the Post Office card account features clearly."—[Official Report, 5 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 291.]
I do not know what he meant by "clearly". The literature that I have seen is far from clear. He did not comment on whether the Department for Work and Pensions, the Inland Revenue and the Veterans Agency have made it clear in their literature that the card account is available. The plain fact is that they have not, and many people have found it difficult to get the card accounts in the first place.
6.40 pm
Mr. Andrew Robathan: This is an unusual occasion. Every year there are literally thousands of early-day motions. Many of us feel that many of them are worthless but in each early-day motion many hon. Members call for a motion to be debated "at an early day". How pleased the nearly 400 hon. Members who signed the early-day motion on the Post Office card account must be today.
Mr. Kidney: If the hon. Gentleman would like to maintain the massive cross- party support for the early-day motion, will he announce that there will be no Division at the end of the debate?
Mr. Robathan: Of course not. We want hon. Members to put their money where their mouth is. It is a genuine cross-party motion and genuine cross-party points have been made on both sides of the Chamber. The motion has united the Democratic Unionist party, the Ulster Unionists and the Social Democratic and Labour party, which the Belfast agreement has failed to do. It has the highest number of signatures of any early-day motion this Session—385. That is one of the highest ever. Only one other this Session has attracted more than half the signatures of hon. Members in the House of Commons: that congratulating the excellent Laurie Kaye of the Table Office on his retirement.
Vernon Coaker: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Robathan: I am sorry. No.
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We therefore know that the motion is bound to pass, with so much support.
The debate has revealed that Government policy on the Post Office is in complete tatters; it is in chaos. The Department of Trade and Industry wants to keep the post offices open, yet it is closing three out of eight urban post offices. There is no proper plan. The Select Committee heard that last week.
The Department was meant to close post offices that were not in retail hotspots. It was meant to identify retail hotspots and to close the rather less good post offices, but it is just closing post offices where the postmaster has volunteered to take the redundancy package, or where managers may obtain bonuses by meeting their targets. There is no logic there. There is no more logic in Labour Members voting on 15 October for the urban network reinvention programme to close three post offices out of eight in urban areas and then campaigning in their constituencies to keep them open. The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), my neighbour, whom I have warned of this, is campaigning to keep open Humberstone post office, as he campaigned to keep open Scraptoff Lane post office. In fact, his photograph appeared twice in the Leicester Mercury last week under the headline, "MP campaigns against post office closure". It should have said, "'I voted to close three out of eight post offices in my constituency', says MP".
There is £450 million over three years for rural post offices. That takes us to the beginning of 2006, when the general election will be well out of the way. What is the future after that subsidy? We hear no answer. There should be a good future for the Post Office but I do not intend to dwell on that now. The PIU report offered hope. For example, it offered e-government, "Your Guide", which was binned after some £20 million was spent on it, universal banking and the Post Office card account, but we discover that the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury have to pay for that, that they do not want to—I understand why—and that they are not committed to keeping open many much loved post offices. The DWP has won out over the DTI.
The Minister talked about choice. Indeed, the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) mentioned Henry Ford's dictum. It is true. People can get their benefits paid in any way they like as long as it is by ACT. That is the choice that is being offered by the Government.
The reality of the situation is spelled out by Mr. Tony Kuczys—the Under-Secretary will know him—who is in the universal banking policy division at The Adelphi. He wrote to Ministers on 18 April last year about letters to benefits claimants, and discussions with the British Bankers Association and the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters. He said:
"we should be clear that neither body will much like what they see"
in these letters. He continues:
"The emphasis of the letters is very much on encouraging people to use existing accounts where possible—in line with Ministers' decision to go for 'actively managed choice'."
Vernon Coaker: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Robathan: I am sorry—I do not have the time. The letter continues:
"Both the banks and the subpostmasters would really like a completely free choice. We will have to make it clear that this is not on offer … In discussion with the BBA and the NFSP we might want to concede giving a bit more prominence to the Card Account at Post Offices, once it is available."
The letter then states:
"the Card Account will not initially be included in the leaflet",
as we know. So that was the plan: do not tell people about the card account.
We also have the "Customer Journey", which I am told is so simple. According to the document entitled "Post Office card account—Customer Journey", if a customer who wants to use his bank account supplies his bank account details, no further customer action is required. However, if he chooses not to do so, there are 20 further steps to be taken.
The Deputy Prime Minister made the concession that every leaflet would have on it the Post Office card account alternative. Of course, those who ask for that alternative are immediately referred back to the start of the customer journey, and they have to telephone the call centre. Somebody who should know described the call centre as "a horror story". Indeed, pensioners in their 80s are being harassed by call centres to go for automated credit transfer.
A sub-postmaster from the west country whom I was speaking to this morning said that he had never seen a Post Office card account being used. Last week, he finally managed for the first time to get an assurance that a completed, successful application for a Post Office card account would go in, but he has not yet seen it and the customer is still waiting for the card. I am told that other initial applications are being stockpiled, for whatever reason. Perhaps the Minister might like to tell us whether that is true.
I have in my hand such a card. I shall hold it up for the House's benefit, because I suspect that many Members will not have seen what they look like—just as many sub-postmasters have never seen them used in anger, some 10 weeks after the system started.
Universal banking will mean an average loss of perhaps 40 per cent. of a branch's income. How will that be replaced? When discussing payment to postmasters for benefit transactions, the Post Office threatened to impose a settlement. It has now agreed one: 14p per £100 of benefit paid out. Currently, postmasters get 13p for a benefit transaction. However, as we have heard, pensioners might easily choose to take out their benefit in slugs of, say, £20. So three, four or five time-consuming transactions could be involved in order to earn 14p. Of course, the real truth is that far fewer people will use Post Office card accounts, the footfall will fall and income for postmasters will crash. We do not want that to happen.
What is the Government's assessment of the impact on sub-postmaster income, and of the future income stream for the post offices? We heard about internet banking, which is very sensible. Let us hear more about what post offices can do, and be encouraged to do, in terms of receipt and collection of e-banking. How much do the Government expect to save through the policy of universal banking? Altogether, some £430 million is
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paid in terms of benefit transactions. How much do the Government expect to save by undermining the post office network?
On 15 October last year, I suggested that the Post Office was insolvent—or would have been if it were a private company. The Minister contradicted me, so perhaps he can tell me whether what the chairman, Allan Leighton, and the chief executive, David Mills, told the NFSP conference last autumn was right: that Allan Leighton has threatened the Government that he would declare the Post Office insolvent.
So what is the future for the post office network, which is so important for communities throughout the land, as we have heard? I do not wish to dwell on the speeches—heavily curtailed—that were made by Back Benchers, but I should point out that they were making cross-party points. We should appreciate that. The hon. Members for Angus, for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) and for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) all made cross-party points with which few hon. Members would disagree.
My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) raised the complaints of ordinary people: pensioners, the disabled and others who are being brow-beaten, harassed and intimidated into not having a Post Office card account. I briefly quoted the National Consumer Council earlier and I shall do so again. Recommendation 3 of the document, "Everyday Essentials", is that the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office should ensure that all benefit recipients, including those with current accounts, have easy access to the card account. We know that they do not, so what happened to joined-up government and the holistic approach to the financially excluded and the vulnerable?
All we want to see is the customers of the Post Office, the general public, getting a decent choice and a fair deal. We believe that the Government should suspend the universal banking roll-out until a genuine choice is on offer so that customers can get Post Office card accounts and post offices can be kept open.
We support the hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) and the nearly 400 Members of Parliament who have signed the motion. We support the request of the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters that there should be no administrative obstacles to opening a Post Office card account, and we call on the Government to ensure a level playing field in marketing, promotion and the advance of banking options.
Anyone who signs a motion should be prepared to vote for it. I wish to quote:
"For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men".
However, Mark Antony was being ironic, and irony, I was taught, was the lowest form of wit. I am not being ironic. I know that the motion will pass and I look forward to seeing 175 Labour Members in the Lobby with us in support.
6.51 pm
The Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness (Mr. Stephen Timms): We have had a good debate with some thoughtful contributions. However, I do not know whether the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) has seen the memorandum produced today by the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, expressing disappointment at the way in which the Conservative party has tried to pursue the issue in party political terms. That has indeed been a disappointing feature of the debate. Nevertheless, as I say, we have heard some thoughtful contributions and the successful launch—
Mr. Robathan rose—
Mr. Timms: I have very little time, but I shall give way once.
Mr. Robathan: As it happens, more Labour Members' names are appended to that motion than Conservative Members' names.
Mr. Timms: The point is that the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters has today expressed disappointment at the fact that his party has sought to exploit the motion. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take that to heart.
Mr. Robathan rose—
Mr. Timms: No, I will not give way again.
Mr. Heald: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I am sure that this will not be a point of order.
Mr. Heald: Is it right for the Minister to say that the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters is against us proposing the motion, given that when I spoke to its general secretary, Mr. Colin Baker, earlier today, he congratulated me?
Mr. Speaker: Let us return to the debate before the House.
Mr. Timms: The successful launch of universal banking services on 1 April fulfilled our commitment to ensuring that people can continue to collect their benefits in cash at the local post office if they choose to do so. Customers now have three account options under the direct payment arrangements for how to they want to be paid. The first is an existing account, bank or building society. The second is one of the new bank or building society basic accounts for those who are new to banking and simply want to pay money in and get cash out, and perhaps pay bills automatically. That includes direct debit: it was said earlier that that is not possible with a basic bank account, but it is. The third is a Post Office card account—a simple account for the receipt of benefits, pension and tax credit payments.
In opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary made it clear that, of the responses received so far from pensioners—a particularly important group of customers for the Post Office—half requested a Post
792
Office card account, and they will get one. They are making up their own minds and deciding on their choice. About 45 per cent. of Jobcentre Plus customers requested a Post Office card account as well. The proportion of child benefit customers is much lower, but that is no surprise. It demonstrates that people are successfully choosing the account that meets their circumstances best, precisely as we intended. It is also clear that many of those who are not choosing a Post Office card account will—as my hon. Friend said earlier—continue to use their local post office to obtain benefit cash from their bank account. There is also every prospect of those who have not used the post office before being able, for the first time, to access cash with a card at the post office.
The Post Office card account is an important element of the new framework. For many on benefits, it will be the best account for them. It is simple and problem-free and, on the evidence we have seen so far, it is particularly attractive to pensioners. It is, of course, essential that those who deliver the service do so professionally, efficiently and effectively. It is because of its importance that it features in line 3 of the leaflet that the DWP has issued to explain clearly how the new procedures will work.
Some people have said that supporters of the Post Office should be pushing people towards the Post Office card account, whether they want it or not. That would be a serious mistake. First, customers should be able to choose the best account for them. Secondly, the card account does not contribute much to increasing financial inclusion, in the way that having a bank account does. Thirdly—and this is the point that I wish to emphasise—the real opportunity for the Post Office going forward is offering access to bank services more widely. It could become, as my hon. Friends the Members for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) suggested in their thoughtful contributions, the people's bank. Banking is a service that everybody in the country will use and that will allow the Post Office to expand its base of customers, rather than locking it into the diminishing group who only ever want to draw weekly benefit cash. Being locked into that shrinking group is at the heart of the Post Office's problems. The Post Office has to break new ground and win customers who use bank accounts and, thanks to the £500 million investment that we have made in universal banking services, we have put it in a position to do so and to capture new and growing markets, instead of being trapped in declining ones.
The Post Office already provides banking services on behalf of several banks. It provides a paper-based service that enables customers to cash cheques at post offices free of charge. From 1 April, in a further development of network banking, Alliance and Leicester began providing electronic access to all their bank accounts at any post office. Barclays began doing the same on 23 April. That is a significant development because it means that 11 million current account holders, using their existing cards, can now draw out cash free of charge at every post office from Land's End to John O'Groats. That is 11 million people with a compelling reason, many of them for the first time, to use their local post offices regularly, thanks to the Government's investment in the technology to make it all work, which was—incidentally—delivered on time to every post office.

793
The Post Office is talking to other banks to extend access to their current account holders, and several hon. Members have supported that move, too. The Post Office is uniquely placed to provide the banks with additional outlets and that is where its future success will lie. It means that every post office in the country can now say, "Do your banking at the post office." And the Post Office has the technology platform to offer a host of new services that can win a new generation of customers for the Post Office.
Several specific points have been raised in the debate but because of time constraints I cannot address all of them. However, I wish to deal with a concern raised several times in the debate, about carers with responsibility for several people. It has been suggested that those people might have to remember a different PIN number for every person whose money they collect through a Post Office card account. That is not the case. There is a facility on the Post Office card account so that people can change the PIN numbers and, if they wish, use the same PIN number to access each card account.
David Maclean rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes, 187, Noes 314.

Division No. 228]

[6:59 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

Allan, Richard

Amess, David

Chope, Christopher

Arbuthnot, rh James

Clappison, James

Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

Clarke, rh Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Baldry, Tony

Collins, Tim

Barker, Gregory

Cormack, Sir Patrick

Baron, John (Billericay)

Cotter, Brian

Barrett, John

Cran, James (Beverley)

Beggs, Roy (E Antrim)

Curry, rh David

Beith, rh A. J.

Davies, Quentin (Grantham & Stamford)

Bellingham, Henry

Beresford, Sir Paul

Davis, rh Davld (Haltemprice & Howden)

Blunt, Crispin

Boswell, Tim

Donrell, rh Stephen

Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

Doughty, Sue

Bottomley, rh Virginia (SW Surrey)

Duncan, Alan (Rutland)

Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

Brady, Graham

Evans, Nigel

Brake, Tom (Carshalton)

Ewing, Annabelle

Brazier, Julian

Fabricant, Michal

Browning, Mrs Angela

Fallon, Michael

Bruce, Malcolm

Field, Mark (Cities of London & Westminster)

Burnett, John

Burns, Simon

Flook, Adrian

Burnside, David

Forth, rh Eric

Burstow, Paul

Foster, Don (Bath)

Butterfill, John

Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

Cable, Dr. Vincent

Gibb, Nick (Bognor Regis)

Calton, Mrs Patsy

Gidley, Sandra

Cameron, David

Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

Campbell, Gregory (E Lond'y)

Goodman, Paul

Campbell, rh Menzies (NE Fife)

Grayling, Chris

Cash, William

Green, Damian (Ashford)

Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

794

Greenway, John

Price, Adam (E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

Grieve, Dominic

Hague, rh William

Prisk, Mark (Hertford)

Hammond, Philip

Pugh, Dr. John

Hancock, Mike

Randall, John

Harvey, Nick

Redwood, rh John

Hawkins, Nick

Rendel, David

Hayes, John (S Holland)

Robathan, Andrew

Heald, Oliver

Robertson, Angus (Moray)

Heath, David

Robertson, Hugh (Faversham & M-Kent)

Heathcoat-Amory, rh David

Hendry, Charles

Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

Hermon Lady

Robinson, Mrs Iris (Strangford)

Hoban, Mark (Fareham)

Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

Hogg, rh Douglas

Roe, Mrs Marion

Holmes, Paul

Ruffley, David

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Horam, John (Orpington)

Howard, rh Michael

Sanders, Adrian

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Sayeed, Jonathan

Selous, Andrew

Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

Hunter, Andrew

Shepherd, Richard

Jack, rh Michael

Jenkin, Bernard

Simmonds, Mark

Simpson, Keith (M-Norfolk)

Johnson, Boris (Henley)

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

Keetch, Paul

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Smyth, Rev. Martin (Belfast S)

Kirkwood, Sir Archy

Soames, Nicholas

Knight, rh Greg (E Yorkshire)

Spelman, Mrs Caroline

Laing, Mrs Eleanor

Spicer, Sir Michael

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

Lansley, Andrew

Spring, Richard

Laws, David (Yeovil)

Stanley, rh Sir John

Leigh, Edward

Streeter, Gary

Letwin, rh Oliver

Stunell, Andrew

Syms, Robert

Lewis, Dr. Julian (New Forest E)

Lilley rh Peter

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Llwyd Elfyn

Taylor, John (Solihull)

Loughton, Tim

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Luff Peter (M-Worcs)

Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

Mackay, rh Andrew

Thurso, John

Maclean, rh David

Tredinnick, David

McLoughlin, Patrick

Malins, Humfrey

Turner Andrew (Isle of Wight)

Turner Andrew (Isle of Wight)

Maples, John

Tyler, Paul (N Cornwall)

Tyrie, Andrew

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury & Atcham)

Viggers, Peter

Waterson, Nigel

Mates, Michael

Watkinson, Angela

Maude, rh Francis

Webb, Steve (Northavon)

May, Mrs Theresa

Weir, Michael

Mercer, Patrick

Whittingdale, John

Mitchell, Andrew (Sutton Coldfield)

Widdecombe, rh Miss Ann

Wiggin, Bill

Moore Michael

Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

Moss, Malcolm

Williams, Roger (Brecon)

Murrison, Dr. Andrew

Willis, Phil

Winterton, Ann (Conlgleton)

Norman, Archie

Winterton, Sir Nicholas (Macclesfield)

Oaten, Mark (Winchester)

Öpik, Lembit

Wishart, Pete

Osborne, George (Tatton)

Yeo, Tim (S Suffolk)

Ottaway, Richard

Young, rh Sir George

Page, Richard

Paice, James

Tellers for the Ayes:

Paterson, Owen

Mr. Mark Francois and

Portillo, rh Michael

Mr. David Wilshire

NOES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

Atherton, Ms Candy

Ainger, Nick

Atkins, Charlotte

Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

Alexander, Douglas

Austin, John

Allen, Graham

Bailey, Adrian

Anderson, rh Donald (Swansea E)

Baird, Vera

Anderson, Janet (Rossendale & Darwen)

Banks, Tony

Barron, rh Kevin

795

Battle, John

Etherington, Bill

Begg, Miss Anne

Farrelly, Paul

Benn, Hilary

Field, rh Frank (Birkenhead)

Bennett, Andrew

Fitzpatrick, Jim

Benton, Joe (Bootle)

Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

Berry, Roger

Flynn, Paul (Newport W)

Best, Harold

Follett, Barbara

Belts, Clive

Foster, rh Derek

Blackman, Liz

Foster, Michael (Worcester)

Blizzard, Bob

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings & Rye)

Blunkett, rh David

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Foulkes, rh George

Bradshaw, Ben

Francis, Dr. Hywel

Brown, rh Gordon (Dunfermline E)

Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

Gardiner, Barry

Brown, rh Nicholas (Newcastle E Wallsend)

George, rh Bruce (Walsall S)

Gerrard, Neil

Browne, Desmond

Gibson, Dr. Ian

Bryant, Chris

Gilroy, Linda

Buck, Ms Karen

Goggins, Paul

Burden, Richard

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Burgon, Colin

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Burnham, Andy

Grogan, John

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Caplin, Ivor

Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

Casale, Roger

Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

Caton, Martin

Hanson, David

Challen, Colin

Harman, rh Ms Harriet

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

Chaytor, David

Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

Clapham, Michael

Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

Healey, John

Clark, Dr. Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Clarke, rh Charles (Norwich S)

Hepburn, Stephen

Clarke, rh Tom (Coatbridge & Chrystion)

Heppell, John

Hesford, Stephen

Clelland, David

Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

Clwyd, Ann (Cynon V)

Hill, Keith (Streatham)

Coaker, Vernon

Hinchliffe, David

Coffey, Ms Ann

Hodge, Margaret

Coleman, Iain

Hope, Phil (Corby)

Colman, Tony

Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

Cook, rh Robin (Livingston)

Howarth, George (Knowsley N & Sefton E)

Cooper, Yvette

Corbyn, Jeremy

Howells, Dr. Kim

Corston, Jean

Hughes, Beverley (Stretford & Urmstion)

Cox, Tom (Tooting)

Cranston, Ross

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Crausby, David

Humble, Mrs Joan

Cruddas, Jon

Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

Cryer, Ann (Keighley)

Hutton, rh John

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Iddon, Dr. Brian

Cunningham, Jim (Coventry S)

Illsley, Eric

Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

Ingram, rh Adam

Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

Irranca-Davies, Huw

Dalyell, Tam

Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead & Highgate)

Darling, rh Alistair

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

David, Wayne

Jenkins, Brian

Davidson, Ian

Johnson, Alan (Hull W)

Davies, rh Denzil (Llanelli)

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

Dawson, Hilton

Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

Dean, Mrs Janet

Jowell, rh Tessa

Denham, rh John

Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

Dhanda, Parmjit

Keeble, Ms Sally

Dismore, Andrew

Keen, Ann (Brentford)

Donohoe, Brian H.

Kemp, Fraser

Dowd, Jim (Lewisham W)

Khabra, Piara S.

Drew, David (Stroud)

Kidney, David

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Kilfoyle, Peter

Edwards, Huw

King, Andy (Rugby)

Efford, Clive

Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Kumar, Dr. Ashok

796

Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

Quin, rh Joyce

Lammy, David

Quinn, Lawrie

Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

Rammell, Bill

Lazarowicz, Mark

Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

Lepper, David

Raynsford, rh Nick

Leslie, Christopher

Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

Reid, rh Dr. John (Hamilton N & Bellshill)

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Linton, Martin

Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Love, Andrew

Roche, Mrs Barbara

Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

Rooney, Terry

Luke, Iain (Dundee E)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

McAvoy, Thomas

Ruane, Chris

McCabe, Stephen

Ruddock, Joan

McCafferty, Chris

Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

McDonagh, Siobhain

MacDonald, Calum

Ryan, Joan (Enfield N)

McDonnell, John

Savidge, Malcolm

McIsaac, Shona

Sawford, Phil

McKechin, Ann

Sedgemore, Brian

McKenna, Rosemary

Shaw, Jonathan

Mackinlay, Andrew

Sheerman, Barry

McNamara, Kevin

Sheridan, Jim

McNulty, Tony

Simon, Siôn (B'ham Erdington)

MacShane, Denis

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

Mactaggart, Fiona

Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

McWalter, Tony

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

McWilliam, John

Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

Mahmood, Khalid

Mallaber, Judy

Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

Mandelson, rh Peter

Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Soley, Clive

Marshall, David (Glasgow Shettlestion)

Southworth, Helen

Spellar, rh John

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Squire, Rachel

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

Martlew, Eric

Steinberg, Gerry

Michael, rh Alun

Stevenson, George

Miliband, David

Stewart, David (Inverness E & Lochaber)

Miller, Andrew

Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Moffatt, Laura

Stinchcombe, Paul

Mole, Chris

Stoate, Dr. Howard

Moonie, Dr. Lewis

Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

Moran, Margaret

Tami, Mark (Alyn)

Morgan, Julie

Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

Mountford, Kali

Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

Mullin, Chris

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

Murphy, rh Paul (Torfaen)

Timms, Stephen

Naysmith, Dr. Doug

Tipping, Paddy

Norris, Dan (Wansdyke)

Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

Trickett, Jon

O'Hara, Edward

Truswell, Paul

Olner, Bill

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

Organ, Diana

Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptiown)

Owen, Albert

Palmer, Dr. Nick

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

Perham, Linda

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Picking, Anne

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Pike, Peter (Burnley)

Vaz, Keith (Leicester E)

Pollard, Kerry

Vis, Dr. Rudi

Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

Walley, Ms Joan

Pope, Greg (Hyndburn)

Ward, Claire

Pound, Stephen

Wareing, Robert N.

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

Watts, David

Prescott, rh John

White, Brian

Primarolo, rh Dawn

Whitehead, Dr. Alan

Prosser, Gwyn

Wicks, Malcolm

Purchase, Ken

Williams, rh Alan (Swansea W)

Purnell, James

Williams, Betty (Conwy)

797

Wills, Michael

Wray, James (Glasgow Bailliestion)

Wilson, Brian

Winnick, David

Wrignt, Anthony D. (Gt Yarmouth)

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Wright, David (Telford)

Wyatt, Derek

Wood, Mike (Batley)

Woodward, Shaun

Tellers for the Noes:

Woolas, Phil

Gillian Merron and

Worthington, Tony

Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
The House divided: Ayes 307, Noes 178.

Division No. 229]

[7:15pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Clwyd, Ann (Cynon V)

Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

Coaker, Vernon

Ainger, Nick

Coffey, Ms Ann

Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

Colman, Tony

Alexander, Douglas

Cook, rh Robin (Livingston)

Allen, Graham

Cooper, Yvette

Anderson, rh Donald (Swansea E)

Corbyn, Jeremy

Anderson, Janet (Rossendale & Darwen)

Corston, Jean

Cox, Tom (Tooting)

Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

Cranston, Ross

Atherton, Ms Candy

Crausby, David

Atkins, Charlotte

Cruddas, Jon

Austin, John

Cryer, Ann (Keighley)

Bailey, Adrian

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Baird, Vera

Cunningham, Jim (Coventry S)

Banks, Tony

Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

Barron, rh Kevin

Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

Battle, John

Dalyell, Tam

Begg, Miss Anne

Darling, rh Alistair

Benn, Hilary

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Bennett, Andrew

David, Wayne

Benton, Joe (Bootle)

Davidson, Ian

Berry, Roger

Davies, rh Denzil (Llanelli)

Best, Harold

Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Belts, Clive

Dean, Mrs Janet

Blackman, Liz

Denham, rh John

Blears, Ms Hazel

Dhanda, Parmjit

Blizzard, Bob

Dismore, Andrew

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Donohoe, Brian H.

Bradshaw, Ben

Dowd, Jim (Lewisham W)

Brown, rh Gordon (Dunfermline E)

Drew, David (Stroud)

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Brown, rh Nicholas (Newcastle E Wallsend)

Edwards, Huw

Efford, Clive

Browne, Desmond

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Bryant, Chris

Etherington, Bill

Burden, Richard

Farrelly, Paul

Burgon, Colin

Field, rh Frank (Birkenhead)

Burnham, Andy

Fitzpatrick, Jim

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Flynn, Paul (Newport W)

Caplin, Ivor

Follett, Barbara

Casale, Roger

Foster, Michael (Worcester)

Caton, Martin

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings & Rye)

Cawsey, Ian (Brigg)

Challen, Colin

Foulkes, rh George

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

Chaytor, David

Gardiner, Barry

Clapham, Michael

George, rh Bruce (Walsall S)

Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

Gerrard, Neil

Clark, Dr. Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Gibson, Dr. Ian

Gilroy, Linda

Clarke, rh Charles (Norwich S)

Goggins, Paul

Clarke, rh Tom (Coatbridge & Chrystion)

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Clelland, David

Grogan, John

798

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Mactaggart, Fiona

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

McWalter, Tony

Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

McWilliam, John

Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

Mahmood, Khalid

Hanson, David

Mallaber, Judy

Harman, rh Ms Harriet

Mandelson, rh Peter

Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Marshall, David (Glasgow Shettlestion)

Healey, John

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Hepburn, Stephen

Martlew, Eric

Heppell, John

Michael, rh Alun

Hesford, Stephen

Miliband, David

Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

Miller, Andrew

Hill, Keith (Streatham)

Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

Hinchliffe, David

Moffatt, Laura

Hodge, Margaret

Mole, Chris

Hope, Phil (Corby)

Moonie, Dr. Lewis

Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

Moran, Margaret

Howarth, George (Knowsley N & Sefton E)

Morgan, Julie

Mountford, Kali

Howells, Dr. Kim

Mullin, Chris

Hughes, Beverley (Stretford & Urmston)

Munn, Ms Meg

Urmston)

Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

Humble, Mrs Joan

Murphy, rh Paul (Torfaen)

Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

Naysmith, Dr. Doug

Hutton, rh John

Norris, Dan (Wansdyke)

Iddon, Dr. Brian

O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

Illsley, Eric

O'Hara, Edward

Ingram, rh Adam

Olner, Bill

Irranca-Davies, Huw

Organ, Diana

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Owen, Albert

Jenkins, Brian

Palmer, Dr. Nick

Johnson, Alan (Hull W)

Perham, Linda

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Picking, Anne

Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

Pike, Peter (Burnley)

Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

Pollard, Kerry

Jowell, rh Tessa

Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

Pope, Greg (Hyndburn)

Keeble, Ms Sally

Pound, Stephen

Keen, Ann (Brentford)

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

Kemp, Fraser

Khabra, Piara S.

Primarolo, rh Dawn

Kidney, David

Prosser, Gwyn

Kilfoyle, Peter

Purchase, Ken

King, Andy (Rugby)

Purnell, James

Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

Quin, rh Joyce

Kumar, Dr. Ashok

Quinn, Lawrie

Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

Rammell, Bill

Lammy, David

Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

Raynsford, rh Nick

Lazarowicz, Mark

Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

Lepper, David

Reid, rh Dr. John (Hamilton N & Bellshill)

Leslie, Christopher

Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Linton, Martin

Roche, Mrs Barbara

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Rooney, Terry

Love, Andrew

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

Ruane, Chris

Luke, Iain (Dundee E)

Ruddock, Joan

McAvoy, Thomas

Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

McCabe, Stephen

McCafferty, Chris

Ryan, Joan (Enfield N)

McDonagh, Siobhain

Salter, Martin

MacDonald, Calum

Savidge, Malcolm

McDonnell, John

Sawford, Phil

McIsaac, Shona

Sedgemore, Brian

McKechin, Ann

Shaw, Jonathan

Mackinlay, Andrew

Sheerman, Barry

McNamara, Kevin

Sheridan, Jim

McNulty, Tony

Simon, Siôn (B'ham Erdington)

MacShane, Denis

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

799

Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Vaz, Keith (Leicester E)

Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

Vis, Dr. Rudi

Walley, Ms Joan

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

Ward, Claire

Soley, Clive

Wareing, Robert N.

Southworth, Helen

Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

Spellar, rh John

Watts, David

Squire, Rachel

White, Brian

Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

Whitehead, Dr. Alan

Steinberg, Gerry

Wicks, Malcolm

Stevenson, George

Williams, rh Alan (Swansea W)

Stewart, David (Inverness E & Lochaber)

Williams, Betty (Conwy)

Wills, Michael

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Wilson, Brian

Stinchcombe, Paul

Winnick, David

Stoate, Dr. Howard

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

Tami, Mark (Alyn)

Wood, Mike (Batley)

Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

Woodward, Shaun

Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

Woolas, Phil

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Worthington, Tony

Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

Wray, James (Glasgow Baillieston)

Timms, Stephen

Tipping, Paddy

Wright, Anthony D. (Gt Yarmouth)

Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

Wright, David (Telford)

Trickett, Jon

Wyatt, Derek

Truswell, Paul

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptown)

Gillian Merron and

Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe

NOES

Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

Curry, rh David

Allan, Richard

Davies, Quentin (Grantham & Stamford)

Amess, David

Arbuthnot, rh James

Davis, rh David (Haltemprice & Howden)

Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Dorrell, rh Stephen

Baldry, Tony

Doughty, Sue

Barker, Gregory

Duncan, Alan (Rutland)

Baron, John (Billericay)

Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

Barrett, John

Evans, Nigel

Beggs, Roy (E Antrim)

Ewing, Annabelle

Berth, rh A. J.

Fabricant, Michael

Bellingham, Henry

Fallon, Michael

Blunt, Crispin

Field, Mark (Cities of London & Westminster)

Boswell, Tim

Brady, Graham

Flight, Howard

Brake, Tom (Carshalton)

Flook, Adrian

Brazier, Julian

Forth, rh Eric

Browning, Mrs Angela

Foster, Don (Bath)

Bruce, Malcolm

Fox, Dr. Liam

Burnett, John

Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

Burns, Simon

Gibb, Nick (Bognor Regis)

Burnside, David

Gidley, Sandra

Burstow, Paul

Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

Butterfill, John

Goodman, Paul

Cable, Dr. Vincent

Grayling, Chris

Calton, Mrs Patsy

Green, Damian (Ashford)

Cameron, David

Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

Campbell, Gregory (E Lond'y)

Greenway, John

Campbell, rh Menzies (NE Fife)

Grieve, Dominic

Cash, William

Hague, rh William

Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

Hancock, Mike

Hawkins, Nick

Chope, Christopher

Hayes, John (S Holland)

Clappison, James

Heald, Oliver

Clarke, rh Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Heath, David

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Hendry, Charles

Collins, Tim

Hermon, Lady

Cormack, Sir Patrick

Hoban, Mark (Fareham)

Cotter, Brian

Hogg, rh Douglas

800

Holmes, Paul

Robertson, Hugh (Faversham & M-Kent)

Horam, John (Orpington)

Howard, rh Michael

Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Robinson, Mrs Iris (Strangford)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

Jack, rh Michael

Roe, Mrs Marion

Jenkin, Bernard

Ruffley, David

Johnson, Boris (Henley)

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Keetch, Paul

Sanders, Adrian

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Sayeed, Jonathan

Kirkwood, Sir Archy

Selous, Andrew

Knight, rh Greg (E Yorkshire)

Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

Laing, Mrs Eleanor

Shepherd, Richard

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Simmonds, Mark

Lanslev Andrew

Simpson, Keith (M-Norfolk)

Laws, David (Yeovil)

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

Leigh, Edward

Lewis, Dr. Julian (New Forest E)

Smyth, Rev. Martin (Belfast S)

Lilley, rh Peter

Soames, Nicholas

Llwyd, Elfyn

Spelman, Mrs Caroline

Loughton, Tim

Spicer Sir Michgel

Luff, Peter (M- Worcs)

Spink Bob (Castle Point)

Mackay, rh Andrew

Spring Ricnard

Maclean, rh David

Stanley, rh Sir John

McLoughlin, Patrick

Streeter, Gary

Malins, Humfrey

Stunell, Andrew

Maples, John

Syms, Robert

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury & Atcham)

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Mates, Michael

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

May, Mrs Theresa

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Mercer, Patrick

Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

Mitchell, Andrew (Sutton Coldfield)

Thurso, John

Tredinnick, David

Moore Michael

Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

Moss, Malcolm

Tyler, Paul (N Cornwall)

Murrison, Dr. Andrew

Tyrie, Andrew

Norman, Archie

Viggers, Peter

Oaten, Mark (Winchester)

Waterson, Nigel

Öpik, Lembit

Watkinson, Angela

Osborne, George (Tatton)

Weir, Michael

Ottaway, Richard

Whittingdale, John

Page, Richard

Wiggin, Bill

Paice, James

Willetts, Davisd

Paterson, Owen

Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

Portillo, rh Michael

Williams, Roger (Brecon)

Price, Adam (E Carmarthen & dinefwr)

Willis, Phil

Winterton, Ann (Congleton)

Prisk, Mark (Hertford)

Winterton, Sir Nicholas (Macclesfield)

Pugh, Dr. John

Wishart, Pete

Randall, John

Young, rh Sir George

Redwood, rh John

Rendel, David

Tellers for the Noes:

Robathan, Andrew

Mr. David Wilshire and

Robertson, Angus (Moray)

Mr. Mark Francois

Question accordingly agreed to.
MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House recognises that more people than ever are choosing to receive their benefits and pensions straight into accounts and welcomes the significant steps the Government has taken to modernise the payment of benefits and enable customers to choose the account that suits them best; welcomes the introduction of the Post Office Card Account as one important option; further recognises the major benefits the move to Direct Payment will have in cutting fraud and crime and the important role it will play in extending financial inclusion; recognises the importance of this programme, which alongside other initiatives such as Pension Credit, increases opportunities for elderly people; applauds the Post Office and the cross-departmental programme that ensured the new system was delivered on time at the start of April; and believes that the move to Direct Payment is central to the future of a successful modern Post Office.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): With the leave of the House, I shall put together the Questions on the motions relating to delegated legislation.
Ordered,

DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  FOOD SUPPLEMENTS REGULATIONS
  That the Food Supplements (England) Regulations 2003 (S.I., 2003, No. 1387), be referred to a Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation.
  IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM APPEALS
  That the Immigration and Asylum Appeals (Fast Track Procedure) Rules 2003 (S.I., 2003, No. 801), be referred to a Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation.—[Dan Norris.]

  STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE CONVENTION
  Motion made,
  That the Order [12th June 2002] relating to the Standing Committee on the Convention be amended in paragraph (4)(b), by leaving out the words 'or be counted in the quorum'.—[Dan Norris.],
  Hon. Members: Object.

PETITIONS

  Children's Play Areas
  7.29 pm
  Barbara Follett: I have great pleasure in presenting a petition signed by 268 residents of Stevenage.
  The petition states:
  The Petition of Residents of the Martins Wood Ward of the town of Stevenage
  Declares that they object in principle to the proposed development of the children's play area between Martins Way and Vardon Road also known as the land opposite 276 to 280 Wisden Road which is shown on title deeds as HD97278.
  The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions to take all measures which lie within his power to prevent the sale of this amenity land for development and to enforce the covenant enshrined in the original title deed.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Fireworks
  7.30 pm
  Mr. Paul Truswell: I present a petition signed by 4,000 of my Pudsey constituents and others concerning their wish for tighter legislation governing the sale, use and noise of fireworks. Its timing is particularly appropriate, given that the Fireworks Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) will be considered by the House on Friday when, we hope, it will successfully complete its Report stage and Third Reading.
  The petition states:
  The petition of residents of Pudsey constituency and others
  Declares that fireworks have become an increasingly unacceptable source of harm, nuisance and distress to people and animals throughout the year.
  The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons enact legislation that limits the noise levels of fireworks available to the general public, controls the time of year when fireworks can be bought and used, restricts the times when fireworks can be set off, and requires public displays to be controlled by licensed technicians.
  And the Petitioners remain, etc.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Local Pharmacies
  7.31 pm
  Jane Griffiths: It is an honour and privilege to present a petition on behalf of residents of Reading and Woodley, particularly the customers of Peskett pharmacy in Christchurch road, Reading and residents in the Lodden Vale, Woodley, Erleigh road and Cemetery junction areas.
  The petition states:
  That local pharmacies should be preserved and their continued services to local communities safeguarded.
  The Petitioners therefore request that the Government reject proposals in the Office of Fair Trading report that would allow unrestricted opening of pharmacies able to dispense NHS prescriptions and replace them with proposals which will retain pharmacies at the heart of the local community playing a key role in primary care services.
  And the petitioners remain etc.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Royal Victoria Hospital, Kent (Pharmacy)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Dan Norris.]
  7.32 pm
  Mr. Michael Howard: For some unaccountable reason, there appear to be fewer hon. Members in the House this evening than there were on Monday afternoon. Nevertheless, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to raise a matter of considerable concern to my constituents.
  The availability of hospital services in east Kent has been a matter of intense local controversy for a number of years, and this is not the first occasion on which it has been raised on the Adjournment of the House. A number of my colleagues, notably my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber this evening, and I have raised this question in the past. The whole question of the reconfiguration of hospital care in east Kent is under independent consideration. That could have taken place some time ago if the Secretary of State for Health had heeded the representations that I and a number of colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, made about the need for another look at this vexed problem.
  The purpose of my representations this evening, however, is more limited, and relates specifically to a proposal by East Kent Hospitals trust to close the pharmacy at Royal Victoria hospital in Folkestone. The trust is clearly not opposed in principle to pharmacy provision in hospitals, as it does not propose to close pharmacies in any other hospital for which it is responsible. Its proposal to close the pharmacy at Royal Victoria hospital is, so far as I can see, based entirely on a desire to save money.
  No one would quarrel with sensible proposals to save money that did not affect the quality of the health care available to those who need it. It is clear that something needs to change in the way in which health care is delivered in east Kent. East Kent Hospitals trust is in considerable financial difficulty. I understand that its deficit is the second largest in the country.
  That can be a result of one of only two possible causes, so far as I can see. Either the way in which national resources for health are being distributed is grossly inefficient and unfair to east Kent, or the resources made available to East Kent Hospitals trust have been grossly mismanaged. The answer must lie in one or other of those causes or, I suppose, a combination of the two. I make it clear that I am not this evening asking for an increase in the amount of money devoted to health nationally.
  There are particular problems in east Kent that can have arisen only in one of the two ways that I have identified. I hope that the Minister will comment specifically on that point in his reply. I have repeatedly asked for explanations of why the deficit that East Kent Hospitals trust has incurred is so large. It is not at all clear to me, despite the explanations that I have received, which of the two causes is responsible. Whatever the answer to that question, it is essential that whenever changes are made to the provision of health care in a particular area, they should be clearly and convincingly explained, and the rationale behind such changes should be both comprehensible and persuasive.
  804
  Despite the fact that I recently had a meeting lasting well over an hour with the chairman and chief executive of East Kent Hospitals trust, at which the head of pharmacy was also present, I regret to say that no clear and convincing explanation has been given for the proposal to close the pharmacy unit at Royal Victoria hospital, and that I, at any rate, am by no means persuaded of the logic of the proposal.
  The savings that the trust claims would result from the proposal fall into three main categories. The first, and by far the most significant, arises out of the trust's natural and understandable desire to reduce the costs that it currently incurs in paying for the supply of locum pharmacy staff in its hospitals. I am sure that most people would agree that it would be much better to avoid those costs by recruiting permanent staff whenever that is possible. I entirely understand that objective.
  The irony, however, is that only one hospital in the trust's area does not suffer from a shortfall in pharmacy staff, which makes it necessary to employ locums. That hospital is Royal Victoria hospital in Folkestone. The pharmacy at Royal Victoria hospital is fully staffed. There is no need to pay for or provide any locums in Folkestone. In effect, Royal Victoria hospital is being punished for the failure of other hospitals in the area for which the trust is responsible to recruit the necessary staff for their pharmacies.
  So far as the savings are concerned, the strategy of the trust seems to be based on the assumption that pharmacy staff currently employed in Folkestone will readily accept employment at one of the other hospitals in the trust's area. From my preliminary discussions with those involved, that assumption is questionable. In any event, it seems an entirely capricious way of achieving a desirable objective. To punish one hospital and the people whom it serves because of the failure of other hospitals in a particular area to recruit the staff that they need seems perverse, yet that is the principle on which the trust appears to have approached the issue. It is not an acceptable approach, and it should not be accepted without protest.
  The second major saving identified by the trust as a basis for its proposal is the reduced need that would arise, if the proposal were implemented, for stocking medicines at Royal Victoria hospital. Obviously, if no pharmacy services are provided at the hospital, there would be less need to stock medicines at the hospitals. But, save to a very small extent arising out of the need to provide particular quantities of some medicines at any particular location, those savings are largely illusory. The people who currently receive their medicines from the pharmacy at Royal Victoria hospital will still need those medicines. They will have to be supplied from other sources—either other hospitals served by the trust or pharmacies in the general community.
  If the Office of Fair Trading's competition proposals for pharmacies are fully implemented, many of my constituents, particularly those in rural areas, may find it difficult to obtain access to pharmacies, but that is a wider debate for another day.
  What is clear is that this proposal will not reduce the need for medicines among my constituents who obtain their medicines from the pharmacy at Royal Victoria

  805
  hospital, so the medicines will have to be supplied elsewhere and the cost of stocking elsewhere will therefore rise, either in the other hospitals in the trust's area or in pharmacies in the community. Those savings, therefore, cannot be significant.
  Finally, and even more astonishingly, the trust claims as a saving the consequences of an astonishing anomaly in the way in which VAT is charged on medicines. I confess that I was completely unaware of the anomaly until my attention was focused on it by the trust's proposal, but it apparently exists and I shall be very interested in the Minister's explanation for it.
  Apparently, VAT is chargeable on medicine supplied from a pharmacy in a hospital. It is not chargeable on medicine supplied from a pharmacy in the community. Therefore, the trust argues that the health budget generally in the east Kent area will benefit from the closure of the pharmacy at Royal Victoria hospital because some of the patients who get their medicines from the hospital will instead get their medicines from pharmacies in the community, on which VAT will not be payable. That explanation is quite mind-boggling.
  I have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask him to explain the anomaly and to say what he proposes to do about it. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to enlighten us in his reply as to the Government's position on that matter.
  My constituents have been unhappy for some years now about the nature and quality of the health care provided to them by East Kent Hospitals NHS trust. I have said on other occasions that if I had in front of me two boxes full of the complaints that I have received from my constituents over the 20 years during which I have had the honour to represent them, and one box represented the complaints that I had in the first 15 years of that period and the other box represented the complaints that I have had in the past five years, the second box would be twice the size of the first.
  I deplore that situation. I have campaigned for some time for steps to be taken to reverse it. The proposal to close the pharmacy at Royal Victoria hospital in Folkestone is but the latest blow to strike my constituents in the area of health care. I do not think that it can be justified. I hope that in his reply the Minister will be able to offer my constituents some assurance.
  7.43 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. David Lammy): I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) on securing this debate on the proposed closure of the pharmacy department at the Royal Victoria hospital in his constituency. I know from the press cuttings that he has been a staunch defender of the interests of his constituents.
  The NHS plan sets out a challenging 10-year programme for NHS reform. Far-reaching changes are inevitable to try to provide the best possible services for patients in that context, and we all acknowledge the pressures on the service, not only in Kent but throughout the country, that result from trying to increase capacity so that patients can have ready, quick and responsive access to services. We want not only to increase capacity, but at the same time to raise clinical standards generally.
  806
  We must ensure that services are accessible and flexible, and we want to design services around the needs of patients. As part of the modernisation programme, many NHS trusts are considering changes to the way in which they organise their services. We all recognise that hospital services need to change if we are to continue to fulfil patients' needs and to improve access. Matters clearly cannot remain static for ever. There are a number of different pressures on the service, including providers of health services having to live within their means. Those issues, and many others, need to be taken into account as the health service changes.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned the financial difficulties that the area faces. I might say that those difficulties go back a considerable way. Over the next three years, services there will benefit from an increase in investment of around 30 per cent., which is similar to other areas—the biggest ever single investment in the NHS—but I recognise the pressures that the whole health service is under. We have a long way to go in terms of increasing capacity after, dare I say, many years of under-investment and a lack of capacity in the system. In the right hon. and learned Gentleman's area, that means a 9 per cent. increase for the Shepway primary care trust and an 8.9 per cent. increase for the Ashford PCT. We have backed the NHS with record levels of sustained investment.
  Through our policy of devolution, we have also placed our strong faith in those who know the NHS best—that is, the staff, patients and people in the local community. Rather than running the NHS by central diktat from Whitehall, it is our policy that primary care trusts, in partnership with local trusts and the strategic health authority, and with their specific local knowledge and expertise, decide the priorities for the NHS locally. That is the context in which to place this debate. The Government provide the funding and it is for the NHS locally—the stakeholders and the patients themselves— to decide how best to use the resources. It is not appropriate for Ministers to decide, in every part of the country, and for every trust, on the direction of travel and how services should be configured. We have made that clear. During the past year, I have made it clear as a Minister at this Dispatch Box on at least four occasions. Primary care trusts, in partnership with local trusts, the strategic health authority and patients, must be responsible for doing that.
  Given that context, it is right and proper that I return to the detail of the issues that the right hon. and learned Gentleman outlined. The Royal Victoria hospital, which is part of the East Kent Hospitals NHS trust, is a community hospital with 41 rehabilitation beds and 16 stroke unit beds. It has a minor injuries unit, a one-stop neurology clinic, day hospital and a range of out-patient services. It employs approximately 237 staff, and I want to thank them and to pay tribute to the hard work that they do for their community every day.
  The trust has made significant progress over recent months, and I should like to spend a few moments outlining that. I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman sees problems but, whatever he says, there have been improvements to NHS services in the area. The trust has achieved the Government's access targets for having no patients waiting longer than 12 months for in-patient treatment and no patients waiting longer than 21 weeks for out-patient appointments. In addition, the

  807
  trust has significantly reduced waiting times in its accident and emergency departments and reduced its waiting list size.
  That is not all. The trust is investing in services across the whole of east Kent that will contribute to further improvements in standards and performance. For example, a new £1 million breast screening unit at Kent and Canterbury hospital was opened in May, and a medical ward with an additional 26 beds was opened in January. Last year, a new CT and MRI scanning unit was launched at William Harvey hospital in Ashford. There are also new initiatives to improve the delivery of primary care services. In the right hon. and learned Gentleman's area, nurse practitioners in Shepway are helping to reduce waiting times and improve the service for patients. They are working well to deal with minor health problems, and patients continue to have the opportunity to see a doctor if they wish.
  There are significant developments and improvements in the provision of health care in east Kent. However, I am aware of the significant deficit that faces the right hon. and learned Gentleman's health community in the next few years. I am therefore delighted that everyone has come together to work out a financial recovery plan. I understand that there will be calls to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch, but that is not realistic. The NHS must exist within the available funding, and NHS organisations that overspend should and must repay organisations that have had to forgo resources in order to fund the overspending. We cannot wipe the slate clean. Such an approach would be perceived as penalising those with good financial management performance. It would convey all the wrong messages about responsible managers and move things in the wrong direction.
  We recognise that some individual health bodies face financial pressures. Local circumstances may allow the phased recovery of deficits over several years. Clearly, any such arrangements would have to be subject to the agreement of local providers, commissioners and the managing strategic health authority. In addition, we have provided £100 million in support through the NHS bank to several organisations with the most serious financial problems to ensure the continued delivery of patient services.
  I am advised that the pharmacy department at the Royal Victoria hospital employs four people and dispenses approximately 19,000 items a year compared with 400,000 items a year dispensed by the East Kent Hospitals NHS trust. The trust, which is responsible for the hospital's services, has reviewed its pharmacy services to help tackle the financial position and to adapt to the changing ways of delivering clinical support services. I understand that the trust is supported by its partner primary care trusts and the strategic health authority.
  Although the pharmacy department at the Royal Victoria hospital is fully staffed, the trust has an overall shortage of pharmacists. That means that the trust regularly employs expensive locum staff to cover its vacancies. The proposal to close the pharmacy department at the Royal Victoria hospital has been
  808
  made because the local health community believes that concentrating the service on other sites in the trust can achieve better value.
  I am advised that the individuals employed in the pharmacy department are crucial to the proposal and are being fully and properly consulted. It is proposed to fit existing pharmaceutical staff at the Royal Victoria hospital into vacancies on other sites, where not only could their expertise be fully used, but staff development opportunities are more readily available. I understand that two of the four staff at the pharmacy department in the Royal Victoria hospital have expressed a willingness to be relocated to an alternative site.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that he is worried that the proposal is simply about money. It is true that the trust has a deficit and that reorganising pharmacy services will save it money. However, it is not simply about saving money. I am advised that the approach has benefits for patients. For example, the pharmaceutical requirements of the hospital's inpatients will be assessed in future by a pharmacist on the ward who has access to the patient's record.
  Throughout the country, hospital pharmacy services are being re-engineered to provide services that are designed more around the patient's needs. That is part of the Government's commitment in "Pharmacy in the Future", which we outlined and has much support in the pharmacy world.
  The Department's medicines management framework, which covers the clinical and cost-effective use of medicines, promotes decision making across local health economies. Medicine management is an organisation-wide issue on which managers, prescribers and pharmacists need to work together to ensure that patients get the best from their medicines.
  I can give the right hon. and learned Gentleman some examples from across the country of pharmacy services that are being reconfigured to the benefit of patients.
  Mr. Howard: If the contention is that medicines cart be provided to hospital patients in a more effective way by doing away with existing pharmacy units and using some of the methods that the Minister has suggested, why on earth are those methods not being introduced in the other hospitals for which the East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust is responsible, in which there is a shortage of pharmacists, rather than in the Royal Victoria hospital in Folkestone, which is the only hospital—so far as I am aware—that is the subject of such proposals?
  Mr. Lammy: As I have said, these plans—outlining the way in which we are moving forward with pharmacies—have been outlined in "Pharmacy in the Future", and hospitals are getting around them around the country. There is clearly a financial imperative in the right hon. and learned Gentleman's local context. He has discussed that; I have outlined it. That, however, is not the only issue. Clearly, the fact that only 19,000 prescriptions are given a year will have a bearing on how those services are configured. What must be right is that patients in the Royal Victoria get access to the right pharmacy services. The local trust believes that this proposal will give them access to that, improve services and meet the desire to see the deficit reduced. That must

  809
  be about balance, and about fiscal accountability. It is right that the local economy should have that discussion.
  Such proposals are also taking shape in other parts of the country. The West Middlesex University hospital provides a pharmacy service to Teddington Memorial hospital, which has around 60 health care for the elderly beds. Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust provides a medicines supply and clinical pharmacy service to Berwick infirmary and four other small hospitals. The clinical service at Berwick is provided in part by community pharmacists who review patients' medication prior to discharge as part of an LPS—local pharmaceutical services—pilot. Cumberland infirmary provides supply and clinical services to a smaller hospital with medical and care for the elderly beds.
  Pharmacy services can be, and are being, configured in different ways in different parts of the country. This accords with the needs of smaller hospitals, and it is right and proper that individual trusts should look at those needs and make their own assessments. I want to emphasise that it is for them to make their own assessments locally; it is not for me to stand here and say what is right or wrong about what they say. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that he disagrees with his trust's decision, and that is his right. But, in a sense, that is his subjective analysis of the information with which he has been provided.
  In conclusion, we have provided—
  Mr. Howard: The Minister is very generous to give way again. He has suggested that he is reaching his
  810
  conclusion, but he has not yet touched on the VAT anomaly. I hope that he will say something about that before he sits down.
  Mr. Lammy: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is quite right to pick me up on that point. There is a situation in which European Community law and the way in which VAT is configured in this country affect hospital services in this way. He has written to the Chancellor on this matter, and I will undertake to work with him to consider it, and to see whether I can write to the right hon. and learned Gentleman about it. I understand that the matter has come up and that it affects pharmacies in particular. As the Minister responsible, it is something that I want to take an interest in.
  We have provided record resources for the NHS, but it must be for primary care trusts to decide how that money is spent, and—in conjunction with local stakeholders—how services should be delivered. I can understand that the pharmacy's closure might set alarm bells ringing locally, but I have been assured that whatever the future of pharmacy services at the Royal Victoria hospital, patients will continue to receive the very best care. A high standard of pharmaceutical services will still be provided.
  Stephen Cook, the trust's director of pharmacy, has himself said:
  "I will not shut the door on the Royal Victoria Hospital pharmacy until I am sure the service in place meets the needs of all our patients. We would not do it if it was going to have a detrimental effect".
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Eight o'clock.

Preamble
[MR. JOHN MCWILLIAM in the Chair]

Council Houses
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Gillian Merron.]
9.30 am
Bob Russell: When social historians write the history of the 20th century, they will contrast the huge advances made in the living standards of the British people between 1900 and 1999. Even allowing for two bloody world wars and the years of economic depression, by the end of the century the quality of life had improved dramatically for the mass of the population, beyond the wildest dreams of those doughty pioneers of social change who sowed the seeds in Victorian Britain for better health, higher standards of education, longer life expectancy, improved working conditions, wider opportunities and vastly superior housing conditions for most people.
While the improvements in the overall quality of life spanned the 100 years, for millions of people it was in the middle 50 years or so of the 20th century—the second and third quarters—when the greatest advances were made in housing. Council housing did it—not the private sector, not quango housing associations or arm's-length management operations, but the democratically accountable local authority council housing departments that were funded by central Government. In those days, one-nation Conservative Governments who championed municipal enterprise and civic pride would compete with real Labour Governments for who was the best when it came to building council houses for the general population.
As a consequence, by the time that the final quarter of the 20th century arrived, the concept of homelessness was in effect a thing of the past. Cardboard city was unheard of. Not only had the curse of homelessness been tackled and beaten, but the relatively few families at any one time living in sub-standard accommodation or in housing that was inadequate for their needs were certain that it would be only a few months in most cases before the promise of a family home would become a reality—oh, happy days.
Where has it all gone wrong? We are told that this country has the world's fourth richest economy, but why does Britain now have a housing crisis the like of which I have not witnessed before in my more than 30 years of elected public office? It is most certainly not the fault of the councils. I pay tribute to the excellent work of local authority housing staff in difficult, challenging and, in some respects, hopeless circumstances in trying to help the homeless and families living in substandard accommodation to be better housed. The front-line staff deserve praise for trying to achieve the near impossible. I pay particular tribute to the housing staff at Colchester borough council who assist the homeless and who recently achieved beacon status for the council—staff who help the victims of the Government's failed housing policies.
238WH
Until the Thatcher years, families in need of decent housing would have been housed, but not now. What Thatcher started, the Major and Blair Governments have continued. Indeed, it could be argued that new Labour is more hostile to the concept of council housing than even the measures put forward during 18 years of right-wing Tory Governments.
Bob Spink: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. In the past five years, precisely 100 large-scale voluntary transfers have taken place to move council housing stock into a position where housing can be replaced and new investment can be brought in. Surely that provides better housing in a more sustainable way, so that that stock can be replaced.
Bob Russell: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but if he checks with the House of Commons Library, he may find that the statistics do not bear out his argument.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is a rule in the House that, if hon. Members refer to other hon. Members, they refer to them either by their constituencies or by their title. It is also the practice in the House that if an hon. Member refers to members of the upper House, he refers to them by their title.
Bob Russell: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I do not criticise the principle of people buying their council home. Indeed, it was my refusal to oppose council house sales that the Labour party in Colchester used against me and which played a part in forcing me out of the party in 1981. Now Labour is more enthused about getting rid of council houses than the Conservatives ever were. It is a funny old world.
According to the House of Commons Library to which I am grateful for statistical information, in the final five years of the Conservative Government, 190,418 council dwellings were sold. In the first five years of this Labour Government, sales totalled 240,200.
While I am not opposed to the principle of the right to buy, the mass disposal of public assets at hugely discounted prices was not something that had any economic justification. That Thatcherite policy failed because of the Government's refusal to allow councils to reinvest the money from those sales in building new homes. Had that happened, we would not have a nationwide housing crisis today.
In Colchester, more than 3,250 council homes have been sold since the right to buy was introduced. That represents about 30 per cent. of the original stock, but a high proportion of the sales have been family houses, and houses—not flats, or dwellings for the elderly—are in desperately short supply for homeless families. One person has managed to acquire a dozen houses, which he rents out for more than a council rent. He has become a millionaire.
Mr. Mike Hancock: I apologise for having to leave the debate to attend the Select Committee on Defence as I would have liked to have been here. Is there any statistical evidence to show why both Labour and Conservative Governments failed to deal with the problem of the replacement of the houses

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that were sold? Is there any evidence to suggest that, when housing stock is passed on to the private sector, it leads to an increase in the provision of houses within those authorities?
Bob Russell: All the evidence suggests that the problem deteriorates. According to the statistics provided by the House of Commons Library, nothing shows that the sale proceeds are invested in new housing stock.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty): The hon. Gentleman has just cited evidence that suggests that large-scale voluntary transfer deteriorates housing stock. Can he cite the evidence that he is using?
Bob Russell: I will give the Minister the benefit of the doubt that he misunderstood what I said. I refer to the need to build new houses—to have additional houses—and I have not yet been provided with the evidence that that has been done. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman giving us the good news of the breakthroughs and progress made by the Government to solve the housing crisis in his reply.
Mr. McNulty: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I suggest that he uses language more carefully. The hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) asked whether there was any evidence that stock transfer has improved stock. The answer was, "No, it has not. If anything, it has deteriorated." That is not an accurate assessment.
Bob Russell: I refer to new dwellings. As I have no first-hand evidence of stock transfer leading to the improvement cited by the Minister, I have to throw open the question for consideration. Why cannot that investment be given to local authorities to improve their stock? Why does it have to take either a privatisation, a semi-privatised or a quango route? Why are the Government so hostile to local councils that they would not even trust them with the money to invest in and modernise council housing stock?
The present Government inherited a mess created by the two previous Conservative Governments, but they have not tackled the housing crisis. That would have been done under the real Labour Governments, such as the Attlee Administration in the years immediately after the war and those of Wilson and Callaghan in the 1960s and 1970s, while one-nation Conservative Governments such as those led by Macmillan and Heath would not have allowed it to happen in the first place. New Labour has allowed the situation to deteriorate to an appalling level at which homelessness is increasing all the time and families living in inadequate accommodation know that their chances of being offered somewhere better to live are becoming more remote.
The contrast between 1979 and today is stark. In 1979, more than 75,000 local authority dwellings were built. In 1999, just 171 were built throughout the country. In the 15 years after the second world war, more public sector than private sector housing was built. I am not arguing for a return to that split. However, if
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the Government want to be true to the principles and ideals of their party's founders, they should make it a policy to return to the days when the Government funded local authorities to build more council houses to meet the needs of their communities.
Mr. Hancock: I am sure that my hon. Friend and the whole House would be interested to know that in the city of Portsmouth the housing crisis today is worse than it was at the end of the second world war. More people are waiting for houses than there were in 1946, when the rebuilding programme really got under way. There is less opportunity for the sort of people who need council housing to get into a proper home of their own. Is not that an indictment of the Government's policies, which do not sensibly consider how local authorities can help?
Bob Russell: My hon. Friend makes that point strongly and I am sure that it is recognised by his constituents.
If the Government are going to claim that housing associations and the private sector are making up the shortfall in council housing, I am bound to observe that figures from the House of Commons Library say the opposite. In 1979, in addition to 75,000 local authority dwellings, registered social landlords and housing associations built 17,835. By 1997, there were 27,502; but in 2001–02 that figure had fallen to 20,692, by which time virtually no local authority dwellings were being built. There were 140,481 private enterprise dwellings in 1979, 152,530 in 1997 and 141,125 in 2001–02. However one looks at it, whether in terms of councils, housing association or private enterprise, the figures for all sectors building new dwellings have fallen under new Labour. No wonder we have a housing crisis.
Housing associations would love to build more homes, but they rely on funds from the Housing Corporation, which in turn is funded by the Government. One aspect of housing association developments causes me considerable concern—what I call "Heineken housing", or building on sites that private developers do not want to reach. Land that the private sector knows would not be suitable for houses for sale is deemed okay for social housing tenants.
There must not be double standards, but there are. That is proved by three examples from my constituency. First, family houses were built on top of a 100-year-old slag heap of foundry waste. Secondly, planning permission was given just two weeks ago for social housing to be built on a greensward and car park behind a block of shops next to a mobile phone mast and under overhead electricity supply cables. Thirdly, there is a site for which the developer had failed for years to get permission because of planning objections, but all those mysteriously disappeared when a social housing element was included.
Double standards should not be permitted. I should like to see a return to the Parker Morris standards, which used to apply to council houses. However, if the Government are looking to housing associations to build houses for rent—by the way, what does the term affordable rent mean?— I am told that the bids to the Housing Corporation are three times greater than the available finance. Will someone please tell the Chancellor? In his euro speech on Monday, he said:

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"Britain has experienced difficulty in balancing supply and demand in housing."—[Official Report, 9 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 411]
He promised that there would be an increase in the supply of new housing, but can anyone recall him mentioning the need to provide housing for rent? There is no room at Gordon's inn for the homeless.
Tomorrow, the Minister for Housing and Planning is due to give what is billed as a keynote address at the Millennium grandstand at Newmarket race course at the launch of the regional housing strategy for the east of England. Will that include building new council houses? If not, why not? The Chancellor said that there was a risk of a cycle of boom and bust in Britain's volatile housing market. We are told that he is considering massive increases in stamp duty and capital gains tax as a way of damping down any house price boom. He said specifically that
"further housing reforms will be put in place in the coming year…that will help to ensure that by having a reduced propensity to house price inflation, which is in everyone's interest, stability can be further entrenched."—[Official Report, 9 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 411]
How the homeless and those in inadequate housing may have reacted to the Chancellor's comments is something to ponder. Young mothers and children living in a hostel for the homeless in Colchester, which is "not fit for dogs" according to reports in the town's Essex County Standard and Evening Gazette last Friday, would welcome the Government funding new council houses. That would, at a stroke, reduce the demand for people being forced to buy and it would, as a consequence, have a stabilising effect on house prices. That would be a return to the balance that happily coexisted prior to 1979.
How many people are in a position to buy? A large percentage are not, according to a survey carried out by Professor Steve Wilcox at the university of York for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. A report in the East Anglian Daily Times on 2 June said:
"People aged in their 20s and 30s and key workers such as nurses, teachers and police officers are among those finding it hardest to buy their first home."
Statistics showed that 35.5 per cent. of families in Suffolk with two working adults could not afford to buy a home. In Essex it is even worse, as 39.2 per cent. cannot reach the asking price of the cheaper properties. In Chelmsford, that figure rose to 52.3 per cent., while Colchester is slightly more fortunate at 37.1 per cent. In south Cambridgeshire, the figure is 57.3 per cent.
Aspirations of home ownership for those people cannot be fulfilled. The resumption of council house building would have the twin outcome of a supply of good quality houses for families to rent and less demand in the house buying market. There is another bonus—a boost for jobs in the building industry.
When I was leader of Colchester borough council, between 1987 and 1991, at a meeting of the Essex branch of the Association of District Councils, I told the then Member for South Colchester and Maldon—now Lord Wakeham—that a combination of large-scale sales of council houses and a failure to build replacement houses would result in thousands of people being forced into the property-owning market when they would not otherwise have done so, that the demand for lower priced houses would be greater than the availability, and
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that that would lead to an increase in house prices throughout the entire housing market. I suggested that that did not make economic sense and that it was not fair on those who would be deprived of a decent home in which to live. I have been proved right. Tragically, the problem is considerably worse than I ever thought it would be. For the homeless and those in accommodation that is less than ideal for their needs, there is no such thing as the dream of being part of the property-owning democracy, but rather the 24-hour nightmare of housing despair. Whether we are talking about big cities, towns or villages, all have residents suffering because of the lack of council homes. In rural areas, young people are being forced to leave the villages in which they were born, where their families may have lived for generations, because there is no housing for them, or which they can afford.
Two weeks ago, BBC television in the east of England, over two rights, reported on council housing. Its survey revealed that waiting lists are rising sharply across the region. Some local authorities reported numbers up by as much as 50 per cent. in a year. When reporters asked viewers for their stories, they were swamped with calls. A representative from BBC East told me last night:
"In Ipswich, a couple were told there was a 30-year waiting list for council houses. In Milton Keynes, a nine-week-old baby sleeps in a pram because there is no room for a cot in the house. And in Norwich, a family of five are living in a cramped one-bedroomed bungalow."
Those are just three examples of Labour's housing failure. Last year in Colchester, the council received 1,456 homelessness applications. However, only 426 were accepted. I am told that that figure is the highest in the region, but more than 1,000 applications were rejected. There are 2,354 applicant households on the housing register. The council's head of housing, Mr. Andrew Murray, tells me that Colchester needs 500 affordable homes a year. The number delivered last year was 40—further evidence of Labour's housing failure.
In this morning's debate, I am concentrating on the need to build new council houses, not other aspects such as stock transfers or creation of arm's-length management operations. However, I ask why the Labour Government are so hostile to local authorities? Why does Labour not trust local councils? Why will the Government not fund authorities to build, maintain and manage council houses, which was the case for the greater part of the 20th century, and which had a track record of delivery because homelessness was beaten? We need a regime change in Government thinking towards council houses—back to that which proved so successful over the larger part of the last century. Tried and tested ways are often better than new ones. Tinkering with the system, such as last month's launch of the consultation paper with the long-winded title "Improving standards of accommodation for homeless households placed in temporary accommodation by housing authorities—England" does not produce a single new house, and it is houses that the homeless want, not temporary accommodation, or bed and breakfast.
I suggest that better solutions come from Shelter, which is arguably the most knowledgeable organisation dealing with the national housing crisis. Its proposals in response to the Government's published strategy,

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"Sustainable communities: building for the future" are ones that I hope will be adopted. As Shelter so graphically put it in evidence given to me:
"Poor housing and homelessness has a negative impact on all aspects of a child's life. Temporary accommodation inevitably means frequent moves, forcing children to change schools and friendship circles. And due to damp, cramped conditions, badly housed children are also more susceptible to diseases."
Is the Prime Minister aware of the housing crisis? If his friends have not told him, I have. It was the subject of my last question to him, when I challenged him in the House:
"When will his Government do something to provide decent housing for homeless people, particularly for the underclass that has developed under new Labour?"—[Official Report, 4 December 2002; Vol. 395, c. 907.]
That was six months ago. Sadly, I see no evidence that new Labour is giving the housing crisis the attention that it deserves. In the past, real Labour would have made a priority of providing decent homes for homeless families.
I am not sure how the Minister will respond. Perhaps he will use the charm offensive, or perhaps he will not bother with the charm. I do not hold him responsible for the housing crisis. He is the person who has been landed with it. What he tells us—I am sure that we all have nice homes—is not important. It is the message that he gives to those without a decent home that is important. The best way to tackle the twin problems of rapidly rising house prices, which put buying a home beyond the reach of more and more young people, and the increasing number of homeless people and others who are housed inadequately is the restoration of the council house building programme that brought about such a huge advance in living standards for millions of people in the 20th century. There is a housing crisis, and it is worse now than it was in May 1997.
9.50 am
Mr. Alan Hurst: I congratulate my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), on having brought this matter before the House. I agree with the thrust of his argument, minus the invective, and I hope that some common ground can be found on how we might restore a decent housing situation.
Last Saturday, I went, as I do each year, to the Braintree and Bocking carnival. Not everybody is familiar with those twin towns, but in the Bocking part there is a 1950s council housing development. The carnival wends its way and eventually reaches a field called Meadowside. That is the central part of the development of sturdy, three-bedroom houses with adequate gardens that overlook the meadow. The development is on a hillside, and from many points one can still look out across open countryside. The verges to the roads are broad, ancient oaks have been preserved along them, and the whole effect is exactly the kind of housing that was envisaged in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
In those times, the two main political parties competed avidly with each other over who built more council houses. My party said that it had built 1 million
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between 1945 and 1951, and the Conservatives promised to build more—and they did. The argument then turned on whether Labour's houses were better; they probably were. The debate over standards—more and better, better and more—went on until the 1970s. During that period, almost any working family could anticipate decent housing, through either rental in the council sector or the ability to buy with a mortgage from a building society or local authority.
The hon. Member for Colchester gave some figures. From memory, I believe that in 1953, 200,000 council houses were built—more than the total number of houses built in 2000. By 2000, only 20,000 units of what is now called, rather condescendingly, social housing—we should think of a better term—were built. At one time, Braintree district council had 14,000 council properties for a much smaller population. Now it has only 9,000 and falling.
We should also look at the cost ratio. What would it take a working family to buy a house? Some time ago, I was fortunate in securing an Adjournment debate, which the hon. Member for Colchester was good enough to support. Shortly before that, I met a man in my advice surgery who had bought a house in Witham, under the build for sale scheme run by Witham urban district council, when he was a recently-married factory worker earning £1,500 per annum. He bought a house for £4,250 with a 100 per cent. mortgage. His wife was not working at the time. The cost of the house was less than three times his sole salary. It was a three-bedroom house, with gardens at front and rear, and a garage. It is still there now; it is a delightful house, and I suspect that it will sell for £170,000 or £180,000, which is way beyond the reach of people in a similar position to his today.
The Rowntree study that the hon. Gentleman mentioned makes fairly complicated arithmetic equations, but I shall try to break the matter down in my simple mind and compare the position now to the situation I described in Witham in 1968. I believe that a police officer's salary is about £23,000 a year. The cost of even a modest house now is six times that salary. It is also six times a teacher's salary; for a nurse, it is more than seven times. In many ways, those people are rather higher up the scale than the factory worker that I mentioned earlier. Those people are in a far worse position than they would have been 35 years ago.
Is there an answer? The hon. Member for Colchester wishes to return to a mass council house building programme. I see the merit in that, but of course there is the question of the right to buy. The issue reminds me a little of the recitation of "Albert and the Lion" by Stanley Holloway. I cannot remember the exact words, and other Members may have better accents for quoting from it than I do, but the point of it was, why go on producing children to feed them to lions? We want more houses, but we want them to be contained as far as possible in a situation that repeats itself for further generations.
There will always be a case for the rented market, but I want to think again about the build for sale scheme. Usually, with such schemes, no one has to worry about the right to buy problem because there is no right to buy, as the houses have already been bought. Build for sale operates on the basis that local authorities build houses on land that they acquire. They then sell the house to an approved purchaser, who is a member of a family in

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need, and they grant a 100 per cent. mortgage. That mortgage should be constructed so that the repayment is similar to an affordable rent. When the family move on, they sell the property and keep the profit, as they would in the private housing market, and the mortgage goes back to the council to be recycled on another property.
Such a scheme certainly needs a large infusion of Government money to pump-prime it and boost it in the first instance, but once it is moving along, it will start to provide affordable housing, owned by the people, in repeating patterns over a wide area of this country.
Bob Spink: This is the right debate to have today. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his positive approach. I apologise for having to leave for a 10 o'clock meeting, but I encourage him to continue along the lines that he is taking. He should continue to consider the problem seriously, and should put the dogma of who owns the housing behind him and concentrate on three issues: providing more houses for those who need them; the replacement of houses once people have bought them; and the quality of the environment in which those houses exist. Those are the issues that really cause our constituents concern.
Mr. Hurst: I am grateful for that intervention, but I shall not be seduced into going down an entirely free-market path. It has been shown in the past 20 years that that approach has failed to solve the problem; indeed, it has exacerbated it. We need some state intervention, as I hope I have suggested in my remarks. The councils should build and lend, and the Government should pump-prime the system to start the financial process. Only with that sort of grip or control will it be possible to build enough houses of the style and kind required for working people.
One is always tempted to think of the past as a golden age. I certainly thought that on Saturday when I was at the Braintree and Bocking carnival; when I saw the houses there, I thought what a shame it is that the chances of young people being able to afford houses of that kind are now almost nil. The past was not always as golden as we remember, but sometimes we had the vision to see a problem and ask what we could do about it. I believe that a dynamic state still has a strong role to play by intervening for the good and betterment of those who are less well off.
Following on from the question of whether it is dogma, I recollect reading a book as a student—I believe it was written by the father of the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg)—which said that the Conservatives have never been afraid of using strong government. I invite Conservative Members to spend some time reflecting on their party's history, and the fact that within the past 50 years it was prepared to build houses for working people of a type and on a scale that were fit for the purpose.
I urge my own party to recall the words of Hugh Dalton, "Call Back Yesterday"—we should ask what we can do to recreate a society, with genuine hope of a decent life and a decent house, for those who are now denied that opportunity.
10.1 am
Mr. David Drew: I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst). I congratulate my friend, the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell); we shared many times together. Like my hon. Friend, I shall not go with the invective but with the message, which was powerful.
Today's debate is the third in recent times on council housing. The first was opened by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who spoke at length about the problems of cross-subsidisation caused by the housing benefit regulations, which effectively meant that some council tenants were paying for others, which caused much angst.
More recently, the debate that was led by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Coleman) was answered by the Minister who is to respond to this debate. That was interesting because, although I would not draw many parallels between the Hammersmith and Fulham area and my authority of Stroud, both have tried to be proactive in their approach to their housing stock.
I make no apology for wanting to talk about some of the local implications, because my authority is pursuing the large-scale voluntary transfer scheme. My party is not in charge of the district council, which I think is wrong to go down that route, but it has done it for honourable reasons. I want to look at some of the implications, but I first pay tribute to a group who, through voluntary empowerment, have done an awful lot to question some of the national trends by defending council housing. That grass-roots group has become a national organisation because of the current scale of transfers.
I was directly involved in evaluating the future of housing stock as a councillor in the late 1980s. Stroud district council was looking to the future and it offered tenants what I thought was a fair and objective opportunity. It wanted to know if people saw merit in some form of transfer. Because it was done in a fair, equitable and open manner, the tenants' response was overwhelming: they wanted to stay with their existing landlord. From all the messages that I receive, I understand that that is still what they want to do. Unfortunately, that is not being offered to them. Stroud's application is going through a process, and we have made a start. The document is glossy and comprehensive and the officers of Stroud have done well in preparing it.
Stroud already has a good housing authority. We have been at the forefront of trying to work within the local authority framework for housing, and have performed that role as well as possible. In all the evidence—and this is acknowledged in the work of the district auditor—Stroud is in the top half of south-west authorities; it is probably near the top. South-west authorities seem not to have some of the problems found elsewhere in the country.
The authority deserves congratulations on two counts. First, it has kept rents at realistic levels. There was the odd argument in certain years in the 1990s when rents rose, but in the main rents have been affordable. Secondly, and more importantly, locally we are proud of our reinvestment programme for housing stock. It is easy to generalise, and I always tread gently in this area,

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but I cannot recall going into people's houses in my area and feeling in any way ashamed by the quality of council housing. Houses next door, which have often been bought, reveal the stark difference between the way in which council houses are maintained as part of the housing stock, and the way in which bought houses are maintained by their owners, who are understandably struggling because of the money that they have paid, even with a discount, to buy their house.
My argument is that we should consider the options that face the council. I am critical of the housing terrain through which we are walking. There are two fundamental questions about how housing in this country is currently performing. There is the macro question of where the funding stream sits in relation to wider economic policies. There are those who say that there will always be higher priorities—for example, education, health and social services—because many people can afford their own houses.
I think that early on the Government made a mistake. There were strong arguments for considering alternatives to the public sector borrowing requirement in terms of the general Government financial deficit, and taking housing out of the equation would have given us greater flexibility. Part of the problem is that there are macro constraints that relate to private sector housing. The Chancellor's statement was interesting, because regardless of whether people think that the euro is a good or bad thing—some Labour Members do not think that it is a good thing—it showed that so much of the debate is tied up with housing. That was fascinating. On the back of that are clear implications for the public sector, such as for housing associations—I term that as part of the public sector, although some people prefer to call it the voluntary sector—and the true public sector: local authorities. That sector is constrained by macro-economic policies.
The Government are absolutely right to address the fact that too much of the stock, in particular in urban Britain, is substandard. That must be brought up to 21st-century standards. Why should people who pay good rents and live in places in which they have chosen to live have to suffer because they happen to live in an authority that does not have the money to bring stock up to date? The Government are right to address that as a fundamental issue. The problem in doing that is that they are either ignoring what is going on outside or making things much more difficult.
My problem with the process is that we are being driven towards large-scale voluntary transfer. I have talked to councillors from across the political divide who perceive that they are being driven towards LSVT. I admit that there is a slight difference of opinion between us in that I think they have more choice than they sometimes pretend. None the less, I think that we have reached the wrong conclusion, because we have not given people what I want them to have: real choice. Of course, one could parade the different opportunities that exist, such as an arm's-length management organisation or, possibly, the private finance initiative. However, the cards seem to be stacked very much in favour of LSVT.
Bob Russell: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the question of who manages or owns the houses will be
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almost academic if there are not enough houses for those in housing need? Given that no one has come forward to fill the gap, does he agree that the necessary houses can be built only by local councils funded by central Government, as used to happen all those years ago?
Mr. Drew: Yes, I very much agree. The crux of the problem is the asset value of the stock, and one difficulty with the whole basis of LSVT is that we devalue the stock so that someone will buy it. That has an enormous impact on what happens in the future. If we put a realistic value on the stock, however, we could use creative measures—I will not say creative accounting, although we are talking to an extent about creatively using the asset value of the stock—to come up with the means to replenish the stock that we have sold.
Stroud is left with 5,500 units. I have never opposed the right to buy in principle, although I have always opposed it for the reasons suggested by the hon. Member for Colchester. I have always believed that we should have replenished the stock for every house that we sold. It is absolutely crazy that we did not do that. We should have built more houses, because it is a matter of giving people choice.
In the remaining minutes, I shall concentrate on the problems with the conclusion that we are being forced to adopt, which runs very much against tenants' better judgment. More than anything, however, I shall concentrate on the problems with the process under which we must adopt that conclusion. Although the procedure is notionally democratic, it is incredibly expensive, and Stroud will probably spend upwards of £500,000. For £500,000, we could do something to alleviate our problems with the affordability index. In that respect, Stroud is much like Braintree.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is so hostile to large-scale voluntary transfer, because it addresses many of the issues that want addressing, such as the discounted value of the houses and the flexibility of management. Cotswold district council is next door to the hon. Gentleman's area. Five years ago, it carried out the large-scale voluntary transfer of 500 houses. With the interest on the proceeds, it has been able to build a further 450 houses. Should not the tenants and Stroud district council, which we both represent, be looking at that sort of model?
Mr. Drew: I do not want to take issue at great length with the hon. Gentleman, who is my neighbour. I have a slightly different perspective on Fosse Way, although it is a model housing association in many respects and has done some interesting things. It has recently faced the same problems as local authorities in that it has not had the necessary land and has not built a sufficient number of houses of late. It has inevitably put rents up, and the tenants to whom I talked were not as happy as the hon. Gentleman would contend. That may be because many decisions are outside their control. In that respect, I worry that as things become more difficult in the housing sector—I do not say that that is inevitable—someone else may take over Fosse Way and run it on the basis of economies of scale. If that happens, local accountability will be divorced from the management of the stock. The loss of local autonomy is a real worry, but

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people sometimes skate over the issue. We are looking not at now, but at five or 10 years down the road. I accept what he says, but I do not necessarily agree.
Tenants are being forced to face up to the process of seeking LSVT, and that is unfair. A working party report by Beha Williams Norman Ltd., a reputable housing consultancy, looked at the different options. I read it, and it was very clear what it was going to tell us: I do not know whether that was the brief that it was given or whether it came to that genuinely. However, it is interesting that it came up with only the one option.
I turn to the difficulties with the processes. For a start, we are talking about an 18-month period. For tenants to engage over 18 months demands a big commitment: I am not belittling them or being pejorative, but it is difficult to get tenants involved in that, because the vote will be later this year or early next year, and it has already been going on for a long period.
Costs have already been touched on. On the complications, for those who oppose the transfer, we will try to make it fairly simple for them to say that they wish to stay with the existing landlord. However, all of this is progressing in the context of quite a complicated argument over stock value, what benefits there will be in terms of new build, and the ways in which the stock might be further improved.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that at the end of that process, when the tenants have had all the information and are able to digest it, they ultimately have a veto because they can vote against the proposal? Therefore, at the end of the day, it is their decision.
Mr. Drew: It is, but the balance is heavily weighted in favour of taking the decision, because the alternatives are not being fairly presented. I am disappointed at the amount of money that is being spent on one side. In another guise, the hon. Gentleman may be talking about the euro referendum, and I am quite sympathetic about that: one of the arguments on fairness is about where the money is being spent in relation to the ability to influence the debate.
I have worked with these people over decades, and I am not saying in any way that they are dishonourable, but I have worries. I have heard evidence about the independent tenant adviser who has been appointed, and it seems that tenants are more or less being told, "Well, this is going to happen, so how can we make it happen for the best?" That is wrong: it is leading the tenants to believe that they have to vote in a certain way. The process will involve every tenant being visited, but they will be visited by council officials and are those officials going to say, "On the one hand there is this set of arguments and on the other hand there is another?" I would love to hear that that is going to happen.
Until recently, it has been difficult for those who are opposed to the process even to get hold of the names and addresses of the tenants, because of provisions such as the Data Protection Act 1998. That is understandable, but in order to engage and have a debate one has to have equal and balanced access to the people who are going to make the decision. That has been quite a stumbling block in Stroud, and I do not believe that Stroud is unique in that.
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We have just set up the shadow boards. That is happening, but the way in which it is being taken forward is not easy. For tenants to engage on those boards, they need a lot of empowerment. With regard to the district auditor, Bath and North East Somerset council, for example, has looked at some of the issues about how the consultation has been run, and that debate will grow.
There are councils that are voting no—Birmingham is the biggest one so far, and Nuneaton is another that is always cited. What happens when a council votes no to what is being proposed is interesting. At the least, there is a difficult period. I want the Minister to assure me that such councils will not be in any way further penalised. The argument that has largely been advanced in the case of Stroud is that we have to go down the proposed route owing to the decline in subsidies through the housing revenue account support. I do not want that to be made in any way worse, because council tenants have come to a different conclusion from their council and perhaps even from the Government. I want there to be a future under local authorities. There may be a different way to proceed, and if the option were really available, I would even find it acceptable for those tenants to go down a different route. I have looked carefully at the community ownership route, which is the idea that as a co-operator one can consider conversion into a housing co-operative. That has many attractions, but it often gets lost through LSVT pressure to opt out and go down a certain route.
In conclusion, I leave the my hon. Friend the Minister with the point that none of us really knows what will happen in the future as we increase the housing association stock at the cost of the local authority stock. That will have macro implications, but we need some assurances that the result will not be takeovers by massive new housing associations on the basis of economies of scale. I should also like greater guarantees about rents and an assurance that the bargain that has been proposed will be kept to in terms of the number and type of houses that should be built. There are an awful lot of questions. I am—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the purpose of these sittings is for the Member who secures the debate to get a reply from the Minister. If the hon. Gentleman continues much longer, the Member who secured the debate will not get an adequate reply.
Mr. Drew: I shall conclude on that point. If the answers to my questions are forthcoming, I can go back to the tenants in Stroud district council and talk to them in a way that will assure them that the process that they have been asked to undertake is fair and honest, and that it will yield the right results, rather than the wrong ones.
10.22 am
Matthew Green: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) on securing this debate on such an important issue. We have heard some good contributions from the hon. Members for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) and for Stroud (Mr. Drew), although the last contribution was very long.

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Those who have spoken have done well to identify some of the problems associated with the shortage of housing. To put a figure on the problem, Shelter says that 85,000 homeless families are now in temporary accommodation, which is the highest figure ever in the United Kingdom. However, that is not really surprising because since 1999 the amount of social housing built—either the tiny amount that councils build or that built through registered social landlords—has been lower than sales through right to buy. Since 1999, there has therefore been a year-on-year decline in the amount of social housing stock.
There are problems not only at London and the south-east but in rural areas such as Cornwall and Shropshire, where there is a lack of affordable housing for key workers. That is also symptomatic of the lack of social housing—there is neither social housing for people to move into nor houses to buy that they might be able to afford. The most dramatic effect has been in London and the south-east, but there is also a problem in rural areas, where people retire or buy holiday homes, thereby pricing local families out of the housing market. Many young people and families are forced to move out of the areas in which they grew up as a result of the shortage in social housing.
To consider some figures, the right to buy council houses has accelerated—in the last three years right-to-buy sales have been in excess of 50,000 a year, which is as high as the figure has been for a decade. That is leading to a decline in social housing stock that not even building by social landlords is replacing. Large-scale voluntary transfers, which seem to work in some circumstances, but have not been so successful in others, have also accelerated since 1997. There have been larger transfers since then than there were under the Conservative Government that introduced LSVT.
A problem with the right to buy is that it is the more desirable homes that have been bought. When the scheme was introduced, one of its good intentions was to break up the monolithic council housing estates, which were in decline because they did not enjoy mixed ownership. The feeling was that if people owned their own homes that would lead to regeneration. The reality is that the homes that have been bought are in the more desirable, particularly rural, areas. The four or five homes in a village have been snapped up, whereas the big estates have barely been touched. In that sense, right to buy has failed. There is also a decline in the number of houses built by councils. In 1992, councils built 2,500 homes—a tiny number. That dropped to 105 last year and the figure is declining year on year.
Even if we consider registered social landlords—in many ways, the Government's preferred option—we still find a year-on-year decline in the number of houses built, from 51,000 in 1996 to 29,800 last year. That is no surprise because the amount of money going into the housing corporations is lower than it was in 1992. Then it was £1.8 million, now it is half of that.
Mr. McNulty: Billion.
Matthew Green: Yes, £1.8 billion. I appreciate the Minister's correction. It is now just £900 million. There
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has been a slight rise in recent years, but the big drop was just after the 1997 election. The Chancellor's sticking to Tory spending plans probably did more to reduce social housing build than anything else in recent years.
That is the problem. How do we deal with it? There should not be a one-approach-fits-all response. Hon. Members have been right to say that councils feel that they are pushed down certain routes and that they should have more freedom. They should be able, if they choose, to build homes themselves, using whatever funds they have. That is extremely difficult for them to do under present arrangements. I would appreciate it if the Minister sounded sympathetic to that.
We should not return to building monolithic, large-scale housing estates but should aim for mixed use. Most councils understand that and would build mixed developments. I do not think that they would build 700 council houses in one development; we shall not go back to those days. The removal of the local authority social housing grant has denied us one of the routes through which extra social housing was built. South Shropshire, in my constituency, did LSVT in the early 1990s, and put all the money into local authority social housing grant, which led to an increase in social housing available in the constituency. That route has been removed. In the absence of local authority social housing grant, councils have to go cap in hand to housing corporations to ask for money instead of being able to use their own money. That does not help in the short and medium term.
The Government have introduced some welcome changes to the right to buy, but they have not gone far enough. They need to make the changes available to all councils that want them. In Cornwall and Shropshire, councils, and housing associations, because of the preserved right that transfers to them, suffer a continuing decline in their council housing stocks through right to buy. They would very much like those powers to be extended to them, not restricted to a ring of councils in London and the south-east. There are problems elsewhere. Why not let the councils themselves decide whether they want changes to the right-to-buy discount. That is the correct approach—trust the councils.
Another area that needs to be examined is something that the Conservatives introduced in the early 1980s and then dropped, partly because they had introduced the right to buy. I refer to the right to invest. One of the safest ways of keeping housing stock in councils' or registered social landlords' hands is to give people the right to invest by buying a proportion of the equity. They would then have a mortgage—and a means to build up funds—rather than having to buy the house outright. That approach keeps the property in the affordable housing sector and keeps it in the hands of registered social landlords, but allows individuals to build up capital for themselves, and perhaps eventually get into the conventional housing market. The right to invest needs to be examined and encouraged, particularly if we are—rightly—reducing the use of the right to buy.
We must also examine whether we can use section 106 agreements, as is the case in many parts of the country—not least in south Shropshire —to create a middle tier of affordable housing. That would, artificially, keep prices down on a local needs basis, rather in the way the old

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agricultural workers dwelling scheme worked, but extended to other areas. Some councils are looking at that and it seems to be a way forward.
I wish to press the Minister on a point that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester. Why not trust the councils? Let us give them the power to decide the appropriate route in their area. One of the great failures of the Conservative Government was to take powers away from councils. They forced them down particular routes, and although this Government have made some modest steps in returning power to local authorities, they are just that—modest. Trust the councils; give them the powers to build new council houses, to recycle capital funds through schemes such as the local authority social housing grant, and to help registered social landlords. Give them the power to decide whether they need to make changes to the right to buy. Introduce the right to invest. I hope that the Minister will deal with some of those issues. Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester on securing this important debate.
10.32 am
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) on securing this important debate. How we deal with the present stock of 3.1 million public sector houses is of critical importance to a large percentage of the population. I congratulate the hon. Members for Braintree (Mr. Hurst), for Stroud (Mr. Drew), and for Ludlow (Matthew Green) on their speeches. The mnemonic that the hon. Member for Braintree used—a decent life and a decent home for those who are denied that opportunity—is a very good aspiration that we should all support.
The Prime Minister aspired to a decent standard of housing for all. He said that that would be achieved by the next election; I now see that the public service agreement target is 2010. Nevertheless, even to meet that target, the Government will have to go some way because for six years they have done little to tackle the problem. If one wants subsidised housing, one has to subsidise it. The resources that the Government are putting into subsidised housing are only now matching in real terms what we were putting in when we left office in 1997. I am pleased that the Government are now beginning to repent, but a real problem remains.
The hon. Member for Colchester was kind enough to provide figures for the building of council houses in 1979—a total of 92,000 houses. In 2001–02, only 240 council houses were built throughout the country. To a small degree, that figure is offset by the number of registered social landlord houses, but even that totals only around 20,000. Add the two figures together and we have a total of just 20,240 houses being built. When we left office in 1997, those two figures together amounted to 39,000 public sector houses. Now, only two thirds of that number of houses are being built in the public sector compared to when we left office.
Bob Russell: In 1979, 75,500 local authority houses and 17,835 social registered landlord houses were built, so the total is 93,000. The situation was dramatically better therefore under the Conservatives in 1979 than it is now.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that. I may have got the figure
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wrong in my opening remarks. In fact in 1953, about 300,000 council houses were built under the Conservative Government so, progressively, all Governments have been building fewer public sector houses. That is regrettable because the number of people on the list for that housing is, as the hon. Member for Ludlow suggested, growing at an alarming rate. The number of families who are homeless is officially 85,000, and according to Government figures the number of homeless people has risen alarmingly and now stands at 115,000. Unofficially, Shelter believes that the hidden homeless may push the figure of those who do not have a proper home of their own up to 400,000.
Those figures are shocking and the Government need to address them. How will they do so? The argument about who owns and who runs public sector housing is somewhat sterile. The important thing is that it is run properly and with reasonable rents. Will the Minister comment on the Government's progress in restructuring their proposals in this respect? It is important that housing is run so that it can be re-let quickly. I am glad to say that the old days of local authorities having vast banks of houses empty for months, if not years, are changing and improving. The audit requirements on local authorities have brought about some improvement in the management of council stock. Nevertheless, we can do better in re-letting our houses quickly.
What is the Minister doing to ensure that rent restructuring does not inhibit large-scale voluntary transfer? Housing specialists fear that keeping rent artificially low in the public sector makes it more difficult for LSVTs to get funding from the private sector. Indeed, the private sector has expressed considerable worries about existing funding of LSVT, which is based on a rental stream that now proves to be inadequate. That is a real problem. Does the Minister feel that artificially clawing back some of the money from LSVTs—for example, in Stroud—and redistributing it around the country is proving a disincentive for LSVTs? What does he think about the redistribution of housing revenue accounts? Could those two important subjects covered in the Local Government Bill be dealt with more transparently?
Mention has been made of the difference in management between registered social landlords and that that might be the reason why some registered social landlords are successful while others are not. The Government need to address that. For example, there is a stark contrast between the registered social landlord doing a superb job in Coventry and the failure of the Birmingham bid. The Birmingham bid failed because it was badly presented and too large; it covered about 75,000 houses, which is too big for one bid. The tenants were not being given a reasonable choice of landlord: they were being asked to swap one monolithic landlord for another.
The hon. Member for Stroud argued for more innovative methods of financing public sector housing. That is exactly what alternative vehicles such as LSVTs do. They release the discount inherent in the public sector housing stock. The LSVT enables registered social landlords to have much greater flexibility to borrow and to build new houses than councils have. Unless we change public expenditure rules, councils will not have that flexibility and the playing field will

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inevitably be skewed. The Conservative Government recognised that, which was why we invented alternative ownership vehicles for public sector housing.
The hon. Member for Stroud mentioned other public sector ownership vehicles, for example, ALMOs, which are growing in popularity. The Government are giving subsidies to them and perhaps the Minister will say something about that. There are other vehicles, such as private finance initiatives, and councils have the opportunity to lever in finance from the private sector through PFIs. Those are welcome initiatives because we all want to lever more resources into public sector housing from both the private and the public sector. By imaginative management of our housing stock, we can do all those things.
Much mention has been made this morning of the right to buy. The next Conservative Government will extend the right to buy to the registered landlord sector, but the critical difference is that we will insist that all resources are reinvested in building more houses. That is what ought to be happening in the council house sector, too. We should change the rules to insist that all moneys from right to buy are reinvested in building more social housing. That would go a long way to restoring the balance. I gather that at least one council has asked to be exempted from the Government's reduction in discounts for right to buy; perhaps the Minister will say whether that is so, and whether it is only one council or whether there are more, and whether any such councils will be granted exemption from the reduction in right to buy that the Deputy Prime Minister announced recently.
We have somehow to create more funds and we reckon that by extending the right to buy to the registered social landlord sector we can sell off up to a further 30,000 houses per year and build an additional 15,000 a year with the proceeds. When one considers that the number of social houses being built is only 20,000, it is clear that our policy would almost double the number at a stroke—and at no cost to the taxpayer. That seems a useful policy.
When one wants a house, it is not how many houses there are that matters, it is the availability. Most people are so pleased to be in a subsidised public house, because the rents are lower than the private sector, that the average tenancy varies between 10 and 20 years. In London, the average tenancy is 20 years. There are very few houses available in the public sector. If we build the extra numbers, availability will improve. It is all very well talking about those tenants that have subsidised public sector housing, but it is those who are not fortunate enough to have a house, those on a waiting list, who are among the most vulnerable in society, that we also need to consider. It is a shocking statistic that there is a record level of homelessness at the moment, and this and future Governments need to address that.
This has been an interesting debate. At times, it has revolved around a rather sterile argument about whether there should be council houses or not. Those who have subsidised housing in one form or another are not too worried about who owns it. They simply want it to be properly managed, so that when they have a complaint or a problem with their house, whether it is the responsibility of the registered social landlord or the
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council, the problem is dealt with properly. They want to live in a house that is well maintained, with rents at a reasonable level. As to all those who, in the 21st century, do not have houses, let us get on and build a few more for goodness' sake, particularly in the public sector, so that we can start to do something for those on waiting lists and can do something about the shocking matter of the record number of homeless people.
10.43 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty): I fear that I will not have time to dwell on many of the issues raised and there were some very thoughtful and personal contributions. I happily congratulate the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) on securing the debate, but I deprecate totally the invective and absolute drivel that he came out with in most of the rest of his speech, which was not worthy of a serious issue that needs serious answers. How many answers did the hon. Gentleman give? Absolutely none, and I happily deprecate that. He certainly has rose-tinted glasses; everything was fine pre-Thatcher and everything went wrong as soon as she came to power. Again, that is absolute nonsense. If he had seen some of the scourges of the malfunctioning and dysfunctional private rented sector throughout the 1960s, he would not say that everything was fine prior to 1979.
The cruel fact is that since the war and certainly since the mid-1960s onwards, successive Governments have, through broad housing policy, let the nation down. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said that candidly and honestly and it is as true now as when he said it. The situation is not helped by minor third party invective that offers nothing.
The hon. Member for Colchester suggests that somehow stock transfer leads to deterioration in the condition of housing, but it achieves exactly the opposite. He rattled on and said nothing about something that many other colleagues happily dealt with—the state of the existing stock. If one believed the shallow invective of the hon. Gentleman, one would think that every council estate throughout the land is like the 1950s estate to which my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) referred. Would that they were.
I deal with housing regeneration and planning, for my sins, and I see the less than decent housing estates throughout the country, which are scars on the land. Not all that is the fault of the councils. I do not blame councils at all. To suggest that we have done nothing to redress the balance of that stock and nothing on homelessness is wrong. To suggest that the world of housing and investment has stood still for six years is wrong.
So, what were the hon. Gentleman's solutions? Solutions came there none, except this one: build more houses. Is not that radical? The hon. Gentleman offered nothing on the state of the current stock. By the way, there is nothing—not a jot—in the last Liberal Democrat shadow Budget about housing or how the resources would be provided for what the hon. Gentleman wants. I read such documents, however boring, in some detail. The hon. Gentleman offered nothing about the intricacies of and the interactions

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between the right to buy and new build that is only social sector; there was nothing about the availability of land, infrastructure or building skills capacity, nothing about how the one-club policy fits in with a national housing policy. Barely 20 per cent. of the entire stock in this country is in what might broadly be called the public or social sector; that must operate in the context of the other 80 per cent, but there was nothing on that. The hon. Gentleman suggested further that the private sector had nothing to offer.
I, like everyone else, know that the level of homelessness has increased. It has increased for various reasons, and I shall explain why. One of the first things that I did as a Minister was to take through a priority needs order on the back of the Homelessness Act 2002. That should have been secured earlier, but it was killed off by the Tories in the sweep up before the 2001 election. One of the first things that the Government did was get on the statute book a proper wide definition of what homelessness entailed and who the homeless were. We said candidly that that would mean significant rises in homelessness.
I am, in a sense, pleased that the figures went up; we can now identify whom the homeless are and do something about homelessness. Little brickbats saying homelessness has gone through the roof—it has in the official figures—are cheap political stunts. The resources are going in to deal with a real level of homelessness, rather than having to deal with an imaginary level, under which all kinds of people who should have been in that base of homelessness are eradicated by officialese. Their problems and those of their families do not go away, but if they are not recognised as homeless, some think they will somehow go away.
The hon. Gentleman says that the Labour Government have done nothing—on some other planet, not this one. In its first term this Government released £5.5 billion of capital receipts to local councils to start to redress the worst of the £19 billion backlog on social stock left by the Conservative Government. Some £12.1 billion of additional money has been spent on the social housing sector as a result of stock transfer. I agree with those hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree, who made a thoughtful contribution, that it is a matter not of dogmatically asking who owns what but of creatively exploring new ideas.
What matters is that 760,000 dwellings will be brought up to a decent standard because of the transfer programme. If the next round is successful, 125,000 more will be brought up to scratch. That might not matter in the context of a silly little letter to the East Anglian Daily Times, but it does matter in the context of the proper development of a national housing policy for the country and the private sector. It matters that 360,000 dwellings will be brought up to a decent standard in the current round of the arm's-length management organisation programme, and 200,000 more will be once the new application round is implemented. Once decisions are made on the new round, nearly 1.5 million homes in the social sector will be brought up to a decent standard. According to the rose-tinted picture that some have painted, there are not 1.5 million homes of sub-decent standard in the social sector. Sadly, however, there are.
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Both the processes that we are discussing, but particularly the ALMO programme, have led to far greater tenant empowerment, far greater tenant participation and far greater numbers of tenants determining their own futures, rather than having them determined by politicians. In that respect, it was a great pleasure to meet representatives of the National Federation of Arm's-length Management Organisations recently to discuss how we can push the envelope for that model further.
My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree mentioned in passing the suggestion of an interlocking housing policy for the whole housing sector. We have not been helped by the failure and dysfunction of the private rented sector, which was starkly evident in the 1960s and evident, too, in the 1980s and 1990s. That should be seen in the context of the right to buy—the one-club social model for moving from the social sector to home ownership—under which the social dwelling went with the tenant. That has proved entirely inappropriate and inefficient.
Let me give a stark illustration of the problem. Last year or the year before, 14,000 dwellings were built in London. About 3,000 were in the social sector, which is clearly not enough. However, in the same year, 11,000 were sold under the right to buy. The Reaganomics or voodoo economics behind the Tory proposals to extend the housing association will not work. It is a Conservative policy—with the emphasis on the "con".
If a registered social landlord has two houses in an area, at least half, if not all, the equity that is locked up in one of the houses will sustain the revenue stream that is used to pay the bank for both houses. If the landlord sells the houses, the bank will not say, "We know you sold them, but don't tell anyone, because the revenue stream and the debt repayments depend on it. Keep quiet, and we'll let you build another two houses."
The Tories are spending money three or four times over under a policy that was introduced as a gimmick for the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis). It allowed him to jump up at the Conservative party conference and say, "You might have sacked me as Tory party chairman, but I'm still alive." That worked in terms of the coverage that he got, but as a substantive housing policy it is as bankrupt as the empty policy of the—
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. McNulty: I shall not, because I have too little time. If I have any time left at the end, however, I shall give way.
As I was saying, the Tory policy is as bankrupt as the empty policy of the hon. Member for Colchester, who made no suggestions as to what we might do.
I would love to go down the same road as my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree. As he so eloquently said—he happily admitted that this was not his phrase, although it still brought back happy memories—we cannot call back yesterday. I would love to do that, but we must think in substantive terms about how to deal with the real problems that exist now. I fully accept that they exist not only in London and the south-east, although those areas have particular problems. My hon. Friend is right that we must think of other models, and

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together with the Housing Corporation we have set up the low-cost home ownership task force under Brenda Dean to explore such models. We want to get to the stage where we can assist people and build on what we have done with the starter home initiative and other key worker initiatives. We want to assist people—key workers and others—into an affordability model for home ownership, without them taking the public or social sector unit with them.
I am keen to explore further the build-for-sale model that my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree described. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) made a thoughtful contribution. It would be inappropriate for me to talk in detail about the live large-scale voluntary transfer process that is unfolding in Stroud, but I do not fully share h s characterisation of many aspects of the LSVT process Although he pulled back from the comment a tad and I partly know what he meant by it, it was patronising and unbecoming of him to suggest—or even to imply—that 18 months was a long time for the lovely people in council houses to endure and engage with such a process. When tenants get engaged and empowered through this process or ALMOs, and finally get some notion of having control over the future of their homes and communities, it is an enlivening experience.
I assure my hon. Friend that the LSVT process is now fair and honest and I do not endorse what he says about Defend Council Housing: like the hon. Member for Colchester, it is,
"full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing"
and offers no hope to council tenants.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: May I put the record straight and declare my interest as a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors?
One of the crucial aspects of LSVTs is the Government's rent restructuring policy. Would the Minister say something about that? Are we going to get rents in the public sector of retail price index plus a half or plus one? What will that figure be, and what will be the effect of it on transfers?
Mr. McNulty: With the greatest respect, I will save any detailed comments on that. In three Minutes, I am not going to do a little ditty and seminar on rent restructuring and the implications of that for the LSVT programme. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me about that or secures a debate, I will happily respond.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud was starting to think outside the more traditional boxes and trying to contemplate matters for his constituents, for which I am
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grateful because that is what we need. We do not need a sterile debate. Some people say, "Build more," and offer nothing in terms of an integrated ho using or economic policy within which that policy can operate. It might be suggested that I was naïve to expect a more detailed exposition of Liberal Democrat policy—we have never had that on anything much in the past 20 years so why should we get it this morning? Knockabout, and sterile suggestions that go nowhere, are inappropriate for what is a serious issue.
This is where we return to the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown). As ever, he offers nothing apart from a voodoo economics right to buy extension. His party opposes the sustainable communities plan, which, with £22 million over three years, offers a significant difference in terms of step change. He opposes the right-to-buy changes, but every expert who is asked will say that, certainly in the London context, there are serious abuses of the right to buy and it has a seriously dysfunctional impact on the market.
I thought that I answered the hon. Gentleman's question about three months ago, but never mind. Two local authorities—Christchurch and Spelthorne—asked to be reviewed and excluded from the list and they were subsequently excluded because they had a case that stood up. A further 14 wanted to come in rather than leave, and they are being reviewed.
The hon. Gentleman opposed Labour's Budget and wants to extend our right to buy, which will not achieve anything and cut public expenditure. Just when, through the plan, we are trying to offer a way out—not least in Colchester and other areas of London and the south-east—we get facile and fatuous responses to the communities plan from the hon. Gentleman and his party, who run around like nimbys offering no alternative, and saying, "All we want to do is concrete over the south-east." What a wonderfully intellectual, substantive contribution to the housing debate that this county sorely needs that is. In truth, it offers absolutely nothing. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) even suggested yesterday that we were concreting over the south-east as part of a conspiracy to get conditions right to enter the euro.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: You are.
Mr. McNulty: There we are—the hon. Gentleman says it himself, thereby showing clearly through his strangulated sedentary comments that he has as much to offer as the hon. Member for Colchester.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Time is up. Hon. Members who do not wish to stay for the next debate should leave quickly and quietly please.

Employers Liability Insurance
11 am
Mrs. Marion Roe: Over the past six months I have become increasingly aware of the current insurance crisis that is affecting small and medium-sized businesses and consumers in my constituency. The businesses that are most directly affected are those that operate in the construction industry—in particular, specialist contractors of the type that consumers and other small businesses use regularly, such as roofing contractors, who mend, repair and replace our roofs, window fitters, scaffolders and painters and decorators.
Back in June 2002, business men in my constituency brought to my attention the fact that their insurance premiums were increasing substantially, and to such an extent that on a number of occasions the businesses concerned wondered whether they could continue to trade. At the time, the National Specialist Contractors Council undertook a survey of contractors from its 25 specialist trade associations to identify the extent and impact of the increase in premiums. The results were astounding. More than 600 contractors who belonged to NSCC trade associations responded to the survey. They were mainly from the high-risk trades, such as roofing, steeplejacking and scaffolding. In the case of roofers, 48.8 per cent. of the members of the National Federation of Roofing Contractors responded, demonstrating that not just a problem but a crisis was looming.
In my constituency, S. J. Wilson (Roofing Contractors), a domestic contractor, paid an insurance premium of £3,800 in 2001. In 2002, that rose to £15,000, and this year, S. J. Wilson was quoted £78,000, plus 5 per cent. insurance premium tax. After spending two weeks negotiating, the company managed to reduce the premium to £40,000. That meant that the premium had increased by almost 1,250 per cent., which was a cost that could not have been foreseen and therefore anticipated, and which could not be incorporated within the cost or price of any jobs already committed to. Another company in my constituency is a one-man band that turns over £50,000 a year. This year that man is paying £7,000 for his insurance cover, so his insurance premium is 14 per cent. of his turnover.
In the short term, the effect on such companies can be quite dramatic. Insurers are informing such contractors that in order to reduce their premium they must reduce their payroll. That ultimately means laying off skilled workers, which is something that no MP wishes to see in their constituency and which is surely not a good solution to problems of improving the efficiency of a local business or, in the case of the domestic sector, continuing to offer a good service to the general public.
Also in my constituency is L & M Roofing Company. Not only has the company's premium been increased by £10,000, but the policy now includes exclusions that restrict it from doing certain types of activity. For instance, roofing contractors have been required to carry out their work without using a naked flame. Such a restriction is impossible for many flat roofing contractors and mastic asphalters and therefore not a practical solution at all.
During the early stages of the crisis, those suffering were mainly small businesses of the type that I have mentioned, but it is now the turn of consumers to realise
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what the effects of the increase in premiums are. Initially, the consumer who required a roof to be retiled, a garage to be re-waterproofed, the external face of their house to be painted or new windows to be fitted found that reputable contractors had to increase costs to account for the rise in insurance premiums. That in turn has increased the likelihood that the consumer will turn to the black economy.
However, we all know the problems of using contractors who operate in the black economy. Not only do they have the advantage of evading VAT, but they now operate without insurance, or with inappropriate insurance, which reduces their premiums and therefore their costs. That leaves the consumer or householder in a vulnerable position. By using an uninsured or inappropriately insured contractor, the householder himself may become liable in the event of an accident, which could result in a personal disaster. I worry that that fact is not sufficiently well known among the general public.
The workmanship carried out by contractors who operate in the black economy is notoriously of a poorer standard and quality than that carried out by a reputable contractor. Unfortunately, with the insurance crisis encouraging or even forcing people in my constituency to use contractors that they would not otherwise use, their homes—the most important material assets of all families—are now more at risk.
On learning of the situation, I was most disappointed to find that insurers often do not differentiate between good and bad contractors. A good contractor who looks after his employees, runs an efficient business, implements good health and safety practices and does his best to trade as an honest and reputable business finds that his efforts are not recognised. Often, insurers reward the good contractor by offering a similar premium to the contractor who cares little for his work force and his clients, has no interest in health and safety and makes no attempt to run a sound business.
What can be done about this crisis now? In the past few days, the Department for Work and Pensions has published the main Government review of employers liability insurance, described on page 4 as an interim report. It sets out key findings and the steps that the Government are planning to take. Likewise, the Office of Fair Trading has published its parallel review of the UK's liability insurance market.
The Department for Work and Pensions review has a ministerial foreword, signed by Ministers from the Lord Chancellor's Department, the Treasury, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Trade and Industry. It is a declaration for swift progress in developing a programme for tackling the long-term issues identified in the review. A further report is promised in the autumn to show progress and any further steps that the Government intend to take.
We can all appreciate the reasons for the Government's cautious approach to the crisis and the need for not aggravating an already serious situation through ill-thought-out changes to legislation and attempts to alter the market's operations. However, some of the options for change mentioned in the Department for Work and Pensions review can be progressed quickly; they include, for example, the

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Government's undertaking to reform enforcement arrangements on contractors to hold employers liability insurance.
Present reliance on the Health and Safety Executive's inspectors whenever they visit a site to check that all contractors and subcontractors on that site hold valid employers liability insurance cover is clearly inadequate. The proposal made in the Department for Work and Pensions review for an active enforcement system based on an annual notification of policies cross-checked against an enforcement database may only work for contractors already trading legally.
It is that percentage operating in the black economy, which is so hard to quantify and affects the domestic market, that worries me. Can we use some simple system of recognition to inform domestic users whom they are dealing with when they call for reliable help when repairing or renovating their homes? I suggest to the Minister that this issue and the holding of employers liability insurance by all contractors, whatever their size, go hand in hand.
I gladly note the recognition in the Department for Work and Pensions review that the most suitable way to tackle employers liability costs is to reduce the number of workplace accidents and injuries and to link that to the forthcoming strategic plan of the Health and Safety Commission. I also note the support given by the Association of British Insurers in its press release of 3 June for businesses to be given credit for good health and safety practice leading to affordable premiums.
I trust that the Minister will confirm today the Government's support for the ABI's declared policy, because the issue of lower premiums in return for sound health, safety and risk management is something that can be achieved now, given sufficient determination by insurers and insured alike to address the issue.
There are two issues in the Department for Work and Pensions review that seem to be either inadequately covered or plainly misleading and on which I ask the Minister to comment. The first concerns the point that, until 1999, employers liability insurance premiums were low. That is factually true. However, it was also the preferred policy of insurers to secure from businesses other forms of insurance business and to invest the proceedings in the stock market to cover against losses. That policy was a disaster in the making and was in no way the fault or responsibility of the insured.
The second point concerns the advice given on page 11 of the Department for Work and Pensions review:
"Businesses…should be more ready and more prepared to shop around for the most effective broker and the best insurer."
That comment is laughable in the opinion of many reputable contractors within the trade associations of the National Specialist Contractors Council. How could they be expected to take such action while service standards on the part of the insurers have been less than satisfactory? I refer to numerous reports by businesses of short renewal periods given by insurers for employers liability insurance policies. Shopping around was neither possible nor practical in such circumstances.
I therefore trust that due attention will be given in the long term by the Department for Work and Pensions and the OFT to my first point about the market's future
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operation and that the Government and the ABI will follow through to quickly establish minimum standards of service to provide proper notice of renewal terms—a point acknowledged in the ABI's press release of 3 June.
Furthermore, I ask the Minister to examine insurance premium tax. I am not asking for insurance premium tax to be abolished but the Chancellor has had a windfall through the rise in insurance premiums. If the Minister looks at the figures from the National Federation of Roofing Contractors, he will see that the insurance premium tax on £7 million of premiums is £350,000. That has increased now to £1 million for the members of the NFRC alone.
Contractors ask that the windfall be used effectively to help those small businesses, whose insurance premiums have risen. They suggest that, if it were invested in a fund to compensate those who suffer work-related diseases, and invested wisely, that would bring some stability to the insurance market, which would not be required to anticipate work-related diseases and ill health 10, 20 and 30 years ahead. I ask that my point is related to the Ministers' undertaking in the foreword to the Department for Work and Pensions review to further evaluate the evidence for separating long-term occupational disease risks from accident risks.
I and many other hon. Members are aware of the work of the Department of Trade and Industry and the appointment of Mr. Paul Haywood by the Minister of State for Energy and Construction to help contractors in liaison matters and negotiation with the insurance industry. Furthermore, it is pleasing to note the work of the National Specialist Contractors Council, the National Federation of Roofing Contractors, the Flat Roofing Alliance, the Mastic Asphalt Council and the National Access and Scaffolding Confederation to provide more insurance capacity through new insurance schemes.
In conclusion, can the Minister assure the House that speedy progress will be made on matters pertaining to enforcement, lower premiums for good health and safety practice, and improved service standards on the part of the insurance industry? I accept that long-term issues require a more cautious and thorough approach, but I ask that such issues receive continued, coordinated attention from all Departments involved, working with relevant agencies outside the Government. I welcome the further report that has been promised by the Minister in the autumn and I look forward to his reply today.
11.13 am
The Minister for Employment Relations, Industry and the Regions (Alan Johnson): I congratulate the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) on securing this debate on such an important issue. It gives me a chance to explain to hon. Members the current situation in respect of employers liability insurance and to set out the steps that the Government are taking in partnership with employers, insurers and other stakeholders to improve the outlook for everyone.
I can give the hon. Lady the assurances that she sought in the last part of her remarks, but I need first to set out in detail how the Government intend to resolve the problems. The aim of the employers liability insurance system is to ensure that workers who are

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injured through the fault of their employer can obtain suitable redress. We are fully committed to the principle, which is not a party matter; previous Governments have been committed too. It is right for employers to be held to account for any harm that they do. Equally, we are committed to ensuring that the system is fair for employers, and that includes doing what we can to keep costs down.
Many companies are concerned about recent rises in insurance prices, from motor insurance to property insurance. The reasons for this general increase are complex. Insurance markets are typically cyclical: the last peak was in about 1993, and the bottom of the cycle seems to have been in 1999 or 2000. Since then, prices have risen. The rise might have been exacerbated by the effects on global reinsurance markets of 11 September 2001. The price of reinsurance rose and so, therefore, did that of insurance. Certainly, it seems to have been rapid. Concerns about increases in the price of liability insurance, and particularly employers liability insurance, must be seen against that background.
The Office of Fair Trading attributes cost increases in liability insurance to factors including
"An expansion of liability, 'loss shocks' such as those arising from the World Trade Centre, increases in legal costs and damages awards for personal injury, and reductions in the investment returns insurers set against underwriting losses."
However, changes to costs have not been the only source of increases. The OFT also says:
"While changes to costs clearly have had an upward impact on premiums, they cannot alone account for the large increases experienced over the last year. Changes in the competitive environment such as major insolvencies and a reduction in capacity—leading to short-term upward pressure on premiums—appear to be contributory factors."
In response to the specific concerns about employers liability insurance, the Government committed themselves in the pre-Budget report last November to review the employers liability insurance system and to report on options for change. We also discussed the issues with the OFT, which undertook a fact-finding study into the liability insurance market, including employers liability insurance. Both those studies have now reported; the OFT review's conclusions were published on 3 June, as was the Government's first stage report. The OFT study did not find evidence of a misfunctioning market or a widespread lack of availability of liability insurance cover, but it concluded that the price of employers liability insurance increased by some 50 per cent. in 2002, following a six-year period during which liability insurance premiums fell in real terms by about 14 per cent.
I welcome the fact that the OFT will continue to monitor developments in the market and its announcement that it intends to revisit the issues next year. I also share its concern about the costs associated with resolving liability insurance claims, of which legal costs are a large part. The OFT is considering whether to investigate that further. I would welcome that, alongside our work to reduce costs and improve outcomes for all parties.
The Government's report on employers liability insurance reaches similar conclusions to that of the OFT. The market seems to be operating and cover is almost universally available. We found a handful of examples in which it was not available, and the
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Federation of Small Businesses was particularly helpful in that respect. However, there does not appear to be any basis for reports that there is a widespread inability to obtain cover. Similarly, there have been suggestions that large numbers of firms were trading illegally, without employers liability insurance. On the basis of the evidence that we have, it seems that compliance levels remain high.
Our review lays out an agenda for action to provide both short and long-term help to businesses. That was widely lauded by the CBI, the TUC and others. Our report, the first of a two-stage process, examines the factors driving recent premium increases and considers the case for potential reforms to the employers liability insurance system. The Government are committed to improving the outlook in difficult market conditions. The standards of the insurance industry will be put firmly under the spotlight as we go forward to ensure the fairest deal for all concerned.
The programme of action that we announced on 3 June will work on two fronts by aiming to make the market work better and improving the overall system. In the short term, we support current initiatives in the market while working towards a fairer system by developing a basis for more risk-related premiums. We will move swiftly with business, the insurance industry and employee representatives to develop a programme to address issues raised in our report. Matters of legal costs, rehabilitation, long-term occupational disease risks and enforcement action lie at the heart of our agenda. In the autumn, we will report on progress made and on any further steps that we intend to take.
In the short term, the Government will scrutinise the market to seek raised service standards, including minimum notice periods for policy renewals so that businesses can shop around for employers' liability cover—an important point that the hon. Lady raised. We will work with the insurance industry towards fairer risk-related premiums to reward companies with a strong health and safety record—in particular, small and medium-sized businesses—and we will reform enforcement to ensure that cowboy companies dodging insurance cover cannot gain advantage over law-abiding businesses. We will also develop with insurers self-assessment packages to enable firms to provide insurers with better information on how they manage health and safety risks.
In the longer term, the Government will focus on legal costs, maximising the benefit of existing initiatives and considering faster and more cost-effective dispute resolution arrangements. We will make rehabilitation play a more central role in the UK compensation system and engage with business, insurers and other stakeholders to further evaluate the evidence for separating long-term occupational disease risks from accident risks. More evidence would be needed to assess whether a radical separation is justified, but that is nevertheless under active consideration.
Some insurers have excellent service standards, releasing renewal terms at least 30 days before the date of renewal. However, many businesses have reported much shorter notice periods, leaving them little time to shop around for a better deal or find a specialist broker to help them do it. We are keen to ensure that businesses receive renewal terms early enough to enable them to explore alternative sources of cover if they are unhappy

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with the quote. We will therefore be working with the insurance industry to review renewals performance and encourage improved standards. The ABI is an important player in that game.
There are other improvements to be made to the existing system. For example, one major concern for businesses is that premiums do not reflect how good their health and safety practices are. That situation can be resolved only if insurers are prepared to reduce premiums on the basis of good evidence of health and safety, and if employers can and do provide that information. Initiatives to improve the process are under way, including trade associations working with insurers to negotiate favourable rates for members, based on their collective health and safety record; and the development of health and safety assessment packages for businesses that enable them to give better information to insurers leading to lower premiums. We will assist in supporting and further development of those initiatives. In particular, we will work to join up the risk assessments of the Health and Safety Executive and insurers to help provide a common basis for advice to business.
The majority of businesses are responsible employers and ensure that their workers are protected from accidents and from the consequences of accidents, but there are still some firms that are not. To tackle the unfairness of competition from such cowboy firms, we will be reforming the arrangements for enforcement of employers liability insurance. Many people are concerned about the impact of legal costs on the price of employers liability insurance. An estimate prepared for the insurance industry put the increase in claimants' costs—legal fees and medical assessment of injuries—at approximately 50 per cent. over three years.
We are currently doing some work on the costs of smaller employers liability insurance claims of less than£15,000 in value, because they typically involve a higher percentage of legal costs. We are considering other options that could reduce costs. An existing scheme that structures costs for low-value motor accident claims might also be appropriate for employers liability insurance, for example. We would like to see whether alternative dispute resolution processes could lead to quicker, better resolution of cases.
Lembit Öpik: I apologise for arriving late. Have the Government given any consideration to the radical change of replacing our litigious environment with an arbitration system? That has been tried successfully in other countries. The Government could add to that some kind of limited liability, underwritten by them.
Alan Johnson: Yes, we are considering that, and we are aware of the examples of other countries that we might follow.
On rehabilitation, it is right that workers harmed through the negligence of their employers should have a right of redress. However, the current system views that issue largely in terms of financial compensation, rather than concentrating on trying to help the injured person
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return to health and, we hope, to work. Rehabilitation needs to play a more central role in the employers liability insurance system in order to improve the outcomes for injured employees and employers alike. That is a long-term goal, but we are determined to make real progress towards it.
The hon. Lady mentioned insurance premium tax. We are not convinced of the case for cutting IPT. At 5 per cent., the UK's basic rate of IPT is one of the lowest in Europe, and businesses can offset IPT costs against taxable profits, reducing their corporation tax. As IPT has only a marginal effect on insurance costs for UK businesses, reducing it would not prevent the difficulties that some firms face if their insurance premiums rise. Furthermore, such a change would add administrative costs to insurers. We are not convinced of that argument, although she will have realised that other Departments have a say in the matter, too.
The recent significant increases in the price of employers liability insurance have been a problem for many firms, which is why the hon. Lady is right to raise the issue. There are things that businesses can do for themselves; early communication with insurance brokers can help to establish the information that is needed to make a strong case for lower premiums and in obtaining information about the likely size of any increases. Contacting a good, specialist broker through the British Insurance Brokers Association can help, and trade associations may have specialist schemes or advice for businesses.
I have tried to outline the steps that we are planning to take to improve the function of the market for employers liability insurance and to improve the outcomes of the system, but we will also continue to monitor closely developments in the market and we will consider any new information that becomes available. We will report in the autumn on the progress that has been made and any further steps that we intend to take. However, we cannot do that alone. Insurers will be key to improving the operation of the employers liability insurance system. It is the insurers that set prices and set standards for customer service, and it is their standards that are undoubtedly under the spotlight now. There is pressure on insurers to do their bit to resolve and tackle the problems.
Similarly, business bodies and trade unions have a lot to offer in developing workable proposals for rehabilitation, and in developing with insurers ways for firms to provide better and more pertinent information about their risk-management practices. Ongoing work by the Health and Safety Commission and Health and Safety Executive to cut the number of injuries at work will play a part, as will further work on the insurance market by the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Services Authority. There are no quick and easy solutions to the problem, as I know the hon. Lady recognises, but we are committed to playing our part in helping businesses to resolve the problems, which have undoubtedly become an obstacle to business competitiveness in the past year or so.
11.30 am
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

London Olympic Bid
2 pm
Mr. Graham Stringer: Mr. McWilliam, I am delighted to be able to discuss the London Olympic bid.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. John McWilliam): Order. Personally, I do not mind references to Mr. McWilliam, but in this Chair, I am Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Stringer: My apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am delighted to have the opportunity to discuss the London Olympic bid in the context of what it means not only for regional policy, but for national economic policy. There is an assumption that being successful in the bid for the Olympics is both good for the country and good for the regions. That is a sister assumption to the expression that is often used that what is good for London is good for the country. As I develop my speech, I hope to show that while sometimes that is true, it is not necessarily always so.
We live in a country with huge regional disparities. I shall not rehearse all the statistics that show them, but the gross domestic product per head in London and the south-east is between 50 and 80 per cent. higher than elsewhere in the country. London and the south-east is the richest region in Europe, and every other region in England is below the European average. That is not a happy state of affairs. Life expectancy is longer in London and the south-east. Mortality and morbidity rates are higher in the regions than they are in London and the south-east. That is not something that has happened in the past two or three years. It has been a problem for a century or more.
In the north-east, the north-west and Yorkshire and Humberside, levels of unemployment have been running for a considerable period at twice the level that they are in London and the south-east. I do not believe that that is unrelated to some of the figures on public expenditure, or to the fact that 80 per cent. of public expenditure on transport is spent in the south-east of England.
I refer to a startling statistic; the overspend—not the cost—on the Jubilee line was more than the total expenditure on transport elsewhere in the country. Trying to disaggregate the figures for public expenditure is a difficult task. It is not straightforward, because that is not how the Treasury keeps the books. However, on average, a third more is spent on public services in London and the south-east than in the regions.
That is bad enough, but if we take the latest statistics—I am assured by the Library that they are to be found in the White Paper, "Your Region, Your Choice"—it is clear that the gap is not getting narrower, but growing, on all those figures. That is leading to an unhealthy vicious circle, whereby there is larger and faster growth in the south-east and higher unemployment in the regions, so there is migration into the south-east, which is leading to problems such as houses being built on greenfield sites where people do not want them. That is leading to a crisis in, and—in some cases—a collapse of public services.
Mr. Philip Hammond: Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the higher
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public spending of which he speaks does not necessarily translate into better quality public services in London and the south-east" Certainly, my constituents, and those of many of my hon. Friends with constituencies in the south-east, would argue that the services delivered there are inferior to those in many other parts of the country, where costs are lower.
Mr. Stringer: I would accept that there is no simple and straightforward equation. What the hon. Gentleman says is right in some respects, but in some cases there are better services as a result of the higher levels of expenditure in the south-east. We are getting into a vicious circle; because of the increase in expenditure in the south-east, pressure is growing on those public services on which more money is spent, and as a result even more is spent on them. They get not better, but worse. I partly, but not completely, accept the hon. Gentleman's point.
Of course, overall, the issue is not simple, and I am not saying that if we evened out the public spending we would even out the regional disparities. There is no getting away from where London is, physically. It is closer to the major markets of Europe and has the City of London—one of the greatest generators of wealth in Europe, if not the world—at its centre. It has a marvellous heritage and is one of two, three or four great world cities depending on how we define that. Even if we evened out the spending issues, London would do well.
Government policy should be directed at ameliorating, not exacerbating, the problem of regional disparities. In the White Paper, "Your Region, Your Choice", there are some fascinating tables. Many of us who live and represent constituencies outside London believe that there are too many civil servants working in London and the south-east who could easily be relocated in the regions. The White Paper shows that although in the first couple of years of the Labour Government the number of public servants dropped in all regions, including London and the south-east, in the last year for which figures are quoted, there were more civil servants in London and the south-east than there were in 1997, and fewer in the regions. That is fascinating.
It is extraordinary that numbers of civil servants are increasing at a faster rate in London than elsewhere in the country. I do not necessarily think that lower-paid public servants and their jobs should be moved out of London, but we would probably have different policies if some members of the First Division and some policymakers saw what life was like for those living in Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and other parts of the regions. Government policy should be focused on trying to deal with that unfairness.
Mr. Edward Davey: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's remarks on the civil service and the possibility of it moving some of its jobs out of London and the south-east. Does he not think that devolution to the English regional assemblies will have that effect? I have sometimes heard him speak against that sort of model. Would he be in favour of that, or does he want to move the civil service out in other ways?
Mr. Stringer: The hon. Gentleman will have me shooting into his open goal. It was interesting that the

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first impact of setting up the regional development agencies—two of the regions were not getting assistance—was to redistribute money to London and the south-east, because no extra money was put in. If I genuinely believed that regional assemblies could reverse some of the effects that I am concerned about, I would agree with the hon. Gentleman and his party. The evidence is that they could not, and that that argument camouflages the problems that we are talking about.
I want to use the London Olympic bid, and how it was arrived at, to examine how major national projects have ended up not doing very well because of the way in which decisions were taken. Let us consider Picketts Lock. Some of us in this Room, and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), had meetings with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and there is no doubt that if the Government had not been obsessed with having a stadium in an unsuitable place, we could have held the world athletics championships in a slightly larger stadium than that in which we held the Commonwealth games. Manchester City would have had a slightly larger stadium—I am not sure that I approve of that, as I am not a Manchester City supporter. For some reason, however, officials and members of the Government insisted on taking that decision.
I do not know whether there are Members present who represent Birmingham constituencies, but there is no doubt that Birmingham's bid for the dome was sound and would probably have led to a better and more accessible project for most people in the country than the one in Greenwich on the other side of the river. As a country, we were saddled with a project, the contents of which nobody was clear about, in a difficult-to-reach part of London. That resulted in overspend on the Jubilee line, which was greater than transport expenditure elsewhere.
We could have a debate on the national stadium. Manchester was cheated out of it when the Football Association turned from judge to competitor; Birmingham, too, was fiddled out of it. We now have a project that has trebled in cost and has not yet delivered. I could continue listing large projects, the decision-making processes for which seem to demand holding things in London, which exacerbates the problems of the region.
Today's debate is about the bid to host the Olympic games in 2012. It is an excellent example of my thesis because it reveals a flawed process that has led to a flawed bid. There will be repercussions for us all. Let us think what process should have taken place in a rational world. We are engaged in the toughest international competition in the world: hosting the Olympic games. Many cities want to do it, and it is as tough a competition as one gets. It is not always clean, and some cities might bribe and cheat.
A rational process that examined the benefits for the economy and the region would have questioned why we wanted the Olympics. Is it because we want a great festival of sporting activity? If it is, bidding for the Olympics is an extraordinarily expensive way of going about it. It amount to billions of pounds worth of
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expenditure and resources. More money could be put into sport by not holding the Olympics. That debate should have been heard, but it was not.
If the real reason for bidding was regeneration, a serious case needs to be made for that, because there are some sad stories of relatively good Olympic and other multi-sport games that have not brought the regeneration that was expected. Sydney has a stadium that is not used; the investment and regeneration that was expected to follow did not happen. Kuala Lumpur, which hosted the Commonwealth games in 1998, has a host of empty facilities. Atlanta got little regeneration benefit; it has failed to provide basic facilities. There are two multi-sport events that led to real regeneration. First, the Barcelona games in 1992 turned the city around, opened up the sea front, regenerated the area, improved transport and brought genuine benefits to the people of Barcelona. Secondly, the Manchester Commonwealth games was integrated into a process, with an after-use for both the sporting facilities and everything else. Thus it has started to regenerate east Manchester.
Mr. George Howarth: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his good fortune in securing the debate. Will he acknowledge that the newly emerging entente cordiale between Manchester and Liverpool, which started with the Commonwealth games, and which has appeared more recently with the capital of culture bid, for which Liverpool was successful, does not mean that our position on the Olympic bid is anti-London and the south-east? Will he also accept that he has made a cogent, closely argued case for the appropriateness of the site, or the location, rather than making a point that is anti-London and the south-east? It is simply a matter of where is the most appropriate place and where the most benefits could be located.
Mr. Stringer: I would be delighted to support an Olympic bid from any city in this country that was capable of hosting it, whether that was London, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham or Glasgow, that had gone through a proper, fair process of evaluation and competition. I was pleased to support Liverpool's bid for city of culture. People laughed when I said that, but it was true. Of course, Manchester was not bidding. Although I represent a Manchester constituency, I was delighted to support that bid, as I would support other cities. Sometimes cities compete, but if they are not competing, it is sensible if they co-operate. That is what happened between Manchester and Liverpool.
Mr. Hammond: The hon. Gentleman has argued that bidding for the Olympics is not an efficient way of spending money to generate improvements in the quality of British sport, or even to generate improvements in regeneration activity. Why did his early-day motion 134 call on the Government not to support the bid until a competition between all cities in the UK had been held? That suggests that the hon. Gentleman's position is based a little bit on the fact that the bid is coming from London, rather than Manchester. Can he allay that concern?
Mr. Stringer: I am sorry if I am not being clear enough. I am saying that a competitive process would

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enable the country to determine the reasons for the bid. If they were for sport, a cost could be put against that; if they were for regeneration, one could work through whether or not the arguments for that were sound. I shall come to that later. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.
I have mentioned two cases in which real regeneration has happened after major multi-sport events. However, in a larger number of cases, local people have been disappointed, because regeneration has not taken place and they have been saddled with a large bill. Getting such things right is complex and difficult, otherwise more cities would have done it. A competition should have determined the relevant issues; an evaluation would then have taken place.
What actually happened was different. In 1995, about 18 months after Manchester failed to win the bid to host the 2000 games, the British Olympic Association said that in future it would only support London. That is the association's own business. However, about seven years later it came to the Government and said, "That is our position: it is based on a survey of members of the International Olympic Committee that we took at the end of 1994. Will you support us?" Eventually, the war in Iraq intervened. After a Select Committee report, the Government said yes. That is a flawed process, because we have not been able to examine the issues in an open competition, and that has consequences.
I remind hon. Members that London tried and failed twice to be the Great Britain and Northern Ireland nominee to host the Olympic games—once against Birmingham, the other time against Manchester. It tried to be the host city for the Commonwealth games in the Queen's jubilee year of 2002, and it failed against Manchester. It is not a virgin in such competitions—it has tried and failed.
That reminds me of the Arsene Wenger philosophy of life: it does not matter what the results are on the park because we are still the best team. That is the approach that the Government and the British Olympic Association have taken to the bid: it is rather like if an organisation—a development corporation or a housing association—had said, "We want to build these houses, and we have got a mate who is a builder who will build them all, so we will not bother with a tendering process." What would the Government have said about that? That organisation would have been in administration or taken control of very quickly if it were a public body, and if it were a private body, the shareholders would swiftly have had something to say about that.
Lynne Jones: Does my hon. Friend not think that the process that he outlined earlier of the concentration of many civil servants and national authorities in London is itself part of that vicious spiral that leads to a failure to assess the potential of other cities—in the midlands, the north or anywhere else in the country—for major projects because of lack of knowledge of what those areas have to offer?
Mr. Stringer: My hon. Friend is right: there are civil servants who came to Manchester during the Commonwealth games to see the facilities that were provided whose jaws are still dropped. They often said, "We did not realise anything like this was happening", which was slightly surprising, as their responsibilities covered sport.
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It is wrong not to have a competitive process. Nobody—no member of the IOC or journalist—has ever been able to predict what members of the IOC will do when it comes to vote, because they lie—obscure is the politer term. They do not tell the truth about which way they are going to vote. It is part of their business not to tell people what they are going to do, so the outcome is nearly always a surprise. Nobody predicted that the 1998 winter Olympics would be in Nagano: everybody assumed that it would be in Salt Lake City. Everybody was wrong, including members of the IOC.
Something else has not been taken into account that is revealed in the Select Committee report. Craig Reedie, IOC member and chair of the BOA, told the Select Committee that the current policy of the IOC is to go for smaller cities rather than large cities. About half the cities chosen over the past 50 or 60 years are capital cities. However, it is now the IOC's policy to go for smaller cities, I assume that is why Germany has chosen Leipzig over Berlin. All these factors could have been taken into account.
Jim Knight: If our Olympic bid is successful, South Dorset is lined up to host the sailing events in Portland harbour, and that is regardless of whether the bid comes from London, Manchester or anywhere else. I try to approach this matter objectively, because we have the best sailing waters in the country.
Given that the decision has been made to go for London, and given how difficult it is to persuade the International Olympic Committee to back a bid, should we not take the opportunity, after letting off steam, to unify behind the bid' We should try to make the most of it for the regions, through training camps, staging football events and by making the most of the chance that it gives us, as a unified Parliament and a unified country, rather than trying to knock it down—a rather British disease—as a result of which none of us gets anything.
Mr. Stringerrose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions should be short.
Mr. Stringer: I hope that my hon. Friend will follow my arguments in the last 10 minutes or so of my speech. I suspect that the bid will not be successful because of the way it was put together. Had there been a competition, London would not necessarily have beaten Manchester or Birmingham—they and other cities have enormous strengths, which should have been tested—but it would have brought Londoners together.
As a close participant, my view of the bids for the 1996 Olympic games was that the best bid by far was Toronto's. Toronto lost because of a local campaign called Bread not Circuses—a good slogan. The organisation wrote to every IOC member saying, "Don't come here." The fact that London did not compete meant that the bid did not involve the whole community. From the appendices of the Select Committee report, one can see incipient bread-not-circuses groups. The environmental forum was one such group. Without competing, we do not get that support.
My hon. Friend noted that the regions are alienated. It is difficult enough representing seats in the regions, with all their problems and successes, without a process

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being unfair. However, I was in Newcastle last week talking to business people, local government leaders and academics, and I sensed their anger at the way in which national decisions are taken on major public spending projects.
Mr. Kevan Jones: Would my hon. Friend agree not only that the process causes alienation, but that it will cost regions such as the north-east money? I refer to a question that I asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport about predictions that an initial 4 per cent. of lottery funding, possibly rising to 11 per cent., will be diverted to the Olympic bid. That is bound to have a direct effect on regions such as the north-east and northwest, as they will not be able to get lottery funding for sporting activities.
Mr. Stringer: My hon. Friend makes precisely the same point. The bid has split support within the sports world and within London. I was about to say that funds will be diverted not only from other regional lottery projects but from grass-root sport. 'The problem applies mainly to athletics, but it also affects other sports; it is the lack of support for athletes between their leaving school at the ages of 16, 17 or 18 and becoming elite athletes, and doing well in international competition.
The way in which the decision was taken means that such people are less likely to get support. It is a bit like the London community: splitting the regions splits the sporting community. It is not a good way to bid; it is not the way to be successful. It should be about uniting people. It is therefore unlikely that we will win. Even if we lose, however, as we lost the World cup bid, we can still do well both for our country and our city—and for our sports.
I understand that the bidding process will not help the regions, but we should consider the benefits had London been successful. One of the weakest comments in the Ove Arup report—at least in those parts that we were allowed to see; I understand that it was doctored because officials realised how silly it was—was that London's image would be improved by hosting the Olympics. London is a great world city. Wherever in the world one goes, people know what London has to offer. London is the one place in the United Kingdom that does not need to have its image improved.
We are likely to end up—this will annoy everybody and therefore unite the country—having had an odd competition for a national stadium that resulted in something that was not to the original specification, with two stadiums, one of them in east London, where it will be difficult to find a use for it. West Ham has been mentioned, although I understand that it has not been approached. London will have two stadiums, although the rest of the country will think that it should not have had one.
It is said that benefits will come from tourism. Those who say that tourism will increase during the Olympic games have only to study what happened in Los Angeles. The easiest time in the past 20 years to get a hotel bed in Los Angeles, other than after an earthquake, was during the 1984 Olympics. During any
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Olympic games, nobody who is not on Olympic business goes near them. One does not take the children to Disneyworld if one expects to get caught up in Olympic traffic. The chances are that tourism to both London and the regions, London being the gateway to the regions, will drop during the Olympics. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) is smiling. I ask him to consider whether the evidence of what happened nearly 20 years ago in Los Angeles bears out what I have said.
Mr. Hammond: I was smiling because I wondered whether the hon. Gentleman was going to suggest a Government initiative to encourage Londoners to go out during the Olympic games and sample the delights of Manchester and other parts of the English regions.
Mr. Stringer: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, although I am not sure whether he intended to. They are always welcome.
Pete Wishart: The hon. Gentleman might like to examine the situation and example of Australia. During the last Olympic games there were great complaints from the rest of the states that Sydney got all the business and there was no tourist traffic outwith the metropolis.
Mr. Stringer: I know less about Sydney, because I did not go there, but the hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Because much of the Ove Arup report has remained secret, it is difficult to work out whether this is a regeneration project. I have heard estimates—it does not matter if we divide them by 10, they are such extraordinary figures—that the cost per job created is 6 million. I am not making that figure up; there are people involved in the Olympic decision who say that a small number of permanent jobs will be created. If we divide them into the billions of pounds that will be spent, that is what each job created will cost.
I am not sure which hon. Member represents the lower Lea Valley. It is not an area that I have been fortunate enough to visit. However, going by the reports that I have read, it might well be that the uncertainties caused by an Olympic bid—plans are changed and land values go up with hope—will delay the development of the Lea Valley rather than helping it. I can see that that is probable if the plans are not integrated and thought out. I understand that the area needs more houses and better infrastructure, which would help the housing situation in London. However, it is likely to get delay and uncertainty and a stadium that could be of no use—except for a fortnight or so—because nobody is sure what it is for.
We shall be left with a situation in which the southeast overheats again. I shall not repeat the arguments that I advanced earlier. There will be a drag to the southeast that will add to the vicious cycle. Many amazing claims have been made for the bid. It is said that the games will improve everybody's health and will increase tourism and bring regeneration. If one examines the situation, as it should have been examined in a competition, most of those claims fall apart.
When we debated the matter on the Floor of the House, I said that if London was the answer to the question, it was a very strange question. I believe that it

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will go some way to worsening the regional disparities that we are so concerned about. When one reads what is sometimes said in the nastier parts of the south-east press about cities that have been through difficult times—such as Liverpool, Newcastle and Manchester—it is said that those cities have a handout culture. What could represent more of a handout culture than saying a city can have the Olympics without any competition, or saying that a city can have two stadiums, while the rest of the country goes without? A city that could not deliver on Picketts Lock is told that it should have had the World Athletics Championships, and will get it next time, even though Birmingham is more accessible. What could be more of a handout culture than that?
I do not believe that we have regional disparity solely because of public expenditure. Public expenditure should be part of the solution. Nor do I believe that it is because people in the regions are feckless and are not working. It is because we do not have a level playing field, and there will not be one until London stops receiving benefits that it does not need. The bid will not be beneficial to the country, or to the regions.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next hon. Member, I remind everyone that the purpose of the debate is to enable the hon. Member who secured the debate to hear a reply from the Minister. I will be calling for the winding-up speeches no later than 3.25 pm. Members' contributions should be very brief.
2.36 pm
Mr. Gareth Thomas: I am delighted to be taking part in the debate and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) on securing it. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to him and his fellow hon. Members for Manchester for their success in securing the Commonwealth games.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but it seems I cannot count. My eyesight has let me down. I shall be calling for the winding-up speeches at 2.55 pm.
Mr. Thomas: Thank you for telling me that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was paying tribute to hon. Members who represent Manchester for their success in securing the Commonwealth games. I also congratulate them on the way those games were organised, which facilitated the redevelopment of the east Manchester area. The games were particularly successful in achieving that core objective.
I do not believe that the Government are wrong in their approach to regional strategy. The policy of implementing regional development agencies, and of examining the concept of regional assemblies—where they are wanted—is the right way to tackle many of the disparities to which my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley alluded. He will not be surprised to learn that I do not share his views on public expenditure, although I congratulate him on his continuing advocacy for the north-west. He will not be upset to learn that he is notorious among hon. Members who represent London for his advocacy of his region.
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The Government were right to back a London bid for the Olympics. My hon. Friend alluded to the decision of the British Olympic Association, taken after consultations with members of the International Olympic Committee. That came after three non-London bids from the UK in 1992, 1996 and 2000 had failed. Many of the issues that hindered past bids were areas around transport and governance. It is fair to say that the governance issue has been resolved and that the transport issue is on the way to being resolved. It will certainly be resolved by the time of a 2012 Olympics.
One of the keys to the 2012 Olympics, should we be successful, must be to ensure that they are a people's games. My hon. Friend alluded to the success of the Bread Not Circuses group in preventing Toronto from winning its bid and that sends a powerful message to those involved in preparing London's bid. We must have a people's games—one that pulls in volunteers from not only communities in London but the regions of the UK. It must be a people's games in terms of the ticket pricing and in the sense that people in London and the regions can participate in designing its legacy. We must use the next two years, as we work out the bid's design, to ensure that we maximise the benefits of a successful Olympic games for the whole United Kingdom, not just for London.
We must recognise that the bid would be for the whole UK, even though the games would be based in London. Most events would be held there, although some would have to be staged outside London. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) alluded to the fact that the sailing events would be held outside London. Many matches in the football tournament would be held elsewhere in the country, although the final would clearly have to be at a rebuilt Wembley stadium. Clearly, Manchester and Liverpool, with their excellent stadiums, would play a key role in staging parts of the games.
It is also worth bearing in mind that more than 190 nations take part in the games. They need training camps in the run-up to the games to allow their athletes to acclimatise. There would, therefore, be considerable opportunities for cities and towns throughout the UK to prepare bids to host teams.
Mr. Andy Reed: Obviously, Loughborough would be a prime consideration. We already have excellent facilities and we would look to host one of the major teams. In that respect, the legacy of the games is not just a matter of the excitement caused by having a major team in the town. It is clear from the experience of the British Olympic Association on the gold coast, in Australia, that the Olympics have a lasting legacy, which is about more than the people involved for the short period of the games. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Mr. Thomas: I do. The British Olympic Association is highlighting the revenue that it is generating for the economy of Cyprus. where the British team for next year's games in Athens will prepare. Clearly, Loughborough, with its excellent sports facilities, will be able to make a powerful case for hosting one of the leading teams in the run-up to the games.
There would therefore be a regional dimension to the football tournament, the training camps and one or two other events, which would have to be held outside

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London. A further reason why a London Olympic bid would be a bid for the whole UK is that London is a vital gateway to the rest of the country. It remains true that when London prospers, the UK as a whole prospers. Estimates show that London makes a net contribution of £20 billion a year to the UK economy and London's GDP represents about 20 per cent. of the UK's total output. We are also a key gateway in terms of tourism, and 75 per cent. of all international visitors arrive in London. A conservative estimate s suggests that the UK tourism industry would get a £500,000 million boost from hosting the Olympics. Furthermore, more than 4 million jobs in the rest of the UK depend on London's demand for goods and services. Jobs and revenues that were delivered into London in the context of the Olympic games would, therefore, have a direct benefit by creating jobs and revenue streams in the rest of the UK.
London is the best chance that we have of winning an Olympic bid. That is the view of the British Olympic Association, which is the body that determines whether we bid. London also has the benefit of history. It is therefore important that we continue to invest in the infrastructure, such as transport and housing, that London will need for its bid to be successful.
On the area of London that has been earmarked for the games, other hon. Members will no doubt stress how prosperous London is and point out that its economy is growing fast, but it is also worth mentioning the fact that London is a city with some stark inequalities. London is home to some of the most deprived areas in the country: some 20 of the 88 most deprived local authority districts in England are in London. The boroughs in which the games would be staged—Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham—are not famed for their tenants' reputation for prosperity. That subregion of east London is in need of both investment and resources, and the cultural and sporting boost that the games bring.
Just as the Commonwealth games delivered significant regeneration for east Manchester, those of us in London, although not necessarily those representing the part of London affected, hope that the Olympic games would help to drive and facilitate the regeneration of east London. I do not share the view that an Olympic bid would damage the regeneration of the Thames gateway area and neither do the London Development Agency, which is responsible for much of the preparation of that strategy, or any of the local authorities in that area.
Our Olympic bid offers opportunities not only to regenerate east London, which is a part of the country that has been crying out for investment for some time, but to spread the benefits of such a great sporting festival around the country. On Monday, an all-party group was established to consider such issues and I hope that the hon. Members who take part in this debate will also participate in the work of that group, so that we can maximise the benefits that a successful Olympic bid would bring to the whole of the United Kingdom, not just to London.
2.47 pm
John Barrett: I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) on a thoughtful yet at times pessimistic speech about the prospects for the bid. I also congratulate him on giving an opportunity to Members who represent constituencies outside London to debate the effect that the Olympic bid could have on their constituencies.
Scotland could and should play an important and integral part not only in the bid but, if it is successful, in the event itself. I am not a lone Scot in that regard: the chief executive of the Scottish Football Association has got behind the idea that Scotland should play a part in the Olympics. Furthermore, a recent ICM opinion poll showed that 82 per cent. of people in the United Kingdom support the principle of a bid, whereas 89 per cent. of Scots support the idea of a bid and the same proportion recognise the economic benefits that the Olympic games could bring. A successful Olympic bid would give us the opportunity to showcase to the entire world the whole of the UK, not just London, where the focus of the games would be.
Much has been made of the increase in the number of visitors to the country that the Olympics would bring. Important though that is, the argument is not only about bringing tourists and their money for the duration of the games, but about showing the world when its eyes are upon us what we have to offer visitors to our country. Anyone who is involved in tourism will say that some of the most effective methods of advertising the country are through television and simple word of mouth. Boosting the numbers visiting Scotland and the UK during the Olympics would give us the opportunity to send millions of visitors away with a positive experience, eager to tell their friends and families about it. As one who represents a constituency in a city that is heavily dependent on tourism, I believe that that is very desirable indeed. We in Edinburgh share the experience of the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley of helping to host the Commonwealth games some years ago. However, I realise that games can have their ups and downs—like the Sheffield student games, the games in Edinburgh had one or two problems at the time.
Improving the profile of the country is one important aspect, but there are other issues worth raising. The distance between Scotland and London might be thought a problem, but during the Sydney games, which received credit as one of the most successful ever, the football tournament was held in several cities and spread between Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra. The players taking part in the tournament and the spectators in Brisbane were more than 400 miles from Sydney, and in Adelaide they were more than 700 miles away from the main Olympic village. Edinburgh is only 320 miles by air and 400 miles by road from London.
Transport infrastructure would have to be seriously considered. I am sure that the Minister will discuss it with the Secretary of State for Transport, who represents the Edinburgh constituency in which the excellent Murrayfield stadium, the home of Scottish rugby, is located. I hope that will be given priority in any successful bid and that other Scottish Members who are Ministers—the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths), who has responsibility for small businesses,

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and the Advocate-General for Scotland (Dr. Clark)—will both promote the interests of the city they represent and pursue wider Scottish interests in the Olympic bid. Edinburgh, Glasgow and the rest of Scotland have much to offer the Olympics.
I am keen to hear what discussions the Minister has had with representatives of the Scottish Executive about Scotland's role in the Olympic bid. Before the recent elections, the then Scottish sports Minister, Elaine Murray, spoke positively about Scotland's role not only in football but possibly basketball and even rowing, although we cannot guarantee good weather. As she said, there are excellent facilities in Scotland and we should try to maximise the benefits for the Scottish economy and encourage the dispersal of a number of events throughout the UK.
I understand the concerns that some hon. Members have raised. They rightly do not want money allocated for regeneration projects and poverty reduction in their area to be pushed aside to make way for the bid. When meat is added to the bones of the bid, the Minister would do well to take note of those concerns and give their views proper consideration.
I am a realistic optimist and I believe that there is enormous potential for the Scottish and UK tourism industry and the economy to benefit from the bid if we play things right. The prizes are there to be won and all parts of the country can and should gain from them, but we need the Minister and the Government to ensure that it is a genuine UK bid and not a London bid, so that the whole country can benefit from it.
2.52 pm
Mr. David Watts: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) for securing this important debate, which affects all the regions in Britain.
Time is short, and I shall be brief. I am not anti-sport, anti-Olympics or anti-London, but although the northwest and other regions are not anti-London, it is clear that London is anti-regions. When it was announced that Liverpool would be the city of culture, the London Evening Standard attacked the people, the buildings and the cultural base of Merseyside. People from the northwest and Merseyside are not anti-London—it is the other way round—but we do want to know why major events always have to be staged in London.
The dome and the national stadium could have been outside the capital, yet they ended up in London—as has the Olympic bid. They have something else in common, too: they have been a financial disaster and a disaster for regional policy. For 18 years under the Conservative Government, there was no regional policy; the strange thing is that now we have such a policy, the funding is not following it. Although the Government continue to make the case for a stronger regional policy, the funding streams—as shown in recent announcements on housing and transport—shift more resources from the north-west and other regions to the south-east and London.
It is not surprising that the gap in GDP between the north-west and other regions and London is growing wider. Unless the Government starts to address the issues, the economy will continue to diverge. That divergence damages the south-east and London and the
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rest of the country: it means massive house price inflation, shortages of skills and major congestion problems in the south-east, and unemployment, lower GDP than the European average and under-investment in the regions. London and the south-east therefore need real funding streams to follow the policy.
It is useless for the Government to keep restating that they are in favour of regional policy and of bridging the GDP gap between the north and the south unless they put their money where their mouth is. The bid was another opportunity for them to invest in other parts of the country and make a real difference. However, we know from the announcement that even more resources will be taken away from the north-west and given to the lottery.
The national lottery did not expand its budget when it introduced its last game. There was less money for sport and culture, not more. If we introduce a new game and ring-fence the funding for the Olympic bid, there will be a reduction in funding for my area and, I suspect, for most parts of the country. My area has already been refused two lottery grants because there is now less money available for good causes. The decision and the way in which it will be financed means that there will be even fewer resources for sport.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley made several arguments in favour of the scheme being introduced elsewhere. It is crucial that the decisions that we take are open and even-handed. We must know what the rules are and how we can compare one bid against another. I do not see any of those factors in this Olympic bid. As I said, I am not against the Olympic bid, but I do not believe that people can be moved around London unless there is major investment in public transport. Hon. Members who represent London constituencies have said that they expect the Government to follow their announcement with a major investment in public transport. There will be less money for the regions if that major investment is made.
The imbalance must be addressed. The Government need to back up their regional policy by ensuring that funding streams follow. Will the Minister assure me that regions such as the north-west will not lose out because of the Government's decision? Will he confirm that the current level of funding given to the regions will be ring-fenced and that the Government will make up for any reduction in sports funding because of the lottery? It is crucial for the whole country that those assurances are given today and that the Government's response is positive.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) has risen, but I shall call him if he promises to take only five minutes. Otherwise, I shall not.
2.58 pm
Mr. David Clelland: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The north-east has the disadvantage of having Scotland to the north, with its financial, political and democratic advantages. It also suffers from the north-south divide, to which my hon. Friend the Member for

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Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) referred at the start of the debate. The Olympic bid may well exacerbate that divide. That fear motivated me to table early-day motion 1254, which now has the signatures of 74 hon. Members. The Minister may try to assure us today that the Olympic bid will not have a detrimental effect on the regions, but some of us in the north-cast believe that the bid is already having such an effect.
The Minister will be aware that the previous Conservative Government introduced the concept of a sports academy, which was to be based in Sheffield with satellites spread around the region. Gateshead was to be the north-east regional satellite. The Labour Government modified the concept to the institute of sport, but it remained as it was and Gateshead remained the north-east hub. The original plan was for £150 million of capital expenditure to be distributed around the 10 hubs. Some hub sites have developed. Sheffield, Loughborough, Bath and Manchester are hubs as a result of the spin-off from the Commonwealth games.
Gateshead has done some serious planning, and was about to enter a detailed study and design stage when Sport England announced a moratorium on projects funded by lottery money. Gateshead could not take the financial risk, and immediately had to put its plans on hold. Sport England announced that it was to undertake a stocktake of all lottery-funded projects, and told Gateshead that there was a distinct possibility that Sport England would de-commit—an interesting word—from some projects, including the sports academy hub site plan. The decision on that was expected on 14 April. It was then deferred to May, and deferred yet again on 3 June. We believe that the Olympic bid is already making Sport England rethink its distribution of funds throughout the country. The Olympic-sized pool that Newcastle city council was hoping to develop now seems to be in jeopardy, and Sport England is unwilling to commit itself to funding.
We are concerned that the Olympic bid will further exacerbate the situation, and we cannot stand idly by and watch that happen. If the Olympic bid is being pursued on the basis of prestige for London and the development of east London—which I accept is much needed—but at the expense of developments in other regions, it will not be in the interests of the country as a whole. Will the Minister reassure us that that will not be the case?
3 pm
Mr. Edward Davey: I shall begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) on securing today's debate. I shall surprise him by saying that I agree with him on at least one or two points.
First, the hon. Gentleman's savage attack on his own Government's handling of the choice is fair comment. It was valid to point out that the Government delayed the process for so long that it could not be competitive. He drew out some of the disadvantages of the lack of competitiveness in the process. I agree that the Government will take the blame if the bid fails.
Secondly, he was right to highlight the need to tackle regional disparities, and to refer to the various tables in "Your Region, Your Choice", which showed those
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disparities clearly. The Government have not addressed that problem. I criticised the Deputy Prime Minister when he announced the sustainable communities plan, because it put four times as much money for housing investment into one region as it put into the five northern regions together. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Government as a whole are failing to tackle those issues.
Many London Members want to share London's prosperity with the rest of the country, because our problems of overheating would be helped if there were greater regional balance. I hope that in supporting the bid, the Government will ensure that the rest of the country will benefit as well if London is successful. Investment in regional airports is one example.
The Liberal Democrats strongly support regional devolution and, unlike the hon. Gentleman, we believe that it is the surest way to remove the anti-regions bias that some people feel exists in Whitehall. I want some Departments to be broken up and merged, with civil servants and their power pushed down to the regions to provide long-term dynamic energy for tackling regional disparities. That is an ambitious agenda, and I know that the hon. Gentleman shares some of our views. However, he made a false link between the issues and London's Olympic bid, and failed to address some key questions.
The most important question that would have faced the Cabinet when it eventually got round to discussing the bid was the question of which city could win. The hon. Gentleman skirted over that by saying that London lost in competitive bids against Birmingham and twice against Manchester, and he seemed to assume that if there had been a competitive bid this time, it would have lost again. He is wrong. The Birmingham and both Manchester bids lost badly in the final round, with the second Manchester bid getting just as many votes from the International Olympic Committee as the first. [Interruption.] Well, the briefing that I had was that Manchester received 11 votes on both occasions. I regret that and wish that Manchester and Birmingham had won, but unfortunately the experience of bidding by those cities is not a happy one.
The Government were also faced with the fact that the British Olympic Association said that, from talking to the people who would make the decision, the only city that they should back was London. Faced with that message and the experience of previous bids, the Government had no choice but to back London. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members will work to ensure that London's bid is successful and—I am more than happy to work with them on this—that other parts of the country share in London's success if it wins.
As the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) said, London is much better placed to win. Now, compared with the three previous times, when it was up against Birmingham and Manchester, the governance issue is settled in London. I am delighted that we have a Greater London Authority that is in a position to lead the bid successfully. Obviously, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) will be leading that GLA bid in due course.

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I think that the rest of the country will get behind the bid. The ICM poll mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) showed huge support in all the regions when people were asked, "Do you think that a bid should be made for London to host the 2012 Olympics?" Interestingly, in the northwest region, 84 per cent. felt that London should make the bid.
Mr. Watts: Often the result depends on the question asked. Does the hon. Gentleman think that, if the same people had been asked whether they were happy for their sports funding and the public expenditure on their transport system to be reduced to pay for an Olympic bid, they would have given a different answer?
Mr. Davey: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport published that finding, so no doubt he will take it up with a colleague in that Department. However, I understand that London council tax payers, quite rightly, will be asked to bear some of the cost. Much of the rest of the money will come from the IOC or the lottery, so it is not helpful for people to suggest that money will be taken out of the mouths of babes in Liverpool or wherever else. However, it is important that we ask the Government tough questions on how that money is to be found. It should not come from the education budgets in the north-west, but that is not an argument against the whole process.
I shall conclude my remarks shortly, because I want to give the Minister plenty of time to answer the criticisms from his own side. However, before doing so I remind hon. Members that London is not homogenous. My constituency is not homogenous. I represent a relatively prosperous constituency, but one or two wards have a great deal of poverty. In 1991, one ward was the poorest ward of any outer London borough, although the situation has changed slightly, with the different indices. Poverty can be found in many places. London is the home of real poverty. The hon. Member for Harrow, West was right to say that the proposal to site the games in the poorest part of London—indeed, the poorest wards in the country—has some logic in terms of regeneration. Whether the Government decide that the process is about regeneration or sport, the decision on where to site the games seems sensible.
I remind hon. Members from other parts of the country that the poorest in London are the poorest in the country. Why? Their benefits have no regional top-ups or London weightings. Income support is the same in Hackney, where people face the cost of living in London, as it is in Manchester. Pensioners in London do not receive a London top-up, but they face much higher costs and prices. We should remember that when we talk about regional expenditure and poverty.
We need to know about Crossrail. People who support either the London Olympic bid or the Crossrail scheme do not want to make the tie-together too strong, but Crossrail is crucial to this capital city. It is crucial to the sustainable communities plan—which the Deputy Prime Minister introduced—to the long-term economic well-being of the capital and to securing all the development in the Thames gateway. I think that Crossrail would be a crucial factor in winning the bid.
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When I asked the Secretary of State for Transport about how he was progressing Crossrail at Transport questions two weeks ago, his answer was bizarre. He seemed to suggest that he and his colleagues had never been shown a proper proposal for Crossrail—that it had not been properly planned or the finance had not been properly put together. If that is the case, what are the Government doing about it? They have been in power long enough and they talked enough about Crossrail in opposition. Why have they not been pushing for that vital plan to be drawn up, properly costed and properly put together? It is essential as much for the regions of the UK as for London. I hope that the Minister will tell us that his Department will put pressure on the Department for Transport and the Treasury and will talk to the Prime Minister to ensure that the Crossrail project happens, which will help to ensure that the London Olympic bid succeeds.
3.10 pm
Mr. Philip Hammond: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) on securing this debate. He is a diligent advocate of the interests of his city and region as he sees them, although I am not sure that in this case his analysis of what would be good for Manchester is correct.
It is interesting that the fault lines in the debate this afternoon appear to be regional rather than political, and run deeper than some of our more superficial political divisions. Yes, the grass is always greener, but I suggest to the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley that although the statistics that he reeled off gave a superficial impression of a rather lop-sided Britain, the reality is slightly more balanced. I have lived in his region, and in the east midlands region, and my perception is that the gap in quality of life that people experience is not as great as the crude statistics suggest, because of the horrendous pressures, problems and costs that my constituents, and those of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), suffer in London and the south-east.
The essential premise of the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley is that the Government should somehow alleviate the unfairness that the Olympics coming to London would represent. I suggest to him that the Government do not have the power to deliver that. However, my hon. Friends and I recognise that it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that, if the Olympic bid is successful, it is a success for the UK as a whole, and that the benefits are dispersed as far as possible throughout the country.
We support the bid. Indeed, we supported it before the Government did—they are latecomers to the process. Some of what the spokespeople for the Government have said in the past has not been helpful. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton said that it was not helpful to suggest that money spent on the London Olympics was money taken out of the mouths of babes and orphans in the north-east. However, that is more or less what the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport suggested on 14 January. She said that
"every pound spent on developing Olympic facilities in London is a pound that will not be spent on schools, hospitals or grassroots sporting facilities in other parts of the country."—[Official Report, 14 January 2003; Vol. 397, c. 609.]

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If the Secretary of State says that in the House of Commons, I can understand the concern of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. It will be incumbent on the Minister to show that matters are being so organised that that will not be the case.
Mr. Watts: The hon. Gentleman rightly says that the decision has all-party support. May I remind him that the last major scheme that had all-party support was the dome, which had many supporters at first, but became a financial disaster, and had no friends in the end?
Mr. Hammond: If the politically correct had not got hold of the content, the story of the dome might have been very different.
In its dreams, every city would like to believe that it could host the Olympics, but, as other hon. Members have said, the reality is that if the UK is to stand a chance of winning the bid, it must be London. Several of the colleagues of the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley, who represent northern constituencies, freely recognise that, although I will not detain the House by reading out their quotes.
It is tempting for people in the regions to assume that there is always a choice between London and somewhere else but, as is often the case with inward investment, that choice is not really available. Expert opinion suggests that that would also be the case with the Olympic bid. Inward investment that is directed away from London and the south-east will not go to the north-west or the north-east, but to the Pas de Calais, the Brussels region or the area around Stuttgart. With the Olympic bid, we shall be competing on a pan-European scale. We must recognise that fact, and that London has unique attractions on the international market.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley called for a competition between British cities for the privilege of bidding to host the Olympic games. That is interesting in theory, but it would be a pyrrhic victory if the winning city were to have a significantly lower chance of securing the Olympic games for Britain than a London bid. All expert opinion suggests that that is so. However, the issue is more complicated than merely a choice between London or another place. London can carry the bid with its headline international status and its world city characteristics, which the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley recognised, yet the benefits can be secured for the whole of the United Kingdom.
Whether the hon. Gentleman or those of us who represent the area like it or not, London and the southeast is an economic powerhouse for the whole of the United Kingdom. We heard some comments earlier about transport expenditure in London. I assure hon. Members from all regions that, if London's transport infrastructure snarls up and London becomes an impossible place in which to do business, the whole of the United Kingdom economy will suffer. London is the locomotive that helps to pull the whole UK economy. I am glad that the Government, after a shaky start, seem to have recognised that fact.
If the Olympic games were held in London, it would have a general beneficial effect. Furthermore, the Government could take specific action to ensure that, if
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they were held in London, it would not have a negative effect on the rest of the country, which is what the Secretary of State suggested in January and what other hon. Members have suggested today. In fact, it could have a positive effect.
One of the problems of speaking at the end of such a debate is that most of the points that need to be made have already been made. However, I shall quickly summarise my remarks. Will the Minister confirm that, if a London bid were successful, the Government would encourage and support the holding of some events outside London? Do the Government have specific policies on the dispersal of events, such as equestrian events, shooting, water-based sport and football? Have they measured how much of the total economic impact can be diverted to other parts of the country simply by ensuring that those events are staged outside London?
We will have the right to stage the Paralympics if we win the bid for the games. Are those games held in the same city as the Olympics, or could they be staged in another city, such as in the Commonwealth games facilities in Manchester? Will the Minister confirm that the Government have had discussions with the British Olympic Committee about ensuring that training facilities are dispersed properly throughout the country? My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) noted in the debate on 14 January 2003 that
"a lasting legacy of coaching and sports infrastructure"
could be created, with 100 training camps located throughout the UK, in
"refurbished school gyms, leisure centres and community facilities".—[Official Report, 14 January 2003; Vol. 397, c. 615.]
That is a real opportunity to ensure that some of the money is recycled back into genuine, lasting community facilities.
If London were successful, there would be real regeneration opportunities in one of the most deprived areas of our capital city. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the combination of London's status as an international city and the proximity of areas in the east of the capital that are in desperate need of regeneration and investment presents a real opportunity for the bid to succeed. Only if it succeeds, can it benefit any part of the United Kingdom.
3.19 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Christopher Leslie): It will be a pleasure to answer a debate in which there has clearly been so much harmony and camaraderie between the many regions and nations of our country. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) on securing the debate. It has been illuminating and lively. In the short time that remains, I shall try to answer as many points as I can, but I hope that hon. Members will forgive me if I have to speed through some of them.
My hon. Friend focused on some of the economic disparities that have existed over a long time between the different regions of England, in particular. I shall talk about them in some detail later in my speech. I can assure him and other hon. Members that, as the only hon. Member from Yorkshire present in this Chamber today, I have no axe to grind on behalf of the capital or

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anywhere else. I feel strongly about some of the points that have been raised, from the point of view of my own constituency.
At the outset, it is important that we do not neglect the obvious. If Britain is to succeed as a whole in an economic sense, we must make sure that every part of the country and every corner of the United Kingdom can secure its fullest potential and not only share in the success, but drive it as well.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) raised some specific points about the role of Scotland in the Olympics. He was right to highlight the potential benefits of this country hosting the Olympic games. It is a genuine UK bid and he was right to point that out. He asked about the dialogue that there had been between the Scottish Executive and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The dialogue is ongoing. High-level dialogue is taking place at a sports Cabinet Committee, which brings together Ministers with responsibility for sport from the devolved Administrations. I assure the hon. Gentleman that those discussions are under way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) referred to the role of Gateshead in the sports academy hub plan and the fact that the town is still awaiting a decision from Sport England's funding review. I shall convey to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport the comments and concerns of my hon. Friend. However, I am assured by officials that the review is not driven by or directly connected with the Olympic bid and that Gateshead will not be at a disadvantage.
Mr. Reed: Loughborough, my constituency, is one of those areas that has benefited from the UK Sports Institute. It has received some £30 million pounds worth of facilities. I assure hon. Members that the decision by Sport England to reduce its funding at this stage or to stop funding is not related to the Olympics, but to an over-commitment to the existing sports budget, which has reduced considerably over the past four to five years.
Mr. Leslie: My hon. Friend obviously knows a great deal about the matter and his comments will go on the record. I am grateful for his attendance at the debate today. Given Loughborough's sporting history and involvement in sports policy in general, some of the issues that have been debated today will be relevant to his constituents.
Mr. Watts: Can I be clear that the Minister is saying that if the scheme will be funded from the lottery and the introduction of the new game leads to a reduction in overall amounts of money available for sport outside the Olympic games, the Government will ring-fence them and put in more money to make sure that areas such as the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley and my own are not disadvantaged by the Olympic bid?
Mr. Leslie: My hon. Friend should know that it is not the intention of any Government to see a bid for the Olympic games or any sporting occasion disadvantage any part of the country in any way. A great deal of attention has been paid to the package of funding put
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together for the Olympic bid. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport announced that the bid was backed by the UK Government on 15 May, she put in context the history of the UK's position. She mentioned the bid for Birmingham for 1992, for Manchester for 1996 and 2000 and why London was backed. That was because of people's drive and decision, with the support of the British Olympic Association. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas), who had to leave early, said that the International Olympic Committee's views and the feedback received from it was a crucial factor in the decision. That is one of the reasons why the Government decided to back the BOA's position.
The area covered by the bid is around Stratford and the Lea Valley—the heart of east London. The public funding will come from a specific hypothecated Olympic lottery game, as agreed by the Mayor of London, and will be shared by council tax payers. The Government will provide a guarantee for a degree of underwriting for some of the bid finance.
The cost of the bid will be relatively lean—between £15 million to £30 million—and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will lead for the Government on all related matters. A bid company will be established and a high-calibre chair, supported by an Olympic team in Government, will lead off on some of those matters.
Mr. Hammond: Can the Minister give any clue about when the high-calibre chair, to whom he referred, is likely to be appointed? I understood that it was going to be last Friday, but so far I have not heard about it.
Mr. Leslie: My understanding is that that appointment is due some time over the early summer. I do not have a specific date to hand, but I shall pass on the hon. Gentleman's concern that that should be undertaken as swiftly as possible.
I must make some progress on transport. Transport for London and the bid company will consider a transport plan. By 2012, the modernised tube—the Jubilee line—and the completed channel tunnel rail link will be in place, along with the international station at Stratford and the docklands light railway extension to City airport.
The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) spoke about Crossrail. Although that is not in my portfolio, I understand that the Department for Transport is supportive of the scheme in principle. However, it needs confirmation that the business case and the finances stack up. That process is being undertaken as swiftly as possible.
There are major benefits for London—that is clear. There are also benefits for the whole country, not just in terms of raising the nation's profile or boosting UK tourism, but also in leaving the nation a rich sporting legacy. My hon. Friends the Members for Harrow, West, for Loughborough (Mr. Reed), for Manchester, Blackley, for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones), for South Dorset (Jim Knight), for North Durham (Mr. Jones), for St. Helens, North (Mr. Watts) and the hon. Members for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), for Edinburgh, West, for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) and for Kingston and Surbiton

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mentioned other events taking place outside the capital. For example, some of the football tournaments will tour the UK, and there is talk of the regions hosting specialist events, such as sailing off the Dorset coast, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset mentioned. Other regions are playing host to athletes, training camps, and so forth.
There is a massive need to regenerate parts of east London. We should not neglect that. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West and the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton raised that point. The index of multiple deprivation in 2000 suggested that Tower Hamlets and Newham were ranked the third worst. Those boroughs have specific needs, but that is not to say that other parts of the country are not also in need of regeneration.
Much is going on in the north-west. Many hon. Members from that region spoke today. The Northwest Development Agency is setting up the urban regeneration company in east Manchester and it is working on the £39 million Ashton canal corridor. We have heard about Liverpool's city of culture bid and the
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project in Manchester that is looking at derelict buildings, and so forth. There was also the experience of the Commonwealth games, which was a significant event in east Manchester that directly reclaimed 146 hectares for the site. Some £127 million of investment in sporting facilities is now going into community uses. There is no reason why the same thing should not take place in an Olympic bid in a general sense.
In wider Government policies there is much going on in terms of trying to reduce the economic disparities between the different regions of the UK. There is a public service agreement target for that, regional development agencies are investing a great deal and other policies across Government, whether they are to do with housing or neighbourhood renewal, and the new deal for communities, contribute a great deal to that.
I come back to the ultimate point about today's debate. London's Olympic bid is the UK's Olympic bid, and all regions of the country must get behind it, so that it succeeds. Yes, each region has specific needs, but much work is being done by all Departments to make sure that regional prosperity is enhanced as fully as possible.

Brayton Road Post Office, Selby
3.30 pm
Mr. John Grogan: I am delighted to have secured this debate on the future of Brayton Road post office, which, to some of the pensioners and other users of the post office, is every bit as important as the Olympic bid that we have just been discussing. I have sympathy for my hon. Friend the Minister, because replying to such debates in this Chamber is becoming a bit of a habit for him. Newcraighall post office and Birkenhead post office have already been discussed, and there are probably many more such debates to come.
In fact, when I reviewed the list of the post offices that have already closed under the urban reinvention programme, with names such as Primrose Hill, Bluebell Hill, Digswell, Polbarn Lane, and Wimbledon Chase, I was rather reminded of the Flanders and Swann song, "Slow Train", which celebrated similar names after the Beeching axe on railway stations. I will not sing from that song, but part of it went:
"From Selby to Goole, from St. Erth to St. Ives.
They've all passed out of our lives
On the slow train
On the slow train."
Of course, we cannot approach the subject of Brayton Road post office just from the point of view of romance: we have to use hard-headed economics. After all, like many of my hon. Friends, I voted for the urban reinvention programme, of which the closure is part. However, I thought it was well worth bringing my experiences of the past month concerning the closure to hon. Members' attention, and I shall try to draw some general lessons from those experiences. After all, the Minister has been robust in saying, in the House and elsewhere, that he thinks that the consultation under the urban reinvention programme is going well, and that Postwatch is playing a valuable role.
I want to comment on the distinction between rural and urban post offices, which is crucial to the process. Brayton Road post office is in my constituency. The Post Office kindly faxed me its latest list this morning, and it mentions 46 post offices in my constituency. Six were classified as urban, but I remember writing to appeal one of those classifications nine months ago, and it was reclassified as rural, so there are now five that can be considered urban. In the past six years, on my watch as Member of Parliament for Selby, only two post offices have closed permanently: Appleton Roebuck, which we still have hopes of reopening, and Stillingfleet.
In previous years, Burn, Hirst Courtney, South Duffield, Thorganby, Womersley, Barkston Ash, Kelfield and Stutton post offices closed. It is worth noting that, in a rural area such as Selby, the efforts that the Government have made on rural post offices are working. There is now an entrepreneurial spirit, and people are going out trying to save rural post offices.' shall not go into great detail about Drax post office, but it was saved by the Post Office, who worked to do so with the Countryside Agency, the council, me and others. It was closed for nigh on a year, but it was reopened in much better form than it was in when it closed. That side of things is working well.
The definition of post offices as urban or rural is important to the urban reinvention programme, so when the latest list from the Post Office was faxed
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through this morning, I was surprised to see that Brayton Road post office—which, as I understand it, was closed under the urban reinvention programme—is classified on the list. which is in the Library, as rural. The Post Office said in a note that it would update the list in the Library at the end of the month; however, the latest information in the Library is that it is a rural post office. When did it change? The list dates from last year, but the Post Office says that it is the latest available—and it knew that I was introducing a debate on the subject this afternoon.
Did the Post Office decide to close the Brayton Road post office, and then reclassify it from rural to urban? What was the sequence of events? It does not give anyone much confidence in the integrity of the process when, on the day of the debate, the Post Offices faxes me to say that a post office that it is closing under the urban reinvention programme is rural according to its latest list. At the very least, it would be an improvement if, every time the Post Office proposes a change, it sent a courtesy note to the local MP, who takes an interest in these matters, and to the local council to say that it is reclassifying and to state the reasons why. It should do so, because there is a human story behind all post office closures, and although some may be necessary where post offices are unviable, it is important that the consultation process has rigour and is conducted properly.
The Selby Times has been covering the case of the Brayton Road post office in some detail. It quoted Queenie Ward of Doncaster road, who stressed that closure would make life difficult for her—crippled by arthritis in her back and hip, she also suffers from angina, asthma and thyroid problems. She said:
"The little bit of independence I have will go if I depend on others to go for my pension, even though my neighbours are very good".
Florence Gloag is 88 and lives near the post office. She says it is handy for her because she can get her groceries there, but she is worried about how she will do that if she is ill and the post office closes. She is not the only one. Mr. Henley is worried about what will happen in the winter when he has to go into Selby town to the nearest post office. Mr. Beavis and his wife are in good health, but they worry for people who are not in such good health, as walking into town could be a problem. They say that when a person gets to 80, they do not want to go traipsing around. There is clearly a human story here.
I listened carefully to the debate on 15 October 2002 when the Minister said:
"At the start of the programme, all the closures will be in response to requests from postmasters who have said that they wish their businesses to close."
That is very specific. Selby has a convenience store in which the post office is located. It is run by Mr. and Mrs. Mander and, for operational reasons, Post Office staff from headquarters are staffing that post office at the moment. It is hard to see why any postmaster would request their business to be closed in those circumstances.
I note that in the same debate the Minister said that he wanted a planned, orderly and managed process for closures. He said:
"The consultation will be conducted by Post Office Ltd., closely involving Postwatch, and it will include writing on day one to the local Member of Parliament."—[Official Report, 15 October 2002; Vol. 390, c. 233.]

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Since that debate, something called the pre-consultation period has been instituted. That means that for two weeks prior to a post office's closure Postwatch exclusively knows certain information. It is given lots of information—far more than an MP ever gets—about footfall in the post office and the model that the Post Office has developed on where customers of a closing post office will go. All that information is provided to Postwatch on day minus 14—that is, 14 days before the Member of Parliament gets to hear about it. Postwatch must cover the whole of the north of England, but it cannot possibly have the knowledge that an MP or a councillor would have about a local community. If we really wanted a planned and managed process, could not an MP be trusted with the commercially confidential information with which the 14 or 15 people on Postwatch are trusted? I would be happy to sign a form. Are we so untrustworthy that we cannot be given the same information as Postwatch?
I won the Derby on Saturday. After watching it on television, I wanted to watch something else. I turned over to the BBC Parliament channel to calm down, and I saw debates from the Trade and Industry Committee last week. My hon. Friend the Minister put on his usual suave, successful performance before the Committee. Allan Leighton also attended—the Committee lasted three hours, and the pubs were nearly closing by the time it finished. Allan Leighton said that he thought that the process had been ad hoc until now, and that closures had been made on a one-off basis. He said that he wanted to see a more planned approach to things in future. He even invited the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) to come and see the model for his area. I rang the Post Office to find out whether that was a general invitation to MPs, but the staff did not seem sure and said that the man who knew was on holiday. However, it would be good if we could do that.
The critique from the Government of letting closures happen by market forces is that if that happens it will do so in an unplanned way. The danger of leaving that entirely to people who rejoice in names such as network reinvention manager and customer stakeholder liaison officer—some of whom have written to me—is that it may still be done in an unplanned and ad hoc way. It would be good in an area such as Selby for me and the council to sit down and have a look at what the post office model is for the area: otherwise, at the end of this process, postmasters and postmistresses from relatively viable businesses but approaching 60 or 65 might come forward wanting retirement, whereas younger postmasters and postmistresses with entrepreneurial flair in smaller post offices that might be less viable than those that are closing might not come forward. This process does not seem planned and managed at present. If MPs and councils could be trusted, and if Allan Leighton got his way, it would improve.
I share the Minister's confidence in some of the new management in the Post Office, but it will take a while for its writ to get down to the regional level. It was about six months after Allan Leighton said that the name Consignia was no good and he was going back to the
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Post Office name that his managers thought, "Well, we'll have to do this," and they finally did it. We could make some changes there.
It is also important that the code of conduct is rigorously enforced. There is this phrase in that code:
"The ability of other branches to absorb the work without detriment to service."
It is not at all clear to me that that was followed in the notice that closed Brayton Road post office. The Postwatch North chairman wrote to me:
"I agree that the wording of the letter does not specifically say they have considered this point."
The implication is that they unspecifically considered it.
The main post office in Selby, which is one of the alternative post offices that was mentioned for users of Brayton Road post office, Doncaster, is cutting staff. Half a member of staff has gone in the past two weeks. The information should have been clearly put on the notice, as it was meant to have been, according to the code of conduct. I understand that although the Post Office is not legally admitting that it got it wrong, it is going to change its standard letters as a result of the experience in Brayton Road post office to show that it is explicitly considering the capacity of other offices to take the slack.
When in doubt, loyal Labour MPs obviously look to the words that come from Downing street, and particularly those of the much-admired performance and innovation unit, which was the inspiration behind this whole urban reinvention programme. The House of Commons Library note informs us that the PIU recommended:
"By taking urgent action to modernise and re-invent the network in urban areas—in particular, by re-locating post offices with convenience stores—the Post Office should be able to provide a better quality service for many of its existing customers. Post offices which are well presented, open longer hours and are co-located with shops which sell a wide range of products will also attract a broader range of customers."
Hey presto! Bingo! Brayton Road post office fits that bill exactly: it is a convenience store par excellence. In fact, even though it is now set to lose the post office, it is fighting back, and I can exclusively reveal to hon. Members that Mr. and Mrs M ander, who run the shop, are, as of tomorrow, opening a pay point facility that will allow the payment of TV licences, electricity bills, and British Gas and British Telecom bills—BT is going to promote the facility in the area around the shop when it sends out its next set of bills. Alliance and Leicester has put a bank machine in the shop, which is doing well. Pensioners can have no charge when they withdraw their money and have their money paid directly into their bank accounts.
I have got the Countryside Agency adviser to come down on Thursday to advise on other measures to help the shop be viable. It is likely that the convenience store will survive, much to the delight of many of my constituents. It is a bit of an irony that Government agencies and I are making such efforts and the net result will be that little business transfers to other areas.
Let me say a little about Postwatch. When the Postal Services Act 2000—legislation that changed consumer representation—was going through Parliament, a gentleman from York haunted all my public meetings. He asked whether I was absolutely sure that abolishing

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the post office users council and the local bodies that were affiliated to it, which formed the consultative body, was the right thing to do. I looked at Ministers' words and said that it was a voluntary body with a part-time chairman, 16 voluntary council members and few staff, whereas the new, super Postwatch, instead of having a budget of less than £1 million would have nearly £9 million and 60 full-time staff, three or four in the region, so that would be far better.
I have a great deal of time for Hilary Putnam, who is on the Postwatch committee and lives in my constituency, and for the chairman of Yorkshire Postwatch committee. However, the new body does not have grit or spice, passion or commitment, although it might gain them. I ask the Minister, in an idle moment to check: does anybody on the Yorkshire regional committee, or the national Postwatch committee, not have a car? There are many people with business backgrounds. Last year, they allied with the regulator in trying to open up the market, largely in favour of business. Ordinary post office users were much more cautious about the proposals. It seems a bit cosy. I was invited by the Post Office to meet Postwatch at a regional CBI dinner. I could not go anyway, but that was not the right environment. Postwatch was represented at a meeting that I organised. Its representatives sat through the meeting, yet subsequently did not oppose the closure. Although I have a lot of time for many Postwatch people, somebody should have had the courtesy to say, "We have heard what you say, but we cannot oppose the closure for these reasons." It was a pity that they did not.
Under the urban reinvention programme, 200 post offices have been closed so far. Four appeals have been successful—none of them in the north of England. One has more chance now of appealing successfully against a murder one death penalty conviction in Texas before a governor who is facing re-election next week than of overturning a post office urban reinvention closure proposal in the north of England once the consultation has started.
The consultation concerning Brayton Road post office was not wholly good. Even today, there is confusion about whether it is a rural post office or an urban one. That might be grounds for starting the whole process again. It seems to be going completely against the performance and innovation unit report in terms of linking post offices with convenience stores, and there is no postmaster or postmistress who is getting redundancy terms.
I leave one challenge to Postwatch to establish its credibility among post office users. The Post Office subscribes to a target of 3,000 post office closures. I do not think that the Minister has ever subscribed to that target, but I should be interested to know whether he has. Postwatch says privately that 3,000 is too many; it should say that publicly. At least it should say that it will review the matter after the first year of the programme, and judge whether 3,000 is about right or too many. It needs to justify its £8 million or £9 million and £20,000 for a two-day week for chairmen of the various committees by coming to a judgment: is 3,000 right or not?
3.48 pm
The Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness (Mr. Stephen Timms): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) on having secured the debate, on his energy in the campaign on behalf of Brayton Road post office and its customers and on his record in stopping the trend of decline in the post office network in his own constituency—supported, of course, by the framework that the Government have put in place. I note that coverage in his local newspapers and in The Sunday Times refers to his great commitment in addressing the issue in recent weeks.
I want to assure him again, as I have assured the House, that we are committed to maintaining a viable nationwide network of post offices. We fully recognise their importance as a focal point for local communities, particularly for elderly and less mobile people. The network of post offices serves about 24 million people each week. There are more than 17,000 outlets, which is half as many branches as all the banks and building societies in the country. It is the biggest retail network in Europe.
My hon. Friend referred to the recommendations of the performance and innovation unit, or PIU. Those recommendations form the basis of Government policy for the post office network. He will recall that a key recommendation was that if the Post Office decided that fewer offices were needed in some urban areas, the Government should consider providing funding to ensure that sub-postmasters affected could be adequately compensated for the loss of their business. That is not an issue in the case of Brayton Road post office. We accepted all the recommendations of the PIU. My hon. Friend has already referred to the debate that led to parliamentary approval of the funding, and the programme that is now in place.
My hon. Friend raised the question of the classification of the Brayton Road office. I understand that in the April 2002 list—a copy of which is in the Library—Post Office Ltd. incorrectly classified the office at Brayton road as rural. I assume that that is the list that was faxed to him. I have been told that that was a clerical error that was quickly noticed in May of last year and rectified. The error arose because there was some confusion with the nearby Brayton office, which is in a rural area.
Mr. Grogan: I think that the sequence of dates may be a little awry. The list that I received, which was described as the latest one, is dated June 2002.
Mr. Timms: I stand corrected. It was my understanding that the Post Office corrected that error in May. However, if one reads the definition that the Post Office uses—which concerns whether an office is in a community of more than 10,000 people—it is clear that the Brayton Road office should be classified as urban. Confusion with the Brayton office led to the incorrect classification.
Post Office Ltd. is ensuring in a properly managed way that the post office network meets the current needs of the communities that it serves, and fits the level of business that the network has going through it. There have been reduction, in post office usage for all sorts of reasons. The great danger would be a process of

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unmanaged decline in which individual sub-postmasters simply decided to shut down and leave. Such an unmanaged process would be much more damaging to the interests of constituents in urban areas than the one that we are going through.
In the case of my hon. Friend's constituency, I understand that Post Office Ltd. is looking into an application for refurbishment of the Flaxley Road post office, the nearest alternative post office for customers of Brayton Road. I am sure that he will welcome that news and agree that it is important that sub-postmasters be given encouragement to improve and develop their offices in line with the slogan in the PIU report concerning "bigger, better, brighter" urban sub-post offices. That requires the process that we are going through.
Proposals that the Post Office makes for closures under the programme are determined by how many offices are close to each other in an area, the current and projected business volumes and whether individual sub-postmasters have already indicated that they wish to leave the network. Those are by no means the only criteria. The factors that matter to customers are the key; they include the convenience of the other branches, the public transport links, the facilities provided at the alternative branches, access for disabled people at those alternatives and the ability of other branches to absorb the work without damaging the service that they provide.
Post Office officials visit each area where proposals are made. They walk around the area, not drive through it, and they study the configuration of the offices and of local factors before submitting a proposal. The aim is to ensure that it is as easy and convenient as possible for customers to use the alternative post offices. After all, the Post Office wants to maximise the number of customers who continue to use the network, thereby maximising the amount of business from a closing office that is captured by other offices in the network. The interests of the Post Office, which wants to keep as many of its customers as it can, coincide with the interests of my hon. Friend and other hon. Members who want to maximise the convenience for their constituents.
My hon. Friend made a number of points about Postwatch. I do not have details of the car ownership of the members of the regional committee serving his area, or of Postwatch as a whole, but I believe that Postwatch is proving a to be doughty defender of the interests of those to whom he referred—those who do not use cars, those with mobility problems and those who are disabled. I do not agree that Postwatch is solely a business-focused organisation. I shall provide him with more information in order to substantiate my claim.
Postwatch was set up as a consumer watchdog for postal services in order to ensure that post offices, Parcelforce, Royal Mail and any competing postal
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providers give the best possible service. It is not true to say that there is a cosy relationship between Postwatch and Postcomm. Indeed, those organisations have had some sharp exchanges over the past few months.
Postwatch has a key role in representing the needs of users in the reinvention programme. It has to be consulted on all Post Office proposals; it examines each one and monitors the programme. It is right that it should have the opportunity to consider proposals before they go into the public domain. On day one of the public consultation process, information is provided to the local Member of Parliament. It would not be right to send information to the local Member and ask him to keep it secret for a while—that would put him in a rather invidious position—but it is appropriate that Postwatch should have the chance to consider those proposals on behalf of customers and, if they are not appropriate, to say so immediately, before unnecessary alarm and concern are caused in the area.
At the start of the process, Postwatch set out for me the funding that it would require in order to do that job well. That required the appointment of a number of field advisers. It has appointed field advisers throughout my hon. Friend's region to look in detail at each proposal, and that includes local visits. The field advisers have the resources necessary to do the job. The Postwatch budget for the current year includes the additional funding in full, and staff have been recruited accordingly.
We made that commitment because we recognised that the Postwatch contribution is essential for the programme to be successful. I have frequent contact with Postwatch, and I have been to its headquarters to see it in action. I assure my hon. Friend that it demonstrated the capability and the commitment to being effective in its role of ensuring that Post Office decisions are in the best long-term interests of customers.
Postwatch has accepted the findings of the PIU report—it states that changes to the urban network are needed to achieve economic viability—but, although it does not oppose the principles behind the programme, it needs to set the aims of Post Office Ltd. against the needs of customers in order to ensure that the latter are paramount; and it will monitor carefully the implementation of the process.
I understand the point that my hon. Friend made about the code of practice on post office closures and relocations. Postwatch has worked with the Post Office to ensure that all the publicity material on urban reinvention proposals has been written in plain English, is as accessible as possible and contains the information that people will need in order to evaluate the proposals.
I understand the strength of feeling that has been expressed on the matter and we shall watch closely as the programme goes—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. John McWilliam): Order. Time is up.

Petrol Prices (Rural Areas)
4 pm
John Thurso: I am grateful for this opportunity to highlight the ongoing and increasingly heavy burden borne by those living in remote rural areas in respect of the differential cost of petrol and diesel, and to suggest to the Minister some solutions that the Government might profitably explore. My remarks will of necessity draw on my experience in my constituency in the far north of the highlands, but I believe that much of what I have to say is equally relevant to remote rural areas in parts of England and Wales.
My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) has intimated to me that he might like to intervene at some point, and I understand that he has also let the Minister know that that is a possibility. I welcome his support—his constituents share the problems that my constituents face, and he has had similar experiences.
Although I wish to draw attention to the differential in price between urban and suburban areas and remote rural areas, I do not make any point at all in respect of the overall cost of fuel in this country, which is a quite separate debate that I do not want to get into. In broad terms, the differential over the past few years has ranged between 8p per litre and 15p per litre, but seems to average out at around 10p per litre. I had my office ring round a selection of garages in my constituency today, which has shown that, for example, there is a 9p differential between all the garages in Wick and Thurso and those in Inverness. There is a further 2p or 3p differential between Inverness and central belt garages. When one moves to even more rural sites in Caithness and, in particular, Sutherland and the north coast, the differential today rises to between 12p and 13p.
Very similar figures were shown by a study that my predecessor carried out in October 2000, and a further study by EKOS Ltd. in January 2000, which Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Highland council commissioned, also showed similar results. There is not really any argument about what the differential is roughly, and it has been there for some time.
To put across the effect of the differential, I quote the EKOS report, which says:
"The total additional expenditures per annum on motoring by Highlands and Islands households, due to higher motoring costs as a whole, are approximately £88 million. This equates to approaching 3 per cent. of the region's Gross Domestic Product. Of this, £17.8 million per annum is attributable to higher fuel prices, of which approximately £2.7 million is in the form of additional VAT paid because of the higher fuel prices in the region.
This level of expenditure is significant. If the £17.8 million was diverted to general expenditures, it would create 592 FTEs"—
full-time equivalent jobs—
"within the Highlands and Islands economy."
The same report estimates both that the average income in the highland area is much lower than in the rest of Scotland and that prices are higher. In consequence, highland residents have 76p to spend on goods and services for every £1 that the average Scottish resident has. In other words, highland residents are 24 per cent. worse off. However, those very people must now pay some 10 to 15 per cent. more for their fuel.
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It is of course a perfectly acceptable policy to pursue higher prices in order to persuade people to use their cars less and to move to public transport. In urban and suburban areas there are regular trains, buses and tubes. However, there arc many areas in the far north where there is no public transport and where it is unlikely that the introduction of meaningful public transport will either be economic or make environmental sense. A car is therefore a necessity for residents in remote areas. They have no alternative, yet those people on the lowest incomes, who have no choice, have to bear the heaviest burden. The Minister is sympathetic to my point of view, as he said in a Finance Bill Committee:
"We have always recognised that for many people, especially in rural areas, car ownership is a necessity rather than a luxury."—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 9 May 2000; c. 57.]
I hope that I might elicit some similar sympathy from him today.
The problem is not with the forecourt operators. As the two Office of Fair Trading reports into the highland area show, a higher margin is required in remote areas to give sufficient cash profit to cover fixed costs due to lower volumes in those areas. There is a double whammy, as the densely populated areas benefit from cut-throat competition between oil companies and superstores. It is a case of market failure, which necessitates a Government solution.
The Government have put in a place a scheme for lower vehicle excise duty. However, it is not specifically targeted at rural areas and is based on smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, irrespective of where people live. Yet as I have shown, people in remote areas have the least buying power and are the least likely to be able to afford to buy the new, fuel-efficient cars to which the lower VED applies. Furthermore, crofters and farmers are more likely to require larger vehicles to tow their produce to market. Even if the VED for rural areas were to be zero, the cost differential would still leave people worst off, as the average differential paid annually is estimated to be at least more than double current vehicle excise duty. Offering a rebate on VED will not solve the problem. Pump prices have to come down.
I suggest three possibilities to the Minister: first, a simple reduction in value added tax. Because of higher pump prices, residents of remote rural areas pay on average about 2p to 3p a litre more of the VAT element. If VAT on fuel in remote areas were reduced to about 5 per cent., it would put pump prices at the same level as in urban and suburban areas. I am certain that the Treasury response will, as always, be a resounding no, and probably Ministers will cite European Union rules. However, my brief research into the matter revealed some sound precedents in the EU to allow such a reduction, although I shall not cite them, as time is short.
My second solution is of a similar nature: a reduction in excise duty, which is clearly possible under EU rules. The preamble and article 8, paragraphs 4 and 5, of directive 92/81/EEC, and directive 92/82/EEC, specifically permit derogations for remote and rural areas. I put that to the Treasury in a letter, which was answered by the then Chief Secretary on 1 October 2001. His response, not surprisingly, was that the EU would not allow it. My subsequent research shows that although it may be difficult, it is perfectly possible, and I ask the Government at least to explore the matter and not rest with a "non" from the Treasury.

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An argument against both schemes might be the difficulty in defining areas, but in my constituency an examination of postcodes shows that they could be used to devise a reasonably coherent scheme. Of course, there will always be anomalies on the margin but they should not spoil the scheme's potential for greater good.
The third alternative does not apply specifically to the remote rural areas as it covers the retailing of petrol in the whole country: it is to review upstream competition. In Australia, oil companies are not allowed to own forecourts and in America the number that they may own is severely limited. A previous Government recognised that the vertical integration of producer and retailer leads to poor competition practices. The obvious example is that of the pubs and brewers, the latter of which from 1989 onwards were forced to divest themselves of their tied houses. The Government should consider a similar divorce between the oil companies and forecourts, thereby producing price transparency between the refining point and wholesale point—an area that is currently decidedly obscure.
My requests to the Minister are straightforward. First, will he accept the severity of the problem on remote rural areas, where public transport is not an option, people need a car to go about their daily business and they suffer social exclusion by being unable to use their car as often as they would like? Will he understand that vehicle excise duty rebates do not, and will not, offer a solution, and that that is not a fault of the retailers but an exceptional market failure?
Secondly, will the Minister agree to examine the solutions that I have proposed? Will the Government at least explore with the EU the possibility of either VAT or excise duty cuts and not simply rest, as we often do, on a no from the Treasury? Thirdly, will the Government look at what could be done on the upstream market?
Since a noteworthy Labour Government in the 1960s adopted Jo Grimond's idea and created the Highlands and Islands development board, which has been succeeded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, billions have been spent, rightly, in trying to ensure sustainable populations and viable economies in our remote areas. I can think of no measure that would aid that objective as effectively and cost-efficiently as eliminating the cruel and unnecessary burden of fuel cost differentials in remote areas. I ask the Minister to consider those points seriously.
4.12 pm
Mr. Alistair Carmichael: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) not only on securing this debate, but on the thoroughgoing and exceptionally well-researched way in which he presented his case to the Chamber. It was a tour de force of the subject.
I want to bring a more northerly perspective to bear on the debate, because the fuel prices are viewed with great frustration by my constituents. In September 2000, when the country was almost brought to its knees by fuel protesters, my constituents were delighted to see the price of fuel on the national agenda and at the top of
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the 6 o'clock news every night. However, they would still have loved to pay the prices that those people were complaining about. That remains the feeling today, when the spotlight is off and the glare of publicity is away from the issue. It remains a pressing problem in my constituency, as it is for people in all the remotest communities in this country.
The price of fuel is an issue of social inclusion. Sadly, the people who live in the remotest parts of my constituency often have only one part-time job or a series of part-time jobs, survive on a crofting income, which is low by definition, or are on a fixed income such as a state pension. Those people are hit hardest by the absence of public transport, and their reliance in turn on the private car as their only means of getting to and from their home means that they are excluded from the benefits of supermarkets that might be in the nearest town some 15 or 20 miles away.
My hon. Friend referred to the Minister having sympathy; I hope that he still feels the sympathy that he exhibited in the past, and that he will now add to it the vital ingredient, which is the political will to see this issue, and solutions along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend, taken seriously once and for all.
4.14 pm
The Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness (Mr. Stephen Timms): I listened with great interest to the case that was ably made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). I can reaffirm the sympathy that I have expressed on these issues on previous occasions, and the Government's view that a car is essential for many people in rural areas and certainly not a luxury. As a Department of Trade and Industry Minister, I cannot answer questions on the taxation issues that he raised. When I made my previous comments, I was a Treasury Minister. However, I can say that the hon. Gentleman should not underestimate the significant barriers that there would be to introducing a differential scheme of the type that he proposes. I shall leave it to my colleagues who are responsible for those matters to deal with the points that he raised.
It is worth considering how the price of fuel is made up. The largest element in the cost of a litre of fuel is excise duty. Then there is value added tax and the wholesale price—the Rotterdam or Platts price—which accounts for 12p to 15p. The cost of transportation is between 1p and 1.5p per litre, depending on location.
Sometimes people think that the problem that we are debating results from transport costs, but that is not the case. The real source was identified by the hon. Gentleman: the typically very different volumes of sales in urban and rural locations. The largest urban sites sell up to 20 million litres a year, whereas a rural site may well sell less than 1 million litres a year. Often, it will be significantly less than that. As the hon. Gentleman said, a comparable level of overheads has to be recovered from a lower volume of sales. That is essentially where the differential arises.
The UK retail petrol and diesel prices were relatively flat for most of 2002, with fluctuations in retail margins typically absorbing changes in wholesale prices. However, as wholesale prices increased during the latter part of 2002 and early this year, margins were squeezed

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and retail prices rose by more than 5p a litre as a result. The end of winter, lower world crude oil prices and greater stability in the middle east have helped to reduce pressure on wholesale petrol and diesel prices since late March. That has allowed UK retail margins to recover and retail prices to fall back to levels slightly above those of this time last year.
The hon. Gentleman asked an interesting question about competition issues and whether a competition problem was part of the background to the phenomenon of higher fuel prices in rural areas. The main legislation governing competition issues is the Competition Act 1998. Under that, the Office of Fair Trading has responsibilities for those issues. In the past decade or so, the OFT has investigated the retail oil industry on a number of occasions and specifically considered the questions that have featured in this debate. However, its investigations did not find malpractice on any of those occasions.
Under the Act, the OFT does not have powers to rule on price as such, because that is for the market to determine, but it has powers to act against dominant businesses that abuse their position, which can include using unfairly low pricing to force competition out of the market. If there is a competition problem, there is a mechanism in legislation to address that. The OFT has the necessary tools and has used them in the instances to which the hon. Gentleman referred in which there has been action in other industries. The OFT concluded, however, that it was not necessary to use those tools in this case. On the third of the remedies that the hon. Gentleman suggested, the OFT conclusion was that there is no problem of competition.
John Thurso: I specifically referred to those reports because it is not the retail end that concerns me. I obviously did not make it clear that I am concerned about the pre-retail price—the wholesale price—from the refiner to the wholesaler. Why can the oil companies always compete with a superstore at a vastly lower price when they have to, but cannot compete when they have to go to a remote area? I contend that the opaqueness in price, if it exists, exists at an earlier level in the chain.
Mr. Timms: The hon. Gentleman identified the answer: the typically lower volume of sales in outlets in rural areas. I believe that that is the reason for the differential. There is no competition problem.
My Department has been doing several things to deal with the problem. We recognise that this is an issue for rural areas. My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Construction instigated the Downstream Oil Industry Forum, which met in July and November last year and is due to meet again in September. The forum was set up to examine several important industry issues, one of which was the service to the rural motorist. It is made up of all parts of the downstream industry from the oil refinery to the fuel pump. It includes the Petrol Retailers Association, the UK Petroleum Industry Association, the Association of UK Oil Independents, the Tank Storage Association, and GarageWatch—the trade association for smaller operators. All the major oil refiners and companies active in the UK also attend, as do representatives from the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Countryside Agency.
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At the second forum meeting, it was decided that there should be a rural taskforce to consider how best to support the rural motorist and petrol retailer by investigating methods and approaches that would help to reduce the overhead costs to this part of the sector. That follows work pioneered by the Scottish Executive, with which I am sure hon. Members who have spoken are familiar.
The taskforce comprises a sub-group from the main forum. It has now met twice and another meeting is due at the end of September. It has been investigating several issues that all parts of the industry believe to be important. Its work is aimed especially at reducing the capital expenditure required to operate a rural petrol station, to reduce the risk of the site closing and possibly to reduce the price of petrol to the rural motorist, given that I believe that we have agreed today that overheads are the root of the difficulty.
Lembit Öpik: If the taskforce can identify less expensive ways of running rural petrol stations, surely that same benefit could be applied in some way to the city? It does not absolve the Government from answering whether they are willing in principle to consider using their tax-varying powers to create a level playing field if the taskforce can find no other way to achieve that.
Mr. Timms: Let me explain how the measures that we are considering address the challenges of rural petrol stations. First, them is the issue of vapour recovery at petrol stations during the delivery of petrol to the underground tanks. A European Union directive covers the collection of vapour from distribution terminals and petrol stations. That has been phased in over several years. The last implementation date covers the very low throughput sites typically found in rural areas.
This Monday, my officials met to discuss the issue in detail to obtain an exemption for these very low volume throughput sites: that is, sites with sales of fewer than 500,000 litres a year. The technical justification for that would be the negligible impact on air quality, due to the low quantity of vapour and the rural location. The directive recognised that possibility and gave member states the option of a derogation. An environmental impact assessment is being conducted on the possibility of such a derogation, and a final decision on that will be taken in the autumn, which will give sufficient time, if the decision is taken to proceed, to save the rural sites from the necessity of investing in the collection technology that would need to be put in place.
The second issue is the maintenance and repair of underground tanks. Replacing corroded underground tanks is expensive and is a serious issue for many rural sites. Most such sites were opened 40 or more years ago and there have been problems with corrosion, which is beginning to cause contamination of the soil and groundwater. There is a cheaper alternative to replacement, which involves lining the tank with a plastic coating. That is a tried and tested technology, but many local authorities are hesitant about accepting lining and feel more confident about requiring owners to replace the underground tanks, which incurs a substantial capital cost. That requirement frequently means that the petrol station has to close down, or has to increase its petrol prices to cover the tank replacement cost.

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My officials are discussing the issue with the Health and Safety Executive. It is a complex subject requiring detailed technical knowledge of soil types and groundwater flows. There is also the issue of identifying suitable competent contractors capable of carrying out the tank lining in a safe way that provides reassurance on environmental concerns. The Health and Safety Executive is working to support local authorities in making assessments in line with the guidance, which is its responsibility, and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency is fulfilling that role in Scotland.
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: I did not anticipate that I would intervene, but this is a subject on which I have campaigned for a Long while and I am pleased to hear what the Minister is saying about it. Is he saying that there will be financial assistance for those hard-pressed rural garages, similar to the package made available by the Scottish Parliament?
Mr. Timms: No, I am not saying that. I am describing a range of matters that are being examined by the rural forum that has been set up. The forum is examining issues that are particularly difficult for rural petrol stations, and the two issues that I halve cited fall into that category. We are also looking at how to address those issues and tackle what is undoubtedly a serious problem in rural areas. The problem is not just the high price of petrol, but the fact that petrol stations are closing down when action could be taken to enable them to continue to operate.
Those technical issues are good examples of my Department working with other Departments and with the Scottish Executive to reduce the legislative burden on small, rural petrol stations. Without those two initiatives, the price of petrol on rural sites could increase further. We are not talking about a huge
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increase—perhaps 0.5p a litre—but that might have a significant effect, which we would be keen to avoid, if possible.
We have also been working with the Countryside Agency to establish a definition of a "rural petrol station". Such a definition exists in Scotland and is applied by the Scottish Executive for the purposes to which the hon. Gentleman referred. However, the difficulty is that few petrol stations in England would fit the definition as applied in Scotland. We want to carry out benchmarking in England and need to collect data on the number of petrol stations concerned, so we are working on what the appropriate definition would be.
Mr. Llwyd: Does the Minister mean Wales as well, because surely the issues are the same?
Mr. Timms: Yes. My understanding is that that work will cover Wales—undoubtedly there are pressing issues of that sort in Wales.
Another issue that has been raised in the rural taskforce concerns how to develop the skills of people working in rural petrol stations. The Petrol Retailers Association and GarageWatch have worked with Cogent, the new sector skills council, to determine the skill sets required by rural petrol retailers. If we can encourage the development of skills, retailers may be able to diversify their businesses, increase profits and maintain lower petrol prices. That work is continuing.
The rural taskforce also recognises that small businesses often require guidance on how to approach appropriate organisations for financial support and, based on what has been happening in Scotland, DEFRA and the Countryside Agency have worked together to provide clear guidance on the types of projects that could be supported under the vital villages initiative.
It being half-past Four o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.

TRANSPORT

  Cliffe Airport
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received from and discussions he has had with financiers and industry on the plans for a new airport at Cliffe. [118106]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Ministers have not held any discussions with financiers or industry about the financing of the Cliffe airport option. Chapter 15 of The Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom (South East) consultation document discusses how any major new airport capacity, including Cliffe, could be funded and invites views.

  Since publication of the consultation document in July last year, many thousands of responses to the consultation have been received from a wide range of interested parties, and we expect many more before the consultation ends on 30 June.

  All responses will be considered and analysed carefully before final decisions are taken. These will be set out in an air transport White Paper, which we plan to publish towards the end of the year.

  Airline Security (Kenya)
  Hugh Bayley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what advice he gave to British Airways in May 2003 about the safety of flying to Kenya; when he expects the company to be able to resume its flights to Kenya; and if he will make a statement. [118288]

  Mr. Jamieson
  On 15 May 2003, the Department advised all UK airlines that the threat level to UK civil aviation interests in Kenya was such that all UK airline operations to and from the country must be suspended. The position is being kept under active review and there is close liaison with the Kenyan authorities. It is not yet possible to say when conditions will allow flights to resume.

  Pensioners (Free Travel)
  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he is taking to ensure that all pensioners have equal access to free travel across the UK. [117860]

  Mr. Jamieson
  My answer of 23 January 2003,Official Report, columns 508–09W, states that we have no plans to ensure that pensioners have equal access to free travel across the UK. In England it is for local authorities to decide whether to offer free travel in their area and a number have done that.

  Railway Expenditure
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on his plans for spending on rail improvements, including the Rail Passenger Partnership, in 2003–04 and beyond by the Strategic Rail Authority. [118105]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Strategic Rail Authority's (SRA) revised Strategic Plan, published on 30 January 2003, contains a full analysis of the budgetary position, investment priorities for the short and medium-terms, as well as the SRA's long-term objectives for the rail network.

  The SRA's Rail Passenger Partnership (RPP) programme has been temporarily suspended because of current budgetary constraints. The Authority does not intend to terminate the RPP scheme, but for the present the focus will be on seeing through existing commitments and approvals. For the duration of the 2003–04 financial year, they will continue to allocate funds (£20 million) already set aside for RPP grants.

  Copies of the Strategic Plan are available from the House Library.

  Transport Investment
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the level of Government investment on transport each year since 1997, and his proposals for future years under the 10-Year-Plan; what was planned to spend each year; and how much was spent in each year. [118103]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Capital spending by the Department for Transport (and its predecessors' spending on transport) for each year since 1998–99 is set out in Table A3 of the Department's Annual Report for 2003 (Cm 5907). Comparable figures for earlier years are not available owing to the introduction of resource accounting and budgeting.

  Table A3 also sets out capital spending plans for 2003–04 to 2005–06. Spending plans for later years under the 10-Year-Plan are set out in Table A1.1 of "Delivering Better Transport: Progress Report", published by the Department in December 2002.

  Unlicensed Vehicles
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many unlicensed vehicles there have been on roads in Britain in 2002. [117851]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The most recent survey of Vehicle Excise Duty evasion, covering 2002 and published in March 2003, estimated that some 1.75 million vehicles were unlicensed in Great Britain, against approximately 30 million licensed vehicles.

TREASURY

  Basic Bank Accounts
  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the
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  effectiveness with which banks are marketing their commercial basic bank accounts. [118329]

  Mr. Boateng
  None. The marketing of basic bank accounts is a commercial matter for the banks concerned.

  Juvenile Mortality
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the most common causes of death of young people in the UK were in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement. [118182]

  Percentage of total deaths by age and sex for main causes of death1, United Kingdom, 20012

  Males

  Females

  15–19

  20–24

  25 and over

  15–19

  20–24

  25 and over

  External causes of death

  61

  62

  4

  40

  41

  2

  of which

  Accidents

  40

  34

  2

  26

  21

  2

  Suicide

  16

  23

  1

  8

  16

  0

  Neoplasms

  9

  8

  29

  14

  14

  24

  of which

  Leukaemia

  2

  2

  1

  3

  3

  1

  Nervous system

  9

  4

  2

  12

  9

  3

  Mental disorders

  4

  10

  2

  6

  5

  4

  Circulatory system

  4

  4

  41

  6

  7

  40

  Respiratory system

  2

  2

  12

  5

  4

  13

  Infectious diseases

  1

  2

  1

  4

  3

  1

  Digestive system

  1

  2

  4

  1

  3

  5

  Other causes

  8

  7

  5

  13

  15

  8

  Total deaths (thousands)

  1.1

  1.5

  281.2

  0.4

  0.6

  312.2

  1 The causes of death were selected using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) codes. The codes used were as follows:

  External causes of death—V01-Y89;

  Accidents- V01-X59;

  Suicides—X60-X84 & Y10-Y34 (excluding Y33.9 where the Coroner's verdict was pending for England and Wales);

  Neoplasms—C00-D48;

  Leukaemia—C91-C95;

  Nervous system—G00-G99;

  Mental disorders—F00-F99;

  Circulatory system -100–199;

  Respiratory system—J00-J99;

  Infectious diseases -A00-B99;

  Digestive system—K00-K93.

  2 Figures are for the number of deaths occurring in each calendar year in England and Wales and the number of deaths registrated in each calendar year for Scotland and Northern Ireland.3 Office for National Statistics (2000). Social Focus on Young People. Table 2.2, pg 22. London: TSO.

  Advocacy Services
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what measures the Treasury has taken to fund advocacy services for those in deprived situations. [118296]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The results of the Spending Review announced in July 2002 provided funds to departments as set out in "Opportunity and Security for All: Investing in an Enterprising, Fairer Britain" (Cm 5570). It is a matter for relevant departments how they allocate these funds to advocacy services for those in deprived areas.

  Capital Modernisation Fund
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to his Answer of 22 May 2003,Official Report, column 882W, on the Capital Modernisation Fund, what payments were made to the
  856W
  John Healey
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Dr. Kumar, dated 11 June 2003:
  As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question concerning the most common causes of death in young people in the UK in the last 12 months.(118182)
  The most recent available mortality data are for the calendar year 2001. The attached table shows the percentage of total deaths by cause and age group and updates a table that appeared in Social Focus on Young People.3

  contractor; and what outputs were received from the contractor in the period before the contract was terminated. [118270]

  John Healey
  The contractor made a presentation of their findings in February 2002 when it was agreed that the project was not viable at that time. £5,000 + VAT was paid being the agreed proportion of the expenses the contractor had incurred.

  VAT (Car Parking Facilities)
  Mr. Tynan
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when facilities leased or let for parking a vehicle became subject to differential VAT treatment according to whether they are leased or let alongside other property; what the justification for the differential was; what plans he has to review this differential; what discussions he has had with EU counterparts to review this differential; and
  857W
  when he next intends to discuss with EU counterparts an extension of the scope of VAT exemption to remove this differential. [118242]

  John Healey
  EC VAT legislation dictates that the leasing and letting of residential property by private landlords is exempt from VAT. However, the letting of parking facilities is specifically excluded from this exemption and is consequently taxed at the standard rate of VAT. In 1989, the European Court of Justice examined the VAT treatment of parking facilities supplied together with residential property by the same landlord to the same tenant. They ruled that this was a single supply of services, and that the whole supply should be exempt from VAT. All member states were therefore required to comply with this ruling and exempt the supply of parking facilities in these specific circumstances. Under the long-standing formal agreements which govern the EC VAT regime, no member state is permitted unilaterally to extend this exemption to the separate supply of parking facilities.

  Financial Services (CAT Standard)
  Mr. Lazarowicz
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what steps the Government is taking to raise awareness amongst the public of the CAT standard for financial services products; [118174]

  (2) how he plans to encourage the take-up of the CAT standard in the mortgage industry. [118175]

  Mr. Boateng
  CAT standards are designed to identify a range of straightforward savings and mortgage products that are simple, clear and fair so that savers and borrowers should feel confident about choosing them. But the promotion of products is ordinarily a matter for individual firms.

  Nevertheless, the Government and the FSA make appropriate references to CAT standards whenever they can. For example, the FSA explain CAT standards in their ISA and mortgage literature, and show whether an ISA or mortgage meets the standard in the relevant comparative tables to be found on its website.

  ECOFIN
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the outcome was of the ECOFIN Council held on 3 June; what the Government's stance was on the issues discussed, including its voting record; and if he will make a statement. [118069]

  Mr. Gordon Brown
  At the ECOFIN on 3 June, the UK was represented by our Permanent Representative to the EU and by the Treasury's Managing Director of Macroeconomic Policy and International Finance.

  ECOFIN formally adopted all elements of the tax package—the directive on the taxation of savings, the Code of Conduct on harmful business taxation and the directive on interest and royalties—on the basis of the 19 March ECOFIN Conclusions. The adoption of the tax package is a major success for the UK. The directive on the taxation of savings will tackle the problem of tax evasion on savings income by exchange of information rather than through an EU-wide withholding tax that would have damaged the interests of the City of London. And the Code of Conduct sets an
  858W
  important principle because it demonstrates what member states can achieve, working together to achieve unanimous political agreement, and rejects tax harmonisation in favour of fair tax competition.

  The Italian request for a Council decision under Article 88(2) on the repayment of Italian milk quota fines was approved, as was the Belgian Article 88(2) request on co-ordination centres. ECOFIN noted a Commission presentation on the progress of the anti-fraud negotiations with Switzerland.

  The Council adopted a Decision on the existence of a French excessive deficit. It also agreed, by qualified majority with Denmark and the Netherlands voting against, a Recommendation calling on France to bring back its deficit below 3 per cent. by 2004 at the latest. ECOFIN agreed, by qualified majority with Denmark and the Netherlands voting against, a report on the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPGs) for 2003–05 for submission to the European Council at Thessaloniki. Finance ministers also agreed a covering note to the European Council highlighting the key priorities to boost growth, in particular more flexible labour markets. The note, which has been published on the Council Website, states that:
  "It is essential to achieve higher and sustainable growth in our economies through appropriate macroeconomic policies and structural reforms. We have made progress with the Lisbon economic reform agenda, but much remains to be done. We must step up the pace of reform and achieve more flexible economies that show a stronger resilience in the face of uncertainty and shocks".

  ECOFIN discussed a Commission report on Follow-up to the International Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey—2002), which was also discussed at the last General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC). The UK welcomed the report and called on member states to deliver on their Monterrey commitments.

  Ministers took note of Commission reports on the Financial Services Action Plan and on ED financial integration. They also agreed, together with the accession countries, a Council Statement calling on the US to exempt EU audit firms from the compulsory registration requirement with the new US Oversight Board, under the Sarbanes- Oxley Act.

  The Presidency outlined progress on the Investment Services Directive. The UK expressed support for the objectives of the directive, but raised concerns about the proposals on mandatory quote disclosure rules and the treatment of execution only business.

  A vote was taken on the Recommendation to France on their excessive deficit and on the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines. The UK was part of the qualified majority.

  EU Savings Tax Directive
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what agreements the EU has made with Switzerland in relation to the adoption of the EU Savings Tax Directive. [118515]
  859W
  Dawn Primarolo
  The European Commission, in close conjunction with the Presidency, is conducting negotiations with Switzerland and other key non-EU countries (Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra, and San Marino) to ensure the adoption in those countries of measures equivalent to those in the Savings Directive.

  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is his Department's policy that Bermuda should be excluded from the EU Savings Tax Directive. [118516]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave him on 12 December 2002,Official Report, column 471W.

  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans his Department has to undertake an assessment of the impact of the EU Savings Tax Directive on overseas territories. [118521]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to my reply to the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) on 3 June 2003,Official Report, columns 192–93W.

  Euro
  Mrs. Calton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the impact introduction of the euro would have on(a) the economy of and (b) tourism in the North-West of England. [117881]

  Mr. Boateng
  I refer the hon. Member to the Treasury's assessment of the five economic tests that was published on 9 June following the Chancellor's statement to the House of Commons (Cm 5776).

  Foreign Direct Investment
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the total foreign direct investment (FDI) was in the UK in(a) 2001, (b) 2002 and (c) 2003; what proportion these figures represent of the total FDI of the EU; and if he will make a statement. [117907]

  Mr. Boateng
  The most recent official statistics for direct investment into the UK can be found in the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) UK balance of payments release, available on the ONS website: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/bop0303.pdf An international comparison of direct investment flows for 2001, the latest year for which full statistics are available, can be obtained from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 'World Investment Report' publication.

  Inheritance Tax
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to further increase the threshold for payment of inheritance tax; and what assessment he has made of the effects the tax has on people of lower incomes living in larger properties. [118276]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The Chancellor considers all taxes as part of his annual Budget judgment.

  Insurance Industry (Genetic Information)
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what measures are planned to ensure that people identified 860W
  with hereditary or latent genetic predispositions toward certain conditions are not unfairly discriminated against by insurance companies and other financial service providers. [118165]

  Mr. Boateng
  The Government is committed to working with the industry, patient groups and other stakeholders to formulate and agree a long term policy on the use of genetic information by insurance companies. The Association of British Insurers' Genetic Testing Code of Practice provides that insurance applicants must not be asked to undergo a genetic test in order to obtain insurance. Under a five year moratorium introduced in October 2001, a person can apply for a total of up to £500,000 of life insurance and £300,000 of certain types of health insurance without having to tell the insurer the results of any predictive tests already taken. If insurance above these amounts is required, insurers may only take into account the results of genetic tests which the Government's Genetics and Insurance Committee has decided are reliable and relevant for that type of insurance. The Committee provides independent scrutiny of compliance with the ABI Code of Practice and the moratorium and can consider unresolved complaints from insurance applicants about the way an insurance company has dealt with their application under the moratorium.

  Merchant Shipping
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what domestic taxation is placed upon UK merchant shipping; what discussions he has had with industry representatives on the tax burden on UK shipping; and what proposals he has to reduce the burden. [118274]

  Dawn Primarolo
  In common with other sectors of the economy, the UK shipping industry is subject to a range of taxes and duties and benefits from a range of allowances and reliefs, consistent with the Government's desire to maintain a fair and broad-based tax system raising sufficient revenue for investment in our public services while maintaining the international competitiveness of UK businesses. The shipping industry also benefits from special tax reliefs and regimes, which reflect the particular needs and circumstances of the industry.

  The Government takes into account the overall tax burden on different sectors when setting tax rates and reviewing tax policies, and holds regular discussions where appropriate with representatives from such sectors, including the shipping industry, to take their views into account when considering policy changes.

  Professional Sports Clubs
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many representations he has received on his policy towards professional sports clubs who fail to make full payments to the Inland Revenue or Customs and Excise. [117827]

  John Healey
  The Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise do not apply specific policies to professional sports clubs. They treat clubs in exactly the same way as they treat all other businesses which are in financial difficulties.
  861W
  Over the last 12 months or so they have received fewer than a dozen specific representations about the application of those policies to professional sports clubs.

  Public Sector Employees
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many public sector employees there were in 1997; and how many there were at the latest date for which figures are available. [118249]

  John Healey
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Mr Gray, dated 11 June 2003:
  As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question about how many public sector employees there were in 1997, and how many there were at the latest date for which figures are available. (118249)
  The information requested is given in the table below.

  Thousands

  June 1997

  June 2001

  Total public sector

  4,954

  5,163

  Source:

  Economic Trends, June 2002 issue, ONS

  Full information on public sector employment is currently published once a year. Data for 2002 are expected to be published in the summer of 2003.

  Split Capital investment Trusts
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions he has had with the Financial Services Authority regarding(a) the collapse of split capital investment trusts and (b) compensation for investors; and when the FSA will produce the results of its inquiry. [117844]

  Mr. Boateng
  The Treasury discusses a wide range of issues with the FSA on an ongoing basis.

  Tax Credits
  Mr. Duncan
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many telephone calls have been received on the hotline for hon. Members to resolve constituents' tax credit queries in each week since 1 January. [115803]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The number of calls answered by the MPs' tax credit hotlines in each week to the end of April is shown in the following table:

  Week starting:

  Calls answered by the GB and NI tax credit hotlines for MPs

  30 December 2002

  1—

  06 January 2003

  10

  13 January 2003

  9

  20 January 2003

  5

  27 January 2003

  8

  03 February 2003

  1—

  10 February 2003

  14

  17 February 2003

  7

  24 February 2003

  13

  03 March 2003

  11

  10 March 2003

  15

  17 March 2003

  13

  24 March 2003

  25

  862W

  Week starting:

  Calls answered by the GB and NI tax credit hotlines for MPs

  31 March 2003

  54

  07 April 2003

  218

  14 April 2003

  412

  21 April 2003

  470

  28 April 2003

  827

  1 indicates less than 5.

  Mr. Duncan
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of delays in settling outstanding tax credit queries arising from the changes to the tax credit system on 6 April. [115806]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I refer the hon. Member to my statement to the House on 28 April 2003,Official Report, column 53, and to the comments I made during the debate in Westminster Hall on 4 June 2003, Official Report, column 99–122WH.

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

  York Minster Library
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners if he will make a statement on the proposed closure of the library at York Minster. [118482]

  Mr. Bell
  I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I gave on 4 June 2003 to the hon. Member for the City of York (Hugh Bayley), from which she will note that the library does not belong to the Church Commissioners.

  The sale, loan or other disposal of any item of architectural, archaeological, artistic interest would require approval under the Care of Cathedrals Measure. This is a statutory process and I would not wish to prejudge whatever decision might be made either by the Fabric Advisory Committee or by the Cathedrals Fabric Commission on any such application.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Iraq
  Tom Brake
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development, if he will make a statement on humanitarian aid to Iraq. [118382]

  Hilary Benn
  DFID has so far committed £115 million towards humanitarian assistance in Iraq. This is being channelled though the organisations best placed to deliver practical help on the ground: the United Nations agencies, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and NGOs. We have set aside a further £95 million for additional needs as they emerge, but money. Funds from existing DFID programmes will not be diverted to fund our assistance to Iraq.

  While significant challenges remain, particularly in maintaining law and order, and restoring power, water and sanitation facilities, a major humanitarian crisis in Iraq has been averted.
  863W
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what steps the Department is taking to ensure that(a) medical and (b) food aid is reaching those most urgently in need in Iraq. [118386]

  Hilary Benn
  Of the £115 million DFID has committed towards humanitarian assistance in the current crisis, £8.5 million has been allocated specifically to medical support through a number of organisations, and £33 million to food aid through the World Food Programme. £35 million of aid not earmarked to specific sectors has been has allocated to the Red Cross and other organisations providing medical and other support.

  We provide our support through the organisations best placed to deliver effective assistance. DFID teams in Baghdad and Basra monitor the situation on the ground and liaise with the humanitarian agencies.

  Ann Winterton
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development, if he will make a statement on his Department's role in the distribution of food aid in Iraq. [118391]

  Hilary Benn
  DFID has committed £115 million to humanitarian assistance in the current crisis, of which £33 million has been allocated to the provision of food aid through the World Food Programme (WFP). WFP has pipeline stocks of the main commodities for June, and expects to be able to maintain supplies thereafter. Part of the requirement will be met by purchases from Iraqi farmers. Distribution of food within Iraq, by the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, recommenced on 1 June. DFID teams in Baghdad and Basra monitor the situation on the ground and liaise with the humanitarian agencies. There is not expected to be any food crisis in Iraq.

  Zimbabwe
  Mr. Hammond
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development, if he will make a statement on British aid policy in respect of Zimbabwe. [118383]

  Ms Keeble
  British aid policy is focused on providing help to the people of Zimbabwe. We are working with the United Nations agencies, other donors, and non-government organisations to provide food aid, HIV/AIDS prevention and other health sector programmes. However, we recognise that the plight of the people in Zimbabwe will only be resolved by political change.

  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development, when the Secretary of State last met non-governmental organisations to discuss aid to Zimbabwe; and if he will make a statement. [118389]

  Hilary Benn
  Since taking up her new appointment the Secretary of State has not met with non-government organisations to discuss aid to Zimbabwe.

  We continue to work closely with British and other non-government organisations to share analysis on the terrible situation faced by most Zimbabweans. The majority of our food aid programme in Zimbabwe is implemented by non-government organisations, contracted directly by the Department for International Development, or through the World Food Programme,
  864W
  which also receives significant UK funding. Non-government organisations will remain key partners in the process of supporting the people of Zimbabwe through the effective supply of food aid, as well as tackling the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

  Ethiopia
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development, what assessment the Department has made of the preparedness of Ethiopian Government departments to handle direct aid payments for humanitarian relief in famine areas. [118384]

  Hilary Benn
  The Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Commission (DPPC) is the lead Government of Ethiopia body responsible for co-ordination of humanitarian responses. Humanitarian relief is delivered by a combination of the DPPC, UN agencies (especially World Food Programme) NGOs and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

  Overall, the DPPC system is able to adequately deliver humanitarian assistance across most of the country. However, in some districts with weak administrations or problems of unexpected severity, it has been necessary to deliver humanitarian relief directly through UN agencies or Non-Government Organisations (NGOs).

  John Barrett
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what assessment he has made of the availability of(a) cereal seeds and (b) pulses in Ethiopia; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure adequate planting of seeds and pulses in Ethiopia before the end of the planting season. [118254]

  Hilary Benn
  The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Ethiopian Government's Ministry of Agriculture reported on both the variety and quantity needs for cereal and pulse seed on 4 June 2003. Estimated needs total $10 million.

  We have already contributed to meeting requirements through our £2 million donation to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in February 2003. We are working closely with the Government and other donors to further clarify and meet non-food needs such as seed.

  St. Helena
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development, if the Secretary of State will visit St. Helena to discuss progress towards the construction of an airfield. [118385]

  Hilary Benn
  There are no such plans for a visit. On 7 April, the St. Helena Government issued an invitation for private sector participation in developing air access. Six parties have since expressed their intent to submit outline proposals by the deadline for bids of 25 July. A period of evaluation and negotiation is expected to follow.

  Burma
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what aid the Department gives to refugees(a) in Burma and (b) near the Burmese-Thai border. [118388]

  Hilary Benn
  We are not currently supporting programmes focused exclusively on meeting the needs of displaced people inside Burma.

  DFID assistance for refugees in camps on the Thai-Burma border has focused mainly on meeting food needs and on UNHCR's protection role. Financial assistance last year amounted to just under £2 million. Further support is planned in the current year.

  DFID is also providing support to refugees through the European Commission. In 2002, the European Commission allocated 3.5million Euros (£2.5 million) for these purposes, 20 per cent. of which is attributable to the UK Government.

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development when the Department will conduct a full survey of child malnutrition(a) in Burma and (b) in the refugee camps on the Burma-Thai border. [117992]

  Hilary Benn
  The Department has access to survey findings and reports on child malnutrition written by a number of non-governmental organisations and by UNICEF. Officials in the Department will draw on these in the formulation of DFID's humanitarian assistance plans for Burma.

  Amazon Peoples
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what action the Department is taking to support the indigenous Indian communities of the Amazon. [118390]

  Hilary Benn
  The Department is providing direct support to strengthen the indigenous movement in the Amazon through its £2.1 million Indigenous Peoples Demonstration Project. This includes help to increase the capacity of organisations such as the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazonia to defend and promote their interests and rights.

  As part of its contribution to the G7 Pilot Programme to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest, the Department is also supporting the demarcation of indigenous lands in the Amazon. The aim is to have demarcated and registered all indigenous lands, accounting for 45 million hectares, by 2004. To date 34 million hectares have been demarcated, with over 27 million registered.

  Arms Export Controls
  Hugh Bayley
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what proposals on strengthening arms export controls the Government intends to make at the UN Biennial Meeting of states in July. [117753]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  I have been asked to reply.

  The UK Government is committed to building on the useful discussions that took place at the Lancaster House Conference on strengthening Export Controls on
  866W
  Small Arms and Light Weapons held at Lancaster House on 14–15 January 2003. The format of the Biennial Meeting (New York, 7–11 July) which will focus on small arms, does not allow for states to make substantive proposals. The aim of the meeting is to gather support for a regionally based process to share understanding on national implementation of export controls of small arms, with the aim of reporting back findings at the 2005 Biennial Meeting. But it will be a useful opportunity to take this work forward with partners within the framework of the UN. The UK is planning a side meeting on 8 July 2003 to discuss working in partnership and ways of exchanging information. Our objective is to strengthen consensus on the need for regulation of small arms transfers. Continuing this work within the framework of the UN is particularly important, and the UK is committed to the process.

  Democratic Republic of the Congo
  Adam Price
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development if he will make a statement on events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [118019]

  Hilary Benn
  Progress towards a sustainable peace and poverty reduction has been made with the successful conclusion in April of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue and the entering into force of the Global and Inclusive Agreement that sets out the framework for the establishment of a Transitional National Government (TNG). The establishment of the TNG will be a major step forward in the resolution of the wider Great Lakes conflict, creating the basis for reconstruction, economic development and poverty reduction in the DRC. The Congolese parties must now implement fully the commitments they have undertaken and establish without further delay the transitional institutions. The UK is an active member of the international committee supporting this process and we plan to increase our development assistance to the DRC once the TNG is in place.

  On the situation in Ituri in the north-east, the fighting must stop and support to armed groups must be discontinued. The French government has agreed to the request from the UN Secretary General to lead an Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF) to stabilise the situation. Given the importance of contributing to this force and of supporting the UN and the DRC peace process, the UK will be participating in the IEMF. This force will come under the direction of the European Union under the European Security and Defence Pact.

  In 2002–03 DFID provided nearly £11 million in humanitarian assistance to the DRC. Out of this £1 million went through the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for emergency humanitarian interventions in the DRC including Ituri. We are in regular contact with a number of international NGOs working in Ituri, and we stand ready to respond to their requests for further assistance to address urgent humanitarian needs in the region. A DFID humanitarian adviser has just visited Ituri to assess these urgent needs and we will be making a response to these requests shortly.

  G8 Africa Action Plan
  Hugh Bayley
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what decisions were made at the G8 summit at Evian about the G8 Africa Action Plan; whether Africa will remain on the G8 agenda in the forthcoming year; and if he will make a statement. [117756]

  Hilary Benn
  At the G8 summit in Evian the Africa Personal Representatives produced an Implementation Report on the G8 Africa Action Plan. The G8 and African heads of government accepted the report during a two-hour discussion on Africa at the Evian Summit. The European Union and all G8 countries (with the exception of Russia) also produced individual progress reports on their contribution towards implementation of the G8 Africa Action Plan. The G8 will report on progress in achieving the G8 Africa Action Plan again in June 2005, under the UK Presidency.

  It was agreed at Evian that the Africa Personal Representatives group would be expanded into an African Partners Forum, including non-G8 OECD donors. Further criteria for participation have yet to be agreed. The African Partners Forum is likely to meet every six months, with the first meeting in November 2003. The purpose of the meetings will be to ensure that momentum for the Africa Action Plan is maintained, and to continue high-level political engagement with African governments.

  The UK will continue to press for a G8 focus on Africa.

  Overseas Territories
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development which reports commissioned by the Department on the overseas territories from Social Development Direct are in the public domain, broken down by territory. [118613]

  Hilary Benn
  The work by Social Development Direct, looking at human rights issues affecting the Overseas Territories, was commissioned and funded jointly by DFID and the FCO. Reports on the following territories are in the public domain and have been copied to the House of Commons Library.

  Anguilla

  Bermuda

  Montserrat

  St Helena

  Turks and Caicos Islands

  Reports on a number of others should be published shortly.

  Equal Opportunities
  Angela Eagle
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what progress has been made on completing a pay audit in his Department and its non-departmental public bodies to measure any disadvantage in terms of remuneration for(a) women, (b) ethnic minorities and (c) people with disabilities; and if he will publish the results of such an audit. [117435]
  868W
  Hilary Benn
  DFID has just substantially completed its equal pay audit of staff below the senior civil service, in line with the Government's commitment to review pay systems by April 2003 in response to the Equal Opportunities Commission Task Force "Just Pay" report. So far no significant pay disadvantages have been found but some further analysis is required. Once this further analysis is complete—we hope by August 2003—a copy of the audit will be placed in the Library. No pay audits have been undertaken for DFID's three NDPBs as they have no employees and their members only receive expenses.

  Southern Africa
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what plans the Department has for making affordable fertiliser available to smallholders in Southern Africa in the(a) short term and (b) long term. [117847]

  Hilary Benn
  For the longer term, DFID is working with partners in the region to promote improved access by smallholder farmers to agricultural inputs and credit from the private sector. In the short term, we are in several countries supporting the Food and Agriculture Organisation, governments and non-government organisations in providing fertilisers and other critical inputs to poor farmers. We are for example continuing support to the National Targeted Inputs programme in Malawi, which aims to provide free fertiliser and seed to the poorest farmers.

  World Summit on Sustainable Development
  Mr. Horam
  To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development which United Kingdom commitments arising from the World Summit on Sustainable Development(a) have been incorporated into the Department's existing delivery plan for Service Delivery Agreements and (b) will be incorporated in its delivery plan for Service Delivery Agreements in advance of the 2004 Spending Review. [113874]

  Hilary Benn
  DFID's current delivery plans relate to the 2003–06 PSA and SDA targets that were agreed upon as part of the 2002 Spending Review. These targets predate the WSSD, so not all of the WSSD commitments are covered. Our delivery plans will evolve and they will incorporate WSSD commitments when they are appropriate to delivery of our PSA and SDA targets. Our PSA and SDA targets will be reconsidered during the next Spending Review.

  The WSSD reaffirmed commitment to the Millennium Development Goals—the achievement of which lies at the heart of our PSA and SDA targets—and many of our WSSD commitments are covered in existing plans: for example, climate change, finance for development, support to PRSPs (Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers), and trade are all covered.

PRIME MINISTER

  Iraq
  Linda Perham
  To ask the Prime Minister when he will make a statement on what chemical or biological weapons have been found in Iraq. [116054]
  869W
  The Prime Minister
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answers I gave to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) at Prime Minister's Questions on 4 June 2003,Official Report, columns 147–50.

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on progress in implementation of the paper, A Vision for Iraq and the Iraqi People, arising from the Azores Atlantic Summit in March. [117624]

  The Prime Minister
  In the 10 weeks since we set out our "Vision for Iraq and the Iraqi people" the Coalition, and more recently the wider international community, has made significant progress towards implementing it. Saddam Hussein, his regime and the threat they posed with weapons of mass destruction have been removed by the Coalition. The Iraqi people are now able to live in peace, build the foundations for democracy and good governance and pave the way for real prosperity. As each day passes the CPA are helping the Iraqis to restore essential services, especially health and education.

  UN Security Council Resolution 1483 aims to help restore security and stability to enable Iraqis to form their own political future through a representative government based on the rule of law that affords equal rights and justice to all citizens.

  Resolution 1483 has also lifted sanctions and called on UN member states to assist Iraq with humanitarian aid, ensure Iraqis will benefit from their oil revenue, and stresses the need to address Iraq's debt.

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister what discussions he has had with the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee since the end of active hostilities in Iraq in respect of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. [117628]

  The Prime Minister
  I have meetings with a wide range of organisations and individuals. As with previous Administrations, it is not the Government's practice to provide details of all such meetings under exemptions 2 and 7 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library copies of the pre-publication drafts of his dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. [117630]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answers I gave to the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) at Prime Minister's Questions on 4 June,Official Report, columns 147–50.

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister what the source was of his statement in the preface to the dossier, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, dated 24 September 2002, that the Iraqi regime's military planning allows for some of the weapons of mass destruction to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them; and on what evidence he based his assessment of the truth of this claim. [117631]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answers I gave to the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) at Prime Minister's Questions on 4 June,Official Report, columns 147–50.
  870W
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Prime Minister when he first agreed in principle with the US Administration that British forces would take part in a war against Iraq; and what(a) conditions and (b) circumstances he required to be satisfied for their use in military operations. [117963]

  The Prime Minister
  The decision to resort to military action to ensure that Iraq fulfilled its obligations imposed by successive UN Security Council Resolutions was taken only after other routes to disarm Iraq had failed. I decided to commit United Kingdom forces after securing the approval of the House in the vote on 18 March.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the benefits obtained by the United Kingdom from the participation of British forces in the Iraq war. [118474]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answers I gave to the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith),Official Report, column 150 and to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), Official Report, column 156, at Prime Minister's Questions on 4 June.

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make it his policy to publish in full the report of the Intelligence and Security Committee into Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. [117981]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave to the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) at Prime Minister's Questions on 4 June,Official Report, columns 147–50.

  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Prime Minister (1) when the Joint Intelligence Committee first told him of the possibility of Iraqi forces being able to launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes; and whether the information was provided(a) verbally and (b) in writing; [117982]

  (2) which of his (a) cabinet and (b) special advisers were told of the briefing from the Joint Intelligence Committee about the possibility of Iraqi forces being able to launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes prior to the publication of the information. [117983]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) at Prime Minister's Questions on 4 June 2003,Official Report, columns 147—50.

  Joint Intelligence Committee
  Llew Smith
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the membership, with each member's qualifications, of the Joint Intelligence Committee. [117629]

  The Prime Minister
  The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) is chaired by a senior Cabinet Office official and brings together the producers of intelligence and their main customer departments. Members comprise the Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator, senior officials from the Foreign Office, Cabinet Office, Ministry of Defence, Home Office, Department of
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  Trade and Industry and the Treasury, the Heads of the three intelligence and security agencies and the Chief of Assessments Staff.

  Mental Health
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Prime Minister (1) how many of his staff have taken sick leave due to mental health problems in the last year. [111979]

  (2) how many sick days were lost over the last year by his Office through staff mental health problems. [111993]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer my hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office (Mr. Alexander) gave him today, at column 890W.

  Ministerial Responsibilities
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Prime Minister which Minister is responsible for children; and what their specific responsibilities are. [117932]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr. Allen) on 20 November 2002,Official Report, columns 139–40W.

  The responsibilities referred to in respect of the then Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) are currently held by my hon. Friend for Stretford and Urmston (Ms Hughes).

  Suez Medal
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Prime Minister whether a decision has been reached on the award of a medal to those who served in the Suez Canal Zone between 1951 and 1954. [119054]

  The Prime Minister
  Following a recommendation from the sub-committee chaired by Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, we are pleased to announce that Suez veterans who served in the Canal Zone between 1951 and 1954 are to be awarded the General Service Medal.

  In examining this case so long after the events, the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals recognised that it had special features. Although it had been established that the Commander in Chief at the time made a request for a medal, there was no conclusive evidence that the case was ever fully considered and a formal decision reached. Nor had the deployment been recognised by the award of any other campaign medal.

  The detailed qualification criteria for the medal will be submitted to Her Majesty The Queen for approval in due course. Copies of the sub-committee's report are being placed in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament.

  US Foreign Policy
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the occasions since January 2001 when he has expressed public disagreement with the foreign policy of the US Administration. [118475]
  872W
  The Prime Minister
  I disagree publicly with the US Administration on foreign policy whenever it is in the interest of the United Kingdom to do so.

  Zimbabwe
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the British Government's policy on Zimbabwe. [118441]

  The Prime Minister
  Our policy has been effective in maintaining broad international pressure on ZANU (PF). The EU has used targeted sanctions to isolate the regime and the Commonwealth has suspended Zimbabwe from its Councils. Both of these measures have been rolled over this year. We also continue to provide humanitarian aid; to feed the hungry; and to support the fundamental right of the Zimbabwean people to press for change. We keep our policy under constant review.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Energy Efficiency
  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when her Department is planning to start the consultation on an expansion of the Energy Efficiency Commitment to run from 2005 to at least 2008, as stated in the Energy White Paper of February 2003; and which organisations her Department is intending to consult. [116171]

  Mr. Morley
  We have already begun informal discussions on the next Energy Efficiency Commitment, to start in April 2005, so that we can take account of the views of stakeholders in drawing up proposals for a statutory consultation in spring 2004. We have set up a High Level Advisory Committee to provide strategic advice to Government, and also welcome input on more detailed and technical issues. We will consult a wide range of bodies with an interest in energy efficiency.

  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps her Department plans to take to combine household energy efficiency with(a) micro CHP, (b) small-scale renewable heat and (c) renewable power. [116292]

  Mr. Morley
  Micro-CHP is potentially a useful technology for delivering domestic energy efficiency and carbon savings. However, the technology is not yet commercially available in the UK. The Government are working closely with the industry to overcome a number of regulatory and technical barriers to bringing the technology to market. An important step towards this will be a major independent and technology-impartial field trial sponsored by the Carbon Trust, through its Low Carbon Innovation Programme (LCIP) in partnership with the Energy Saving Trust. This will commence later this year. I understand the trial is expected to feature a range of technologies and end use applications across the residential and commercial sectors, in order to provide an objective assessment of the benefits that micro CHP can offer.

  DTI's Clear Skies Scheme and the PV demonstration programme both encourage applicants to think seriously about energy efficiency when installing new

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  renewable energy and heat systems. The Energy Saving Trust, who manage the Major PV Demonstration programme, endeavour to offer energy efficiency advice in parallel with giving information on the PV grants. The 52 Energy Advice Centres and six pilot Renewable Energy Advice Centres combine this function.

  Similarly, applicants to the £10 million Clear Skies programme for household and community schemes, are encouraged to contact their local energy efficiency advice centre in order to check their existing household systems. This is testament to the fact that, particularly when allied to energy efficiency measures, renewable energy is one of the most effective methods of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

  Airports
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment her Department has made of the environmental impact of proposals to expand airport capacity in the south-east. [116322]

  Mr. Morley
  A range of possible airport development options were assessed in accordance with a detailed environmental appraisal framework, published in November 2000. The full results of those appraisals have been published as part of the consultation exercise currently being undertaken by the Department for Transport. The Government will consider the responses to the consultation exercise, including representations about environmental impact, when deciding whether any additional airport capacity should be provided. That decision will be set out in an Air Transport White Paper later this year.

  Animal Welfare
  Mr. Tynan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps she is taking to press the European Commission to publish its proposals for a new directive on the protection of animals during transport; and if she will make a statement. [118243]

  Mr. Morley
  We have regularly pressed the European Commission to publish their proposals. At the Agriculture Council on 26 May 2003, Commissioner Byrne announced that he hoped to bring forward final proposals no later than July 2003.

  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what plans she has to give further support to animal sanctuaries in the United Kingdom; [117863]

  (2) what steps she is taking to encourage the development of animal sanctuaries in the United Kingdom. [118058]

  Mr. Morley
  I applaud the good work carried out by conscientious and responsible people who devote their time to looking after sick, injured or unwanted animals.

  The Department is currently working on a proposed Animal Welfare Bill, which will encourage more responsible animal ownership and thereby help to reduce the number of unwanted animals, a considerable number of which currently end up in animal sanctuaries.
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  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent representations she has had from animal welfare groups regarding animal sanctuaries. [117864]

  Mr. Morley
  A number of animal welfare groups have provided their views on animal sanctuaries during the consultation on an Animal Welfare Bill. My officials are continuing to talk to representatives of animal welfare groups, animal sanctuaries and other organisations responsible for the well being of animals as work on the Animal Welfare Bill progresses.

  Mr. Cawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will include provisions in the forthcoming draft Animal Welfare Bill to stop the practice of keeping primates as pets. [118063]

  Mr. Morley
  Whilst there are no specific plans to impose a ban on primates as pets, the content of the proposed Animal Welfare Bill is still to be decided. However powers are already available under Article 8.2 of Council Regulation (EC) No 338/97 to restrict the holding of species subject to control under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (which includes all primates) and a paper setting out the Government's proposals for using these powers will be circulated for public consultation later in the year.

  It is anticipated that a draft Animal Welfare Bill will be published for consultation next year.

  Asbestos
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many people were fined by the Environment Agency or its predecessor regulatory authority for dumping bonded asbestos illegally in each year since 1990. [116208]

  Mr. Meacher
  The Environment Agency's National Enforcement Database does not record specific types of pollutants and so it is not possible to provide details of prosecutions for the illegal dumping of asbestos. However figures are available for the total number of prosecutions per year for the illegal depositing of waste contrary to Section 33(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, of which asbestos dumping would be a subset. No information is available pre-1999.

  The details are as follows:

  Prosecutions per year for the illegal depositing of waste

  Number

  1999 (from 1 April)

  143

  2000

  222

  2001

  242

  2002

  273

  2003 (to date)

  85

  Cetaceans
  Mr. Leigh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether recent trials of separator grids to reduce cetacean deaths will be replicated next year during the peak of the bass fishing season. [117195]

  Mr. Morley
  The preliminary results of the recent trial of separator grids to reduce cetacean bycatch in the offshore bass fishery demonstrated that a viable means of minimising dolphin bycatch in this fishery can be attained very soon. A fuller analysis of the data from the trial is now being undertaken which will be made available on the Defra website and placed in the House of Commons library.

  On the basis of these results I am determined to move forward from trialling the separator grid to deploying the gear in the fishery. I will be discussing how this can be achieved with the industry and our researchers, the Sea Mammal Research Unit, and whether other adaptations to the fishing gear, such as changes to fishing methods, could also contribute to bycatch reduction.

  Ms Bridget Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps the British Government has taken to persuade the US to stop military sonar testing which may harm or kill dolphins and whales. [115346]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Government takes its environmental responsibilities very seriously. Research on this issue has, therefore, been set in hand and is continuing. Military sonar testing by the US is a matter for them. However, we do exchange information with other countries (the US in particular) so that we have the best possible understanding of the effects of noise on marine mammals, and how we might employ sonar so as to minimise the risk of harm.

  Biofuels
  Mr. Cameron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimates the Government has received for the level of duty on biofuels that would be necessary to make the cultivation of these non-fuel crops profitable for British farmers; and if she will make a statement. [117138]

  John Healey
  I have been asked to reply.

  Although biofuels may offer new market opportunities to farmers producing non-food crops, assisting farmers is not the primary consideration in determining the appropriate level of duty for such fuels. Duty rates for less environmentally-damaging fuels are set relative to the main road fuels. The differentials we have set for bioethanol and biodiesel are intended mainly to reflect the relative environmental impacts of the fuels in question.

  Common Agricultural Policy
  Mr. Simmonds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the CAP Mid-Term Review. [113961]
  876W
  Mr. Morley
  Commission proposals for reform of the CAP are under active discussion, most recently at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 26 to 27 May 2003, and subsequent meetings at official level. We expect these discussions to reach a critical stage at the Agriculture Council beginning on 11 June 2003.

  We are working hard for a positive outcome from that meeting which will benefit farmers, consumers, taxpayers, the rural economy, the environment and developing countries, and put the EU in a strong position to negotiate a successful outcome at the next round of WTO talks in September 2003.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to remove the 10 per cent. set-aside obligation on farmers. [115213]

  Mr. Morley
  The 10 per cent. set-aside obligation on farmers is a condition of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) support arrangements for the arable sector.

  In discussion of the European Commission's current CAP reform proposals we have made clear that we do not see a case for a continuing compulsory set-aside requirement if the full decoupling of support from production is agreed. But if set-aside is to be retained, we would want it to be operated flexibly in order to maximise the possible wider benefits.

  Countryside and Rights of Way Act
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the cost of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 mapping exercise was up until 31 May; and what the budgeted cost was. [118170]

  Alun Michael
  By the end of May 2003, the Countryside Agency had spent £15.7 million on implementing Part 1 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, mostly on mapping open countryside and registered common land. This figure covers all costs of the project, including staff, appeals and publicity costs (as required by the Act) and include accruals for mapping work completed but not yet invoiced. In addition, the Planning Inspectorate had spent £1.65 million to the end of May on dealing with appeals against the inclusion of land on provisional maps.

  By the end of March 2003 the Countryside Agency had spent £13.5 million on implementing Part 1 of the Act against a budget of £12.7 million up until the end of March 2003. The budget for the project is kept under review and revised regularly.

  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the estimated total cost of mapping the countryside under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 was in(a) 2000, (b) 2001, (c) 2002 and (d) to date; and if she will make a statement. [118349]

  Alun Michael
  By the end of May 2003, the Countryside Agency had spent a total of £15.7 million on implementing Part I of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, mostly on mapping open countryside and registered common land. This figure includes expenditure of £2.5 million in 2000–01; £3.4 million in
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  2001–02; £7.6 million in 2002–03 and £2.2 million in 2003–04 and covers all costs of the project, including staff, appeals and publicity costs (as required by the Act) and include accruals for mapping work completed but not yet invoiced. In addition, the Planning Inspectorate had spent £1.65 million to the end of May 2003 on dealing with appeals against the inclusion of land on provisional maps.

  Wildlife Culls
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the species of which Ministers authorised culls on the basis of conservation during 2002. [117665]

  Mr. Morley
  The Department issued licences for killing or taking, under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, for the conservation of wild birds or flora and fauna during 2002, for the following species:

  Canada Geese

  Greylag Geese

  Barnacle Geese

  Egyptian Geese

  Mallard

  Moorhen

  Coot

  Ruddy duck (as part of an ongoing control trial that began in 1999)

  English Nature also issued licences under the 1981 Act to allow killing or taking for the conservation of wild birds or flora and fauna during 2002, for the following species:

  Canada Geese

  Greylag Geese

  Egyptian Geese

  Black-headed gull

  Moorhen

  Farmed Fish
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which species of wild fish are farmed in the UK and used in the production of fishmeal in the UK, for use in the UK; how much of each species of wild fish was taken from UK waters and used in the production of fishmeal in the UK, for use in the UK in the last 12 months; how much fishmeal is produced in the UK, for use in the UK; what species of industrially farmed fish are produced in the UK; and how much of each species of industrially farmed fish was produced in the UK, in each of the past five years. [116965]

  Mr. Morley
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave her on 27 March 2003,Official Report, column 374W. Fish species farmed in the UK are primarily for human consumption or for restocking, but some waste from farmed fish may be used in fishmeal production. Data on fish species caught in UK waters for use in fishmeal production are not available. According to data available from the Fishmeal Information Network, 50,000 tonnes of fishmeal was produced in the UK in 2002 for use in the UK.

  Farming Subsidies
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what the total amount of subsidy received by the British farming industry was in each of the last three years; from which budgets this money comes; what steps she is taking to monitor these costs; and if she will make a statement. [116916]

  (2) how much subsidy the British farming industry has received over the last three years for which figures are available; from which budgets this money came; what steps she is taking to monitor this spending; and if she will make a statement. [118114]

  Mr. Morley
  In each of the last three years, the UK farming industry received the following amounts:

  (£ million)

  1999–2000

  2000–2001

  2001–2002

  3,161

  3,042

  4,664

  Source:

  Agriculture in the UK

  The figures include direct payments and market support measures under the Common Agricultural Policy, payments for rural development, compensation for animal disease, and other national grants and subsidies. Payments for market support and certain payments for rural development will not all have been received directly by the farming industry.

  In 2001–2002 cash based accounting was replaced by accrual accounting. This change means that it is not possible to compare directly the 2001–2002 figures with those for previous years. However, the substantial increase in 2001–2002 can mainly be attributed to the impact of the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in 2001.

  The money comes either from the EC budget or directly from the UK Exchequer. The Government monitors EC costs in the Council, primarily through the annual budget process, during which the Commission's expenditure forecasts for the next year are thoroughly scrutinised. Our policy is to subject all areas of EC spending to rigorous analysis. This enables us to make better use of existing resources, and ensure that the Financial Perspective ceilings are respected. The UK and European parliaments are also involved in this process.

  The Department monitors UK Exchequer costs in accordance with the procedures of resource accounting and budgeting. Expenditure on agriculture in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is the responsibility of the devolved authorities.

  Illegal Fishing
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many(a) sightings, (b) arrests and (c) prosecutions for illegal fishing by vessels from non-EU countries within British territorial limits as defined by the Fishery Limits Act 1976 have taken place since the Act came into force. [118057]
  879W
  Mr. Morley
  Information is only readily available from the Fisheries Departments in the United Kingdom on the number of non-EU fishing vessels, including klondykers, prosecuted since 1982 and on sightings in British Fishery Limits since 1991. The sightings would include vessels transiting as well as fishing legally within British Fishery Limits. The total number of prosecutions between 1981 and 2002 was 73 and the sightings between 1991 and 2002 were 19,297. Some of the prosecutions and sightings involve vessels from nations that have since joined the European Union.

  Genetically Modified Crops
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the cost to the Government of the GM trials taking place in England and Wales is. [113353]

  Mr. Meacher
  Four companies and two research institutes currently have consent to undertake GM trials in England. The costs of these trials are borne by the organisations involved. The costs to Government of consideration of the applications, granting and enforcing the consents are recovered through statutory fees and charges. GM trials in Wales and Scotland are the responsibilities of their devolved administrations.

  Over the course of the farm scale evaluations of GM herbicide tolerant crops the Government has funded the ecological studies themselves, with all other costs borne by the companies involved. The cost to Government this year, for the last stage of the studies on winter oilseed rape is 258,896, out of a total cost to Government of £5.9 million over four years for all the four crops evaluated.

  Hotel Accommodation
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the amount spent by(a) her Department, (b) its agencies and (c) its non-departmental public bodies on hotel accommodation (i) in the UK and (ii) abroad for (A) Ministers, (B) staff and (C) others; and if he will list the average cost per hotel room, in each year since 1997. [117567]

  Alun Michael
  For the Department's civil servants, the detailed information requested is not held centrally, and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, the total currently budgeted by the Department for this year for travel and subsistence is £16.7 million.

  All travel by civil servants is conducted in accordance with the requirements of the Civil Service Management Code.

  For Ministers, the Government publish an annual report of Ministerial travel overseas. The total cost of ministerial travel provided in the annual report includes the cost of accommodation. The information sought in respect of accommodation within the UK is not held centrally. All travel is conducted in line with the requirements of the Ministerial Code.

  Ingram Works, Leeds
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the Environment Agency's agreed amount of tonnage per year is for waste processed under the site management licence at the waste disposal and landfill site operated by Harry Sanders Ltd. at Ingram Works in Leeds. [116327]

  Mr. Meacher
  There are three operations at this site. The waste transfer station on this site is currently permitted to receive up to 5,000 tonnes of waste in a year. However, an application for the modification of the licence is currently under consideration. The effect of this licence modification would be to increase the maximum annual input of waste to 100,000 tonnes.

  The landfill on this site is Waste Management Licence 113, as issued to Mr. P. H. Sanders, and the maximum annual quantity of waste that may be accepted at the site is 10,000 tonnes. There is also a registered exempt site where there is no maximum annual input imposed under waste management regulations.

  Invasive Weeds
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to use(a) promotion and (b) education to heighten awareness of the non-native invasive weeds identified by the Non-native Species Review Group: and if she will make a statement. [117805]

  Mr. Morley
  The working group of the Review of Non-native Species Policy recommended that Government should develop a targeted education and awareness strategy involving all relevant sectors. My Department is developing, in liaison with the Devolved Administrations, the Government response to the report and it is intended to undertake a public consultation later this year.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what environmental assessment has been undertaken to measure the impact of non-native invasive weeds on the countryside; and if she will make a statement. [117806]

  Mr. Morley
  An overall assessment of the impact of non-native species was undertaken in the Review of Non-Native Species Policy, which included case studies on Japanese knotweed and New Zealand pigmyweed (also known as Australian swamp stonecrop).

  More detailed, site-specific environmental assessments have also been undertaken by English Nature and the Environment Agency. English Nature commission work on a fairly regular basis, that includes assessments of invasive non-natives species, often as part of a wider programme of investigations. For example, as part of its Lakes Restoration Project, English Nature has undertaken an environmental appraisal of the impact of New Zealand pigmyweed at a site in Shropshire, which threatens a native plant, floating water plantain. The presence of invasive non-native aquatic plants is one of the causes for unfavourable condition of a number of freshwater Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). This appraisal included an assessment of control options and a programme of control is planned for later this year at three SSSI lakes. A monitoring programme to determine

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  the efficacy of different control techniques and the recovery of native plant species will accompany the control.

  The Environment Agency has assessed river habitats using a standard assessment that includes the recording of three non-native species: Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed and Himalayan Balsam.

  Laying Hens
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to her answer of 22 May 2003,Official Report, column 893W, on laying hens, whether all Defra-funded research into enriched cages conforms to the EU minimum height of 45cm. [117664]

  Mr. Morley
  One of the objectives of this research is to evaluate the effect of cage height on bird behaviour, welfare and performance in commercially available furnished cages. The research looks at the effects of cage height on birds kept in furnished cages—with heights set at 38cm and 45cm. This research will help in informing our position on the welfare benefits of furnished or enriched cages.

  Management Consultants
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the contracts her Department has with management consultants, and the value of each contract in 2002—03. [117339]

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

  Underground Storage Tanks
  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has received and proposals she has to provide funding for(a) enforcing and overseeing corrective action at leaking underground storage tank sites and (b) clean-ups (i) where the owner or operator is unknown, or is unwilling or unable to respond and (ii) which require emergency action. [117483]

  Mr. Morley
  I am not aware of representations as such, although this issue was raised by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) in an adjournment debate on underground storage tanks on 7 January 2003,Official Report, columns 54–61WH.

  In England and Wales there is a duty under Section 73 of the Public Health Act 1973 for site occupiers to prevent danger, as far as is reasonably necessary, from tanks which have been used to store petroleum spirit. This legislation is enforced by the local Petroleum Licensing Authority (PLA). Where the site occupier cannot be contacted or is unknown, and there is a serious concern for public safety, the PLA can use powers under Section 290(6) of the Public Health Act 1936 to execute the works at the local authority's expense. The local authority can then seek to recover these costs either through the civil courts or by registering a charge under the Land Registration Act 1988.
  882W
  Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act can be used by local authorities to deal with significant harm or water pollution arising from land contamination, and capital support is available for eligible projects. The Environment Agency also has a range of environmental protection responsibilities and powers, and provision is made in its funding for emergency situations at USTs, and where owners and occupiers are unknown, although it would not be possible to disaggregate these functions.

  Poultry Regulations
  Mr. Cameron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has received about the planned threshold of 350 birds for the new regulations concerning poultry; and if she will make a statement. [117143]

  Mr. Morley
  Commission Directive 2002/4/EC requires all establishments with flocks of 350 or more hens producing eggs for human consumption to be registered. Interested parties were consulted during the negotiations and a further consultation exercise will be held on the draft Regulations.

  Press Officers
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what guidance she has issued on media lines to be taken by press officers on stories in the event of a story breaking; and if she will place the current list in the Library. [117836]

  Alun Michael
  Statements and answers for the news media are prepared in line with central guidance including the Ministerial Code, the Civil Service Code and the Guidance on the Work of the Government Information Service.

  Puma Attack
  Mr. Cawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent reports she has received of an attack by a puma on a horse in north Lincolnshire. [118040]

  Mr. Morley
  This Department was asked by the Police investigating injuries to a horse in North Lincolnshire for advice on the possibility that these were caused by an attack by a puma. The Department has not made its own investigation.

  Puma are not native to the UK and are not naturally found in the wild in this country. The Department is not aware of any confirmed instances of a puma or other big cats of unknown origin being found out of captivity in England in the last 20 years. Injuries to domestic animals are more likely to be due to other causes. Dogs are sometimes involved.

  The release of puma into the wild is prohibited under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and possession of this species is regulated under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 and Zoo Licensing Act 1981.

  Salmon Tagging
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to her answer of 22 May,Official Report, column 895W, how

  883W
  many salmon have been tagged with radio transmitting or other tags in the Hampshire Avon since 1990; whether the project is now concluded; if she will place in the Library the results and advice given to Government and other organisations; and if she will list the organisations which may receive the advice. [117330]

  Mr. Morley
  Since 1990 there have been a number of projects resulting in the tagging of 24,291 salmon. The current research project by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) studying thermal habitats in freshwater started recently and will be reported when concluded. The report will be available to conservation and environmental organisations and other interested parties. Copies will also be placed in the library of the House.

  Statutory Instruments
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many statutory instruments her Department has made in each year since 1997. [117338]

  Site type

  2000

  2001

  2002

  A01-Co-disposal landfill site

  27

  (16)

  32

  (20)

  13

  (12)

  A02-Other landfill site taking special waste

  4

  (1)

  12

  (10

  6

  (50)

  A03-Borehole

  1

  (1)

  —

  —

  —

  —

  A04-Household, commercial and industrial waste landfill

  25

  (22)

  15

  (9)

  10

  (11)

  A05-Landfill taking non-biodegradeable wastes

  27

  (22)

  14

  (14)

  4

  (3)

  A06-Landfill taking other wastes

  24

  (24)

  7

  (7)

  7

  (3)

  A07-Industrial waste landfill (factory curtilage)

  5

  (3)

  1

  (3)

  3

  (1)

  A08-Lagoon

  3

  (1)

  1

  (1)

  1

  (1)

  A09-Special waste transfer station

  27

  (16)

  20

  (16)

  12

  (16)

  A10-In-house storage facility

  1

  —

  2

  (3)

  —

  —

  A11-Household, commercial and industrial waste transfer station

  99

  (63)

  76

  (51)

  69

  (54)

  A12-Clinical waste transfer station

  2

  (2)

  8

  (3)

  3

  (6)

  A13-Household waste amenity site

  2

  (2)

  6

  (6)

  4

  (3)

  A14-Transfer station taking non-biodegradable wastes

  3

  (2)

  3

  (4)

  —

  —

  A15-Material recycling treatment facility

  7

  (1)

  3

  (5)

  3

  (1)

  A16-Physical treatment facility

  10

  (5)

  6

  (7)

  4

  (4)

  A17-Physico-chemical treatment facility

  2

  (2)

  5

  (4)

  3

  (1)

  A18-Incinerator

  1

  —

  2

  (2)

  1

  —

  A19-Metal recycling site (vehicle dismantler)

  7

  (7)

  3

  (2)

  3

  (1)

  A20-Metal recycling site (mixed MRSs)

  8

  (1)

  11

  (4)

  15

  (14)

  A21-Chemical treatment Facility

  3

  (3)

  3

  (3)

  —

  —

  A22-Composting Facility

  2

  (1)

  3

  (3)

  4

  (2)

  A23-Biological Treatment Facility

  3

  (1)

  8

  (6)

  3

  (3)

  A24-Mobile Plant

  —

  —

  12

  (11)

  5

  (6)

  Nitrates
  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has received concerning progress made on designating nitrate-sensitive areas required under the urban waste water treatment directive since 1997. [117486]

  Mr. Morley
  No representations have been received on the eight Sensitive Areas (Nitrate) identified under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive in England since 1997.

  Water companies providing sewage treatment services is the industrial sector affected by identifications of Sensitive Areas (Nitrate). Such identifications require
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  Alun Michael
  Defra was created on 8 June 2001. Information on the Department's Statutory instruments since that time is as follows:

  Number

  8 June to 31 December 2001

  219

  1 January to 31 December 2002

  127

  1 January to 10 June 2003

  61

  All Statutory Instruments are available on the HMSO website at: http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/stat htm

  Waste Management
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what modifications to waste management licences have been(a) applied for and (b) authorised by the Environment Agency or its predecessor regulatory body in each year since 1990, broken down by waste site. [116331]

  Mr. Meacher
  The table below shows the number of modifications issued by the Environment Agency.

  Modifications are not necessarily issued in the same year that the application is received.

  water companies to provide specific treatment to reduce nitrates present in sewage at sewage treatment works which monitoring by the Environment Agency reveals as having an impact on associated water supply sources. These measures complement those taken under the Nitrates Directive to reduce the diffuse pollution of waters by nitrates arising from agricultural practices.

  Funding of such sewage treatment is obtained through the five yearly Periodic Review of water company price limits.

  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many nitrate-sensitive areas were designated in each year since 1997; and if she will make a statement. [117531]
  885W
  Alun Michael
  There are 32 nitrate sensitive areas in England where voluntary, compensated agricultural measures were introduced, under the Nitrate Sensitive Areas Scheme, to reduce nitrate concentrations in sources of public drinking water. These were designated in 1994 and 1995. No new areas have been designated since then and the Scheme will close on 30 September 2003.

  The EU Nitrates Directive requires all known areas of land draining into nitrate-polluted waters to be designated as nitrate vulnerable zones. In 1996, the Government designated 66 nitrate vulnerable zones covering eight per cent. of England's land area, and in October 2002, designated nitrate vulnerable zones covering an additional 47 per cent. of England's land area. This brings total coverage of England to around 55 per cent. Further details on the location of the nitrate vulnerable zones can be obtained from the Defra NVZ web pages (www.defra.gov.uk/environment/water/quality/nitrate).

  Water Industry
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the average change in water bills since 1997, broken down by water company area, attributable to debts arising from non-payment of water bills. [117341]

  Mr. Morley
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made no estimate.

  The Office of Water Services (Ofwat) collects information on the level of debt and associated recovery costs on a yearly basis. Price limits set by Ofwat in 1999 for the period 2000–01 to 2004–05 made no assumptions about any increases in costs due to non-payment of water bills. However, interim determinations for three companies—Dee Valley Water, Severn Trent Water and Yorkshire Water—have subsequently resulted in price increases, partly owing to the effects of increasing bad debt and debt recovery costs but this element is not separately quantified. Any increases in costs for other companies will be considered when price limits are next reviewed in 2004.

  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what further guidance she has given the Director General of Water Services in connection with his periodic review of water company price limits. [117539]

  Mr. Morley
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State issued initial guidance to the Director General of Water Services on the periodic review of water price limits in January 2003. A copy has been placed in the House Library. Further guidance will be issued in 2004.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

  Criminal Records Bureau
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many Criminal Records Bureau checks for school staff took place last year; and how many he estimates will take place this year. [118127]
  886W
  Mr. Miliband
  My Department does not collect this information.

  Education Funding
  Annette Brooke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the overall percentage change in per pupil funding for 2003–04 for the 10 lowest funded education authorities in England. [117382]

  Mr. Miliband
  The following table shows the 2003–04 Education Formula Spending Share per pupil and the increase over the adjusted 2002–03 Standard Spending Assessment for the 10 authorities who receive the lowest average EFSS per pupil.

  Education Formula Spending Share per 3–15 pupil

  Percentage increase over adjusted 2002–2003 SSA per 3–15 pupil

  Leicestershire

  2,939

  3.2

  South

  2,953

  5.6

  Gloucestershire

  York

  2,958

  4.7

  Worcestershire

  2,979

  4.1

  Warrington

  2,980

  6.2

  Staffordshire

  2,986

  5.1

  Solihull

  2,987

  6.9

  Poole

  2,990

  4.2

  Stockport

  3,002

  6.1

  Dudley

  3,020

  7.0

  The 2002–03 SSA figures have been adjusted to include the 2002–03 nursery education and infant class size allocations as these grants have been transferred into Education Formula Spending, and an estimate of the £586 million 2003–04 pension transfer, deflated by 2.5 per cent. for 2002–03. This was the baseline used to calculate the Education Formula Spending floors and ceilings.

  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what representations he has received concerning the failure of schools in East Sussex to meet standstill budget pressures for(a) the current academic year, (b) 2003–04 and (c) 2004–05. [117636]

  Mr. Miliband
  The Department for Education and Skills has received large amounts of correspondence concerning education budgets for the current financial year from both schools and East Sussex local education authority, as it does each year. It is not possible to collate this information without disproportionate cost.

  Secondary School Pupil Attainment
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what evidence he has collated on the impact of(a) increased funding, (b) school management reviews and (c) the creation of a subject specialism on levels of pupil attainment in secondary schools. [117179]

  Mr. Miliband
  The Department's own figures show that there has been an increase of £10.5 billion in school funding since 1997. This equates to an increase in funding per pupil of £920 in cash terms over the period, and has enabled schools to increase the number of teachers that they employ by 20,000 and the number of support staff by 80,000. Coupled with improvements to school buildings and the rolling out of initiatives such as specialist schools these additional resources have been
  887W
  correlated with a substantial improvement in pupil achievement. In particular, since 1997 there has been a 5 percentage point increase in the proportion of secondary pupils achieving five or more A*-C GCSEs. Primary school pupils have also benefited with 10 and 14 percentage point improvements in the proportion achieving the expected level in English and Maths at KS2.

  Reviews of school management are primarily the responsibility of local education authorities, although an independent view of the competence of management and leadership in each school is an integral part of every Ofsted inspection. The annual report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector (February 2003) indicates that leadership and management of secondary head teachers and key staff continue to improve, and are now good or better in over eight out 10 schools. We continue to press hard to identify areas where improvement is still needed, using targeted policies and funding to do so.

  Building on the new Ofsted framework for inspection, groups of schools in receipt of Leadership Incentive Grant funding have, for example, been required to undertake rigorous self and peer review to identify strengths and weaknesses in key areas contributing to leadership and attainment. These Leadership Collaborates have used this knowledge to agree shared priorities for action in their Collaborative Plans. Where there are weaknesses, funding through the Grant can be used to restructure leadership teams and provide additional support for actions designed to raise attainment and strengthen teaching and learning across the Collaborative. We will be monitoring the impact on pupil attainment over the lifetime of the Grant.

  (c) In 2002, mainstream non-selective specialist schools averaged 54.1 per cent. 5 + A* to C grades at GCSE compared to 46.7 per cent. for all other mainstream non-selective secondary schools. On average there was a 4.5 percentage points difference between the value added outcomes of these specialist schools in terms of KS2 to GCSE 5 + A* to C when compared with non-specialist schools. Ofsted's 2001 report on specialist schools ("An evaluation of progress") said that specialist status had been
  "a catalyst for innovation and helped to sustain or accelerate the momentum of school improvement".

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will assess the impact of heterogenous pupil grouping on levels of discipline in the classroom. [117180]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  It is for schools to develop and determine for themselves the best form of pupil grouping to meet the needs of all their pupils. From September, all secondary schools in England will benefit from a package of training and audit materials, which will help schools to improve their effectiveness in promoting positive behaviour and attendance.

  School Exclusions
  Mr. Grieve
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much has been spent on educating excluded children in each year since 1995. [116631]
  888W
  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 3 June 2003]: The information requested is not collected centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Independent Schools
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children have been in receipt of assisted places at independent schools since 1997. [118392]

  Mr. Miliband
  The Assisted Places Scheme is being phased out. The number of children holding assisted places in each school year since 1997/98 is given in the following table:

  Academic year

  Number of assisted pupils

  1997/98

  36,458

  1998/99

  29,795

  1999/2000

  23,255

  2000/01

  17,927

  2001/02

  12,550

  2002/03

  7,690

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what estimate he has made of(a) the number of children in receipt of scholarships, bursaries or other such assistance attending independent schools and (b) the total value of such assistance. [118397]

  Mr. Miliband
  Information about the number of children attending independent schools who receive scholarships, bursaries or other financial support is not collected centrally. The Independent Schools Council estimate, in respect of their member schools, that over 160,000 pupils receive such help, nearly 114,000 of whom receive fee assistance directly from their schools.

  There are 7,690 children holding Government assisted places at independent schools at a total estimated cost of £32.7 million in the current school year 2002/03. 792 exceptionally talented children receive help under the Music and Dance Scheme at a total cost of £12.5 million. In addition, £132,000 is available to support 85 Choristers through the Choir Schools Scholarship Scheme.

  Individual Learning Account
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when individual learning accounts are expected to be re-introduced. [117677]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  We will make an announcement about the National Skills Strategy in July 2003, which will include our proposals for taking forward the principles of individual learning accounts.

  Ofsted
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) if he will make it the policy of the Government that the South West Regional Centre of Ofsted should publish its telephone number; [118219]
  889W
  (2) how many After School Clubs have been registered by Ofsted; how many applications are outstanding; and what the average time has been between the making of an application and its determination; [118222]

  (3) what the average time has been between the date of an application for registration of an After School Club and the carrying out of an inspection visit; [1l8223]

  (4) if he will make it the policy of the Government that each application for registration of an After School Club should be the responsibility of a named individual who can report to the applicant on the progress of the application; and if he will make a statement. [118224]

  Mr. Miliband
  These are matters for the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). HM Chief Inspector of Schools, David Bell, will write to the hon. Member and a copy of his letter will be placed in the Library.

  School Budgets
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list by local education authority(a) the number of schools requesting a budget deficit and (b) the value of budget deficits requested in each year since 1997. [118122]

  Mr. Miliband
  Data on schools reaching agreements with their local education authority for a licensed deficit are not collected centrally.

  School Funding
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will place in the Library copies of correspondence between his Department and schools relating to school funding in 2003. [118125]

  Mr. Miliband
  Fulfilling this request would incur disproportionate expense to the Department.

  Sector Skills Councils
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what progress has been made in the creation of a sector skills council for the hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism sectors. [117068]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism (HLTT) Board submitted a full business proposal for SSC Licence on 31 March 2003. They have been fully supported by the Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA) during the development stage.

  Following a series of feedback and progress review meetings between SSDA and HLTT, a substantially revised proposal for SSC Licence is expected on 6 June 2003, in time for it to be considered by the SSDA Board meeting in August 2003. The aim is for HLTT to be licensed by September 2003.

  It is recognised by the SSDA and HLTT that this is a challenging, but achievable target.

  Teachers Pay and Pensions
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the breakdown 890W
  of funding for pay and pensions out of the total amount provided for education in the recent local government settlement. [114941]

  Mr. Miliband
  [holding answer 21 May 2002]: The overall increase of £2.7 billion in the local government finance settlement does not provide funding specifically for pay, pensions or any other pressure. It is for local education authorities and schools to decide how to manage their budgets within the total available. However, we estimate that the cost of the increase in employer's contributions to teachers' pensions amounts to some £640 million and that the costs of teaching and non-teaching education staff represent an increase of some £820 million. Overall, the increase in total funding is about £250 million more than all the pressures including the pensions pay pressures described schools and authorities face in 2003–04.

  Training
  Mr. Watts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on his Department's review of work-based training and the effects that the benefits system has on participation. [117374]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  The review of financial support for 16 to 19-year-olds has been jointly run by the Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions, with the close involvement of other relevant Departments and partners. This review has looked at making more effective the measures to support young people to participate in education or vocational training. In the Budget 2003 Red Book the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a more comprehensive review of financial support for 16 to 19-year-olds, including the financial incentives for young people, their parents and carers, and the interaction between this support and the case for any new minimum wage for 16 and 17-year-olds. The work of the current review group, including that relating to work based training, will inform the wider review announced by the Chancellor, which is due to report in spring 2004.

  UK & Universities Worldwide
  David Wright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what level of government resources have been expended on supporting the UKEU project; [114133]

  (2) what level of government resources have been earmarked in future years to support the UKEU project; [114134]

  (3) whether the business plan for UKEU contains proposals to repay government resources over time. [114139]

  Margaret Hodge
  The Government have provided £62 million to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) over the period 2001–04 to launch the eUniversities project, now being taken forward by UK eUniversities Worldwide (UKeU). HEFCE has agreed to provide up to £55 million to UKeU. The remainder has been used by HEFCE for projects to set up and advance the general aims of the project, notably the eChina Programme and to further research into e-learning provision. HEFCE will review
  891W
  the venture this autumn and no decisions have yet been made on future funding. The purpose of the HEFCE grant is to secure services to support the UK higher education sector by providing a technological and marketing infrastructure, and advice and guidance in providing online courses of study. Funds are invested through a Holding Company (the eLearning Holding Company Ltd.) which is owned by the higher education institutions of the UK. HEFCE currently requires that the Holding Company maintains at least a 50 per cent. stake in UKeU so that it may oversee the value for money represented in the services provided, and to oversee quality and standards of a venture which carries a brand backed by UK higher education. Profits, proportionate to the public funding element, from the venture will be returned to the sector through the Holding Company.

  Voluntary Organisations
  Mr. Hendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what funding programmes are operated by his Department to support voluntary organisations working with young people; and what the level of support has been over the last three years. [116495]

  Mr. Ivan Lewis
  [holding answer 3 June 2003]: The Department funds 90 National Voluntary Youth Organisations (NVYOs) through the National Voluntary Youth Organisations Grant scheme. The grant scheme is a three year cycle of funding with a current budget of £18 million for April 2002-March 2005 a 50 per cent. increase in the previous three year cycle which was £12 million. The scheme is based on two ministerial objectives, tackling social exclusion through addressing priority groups and raising standards and quality of youth work.

  The Department has also allocated £1 million from the Transforming Youth Work Development Fund to the NVYOs within the grant scheme for 2003–04. This allocation is specifically aimed to support the following activities:
  Effective engagement with Connexions Service National Unit and local Connexions Partnerships
  Development of young people as Active Citizens, and
  Promotion of Community Cohesion.

  The previous and first year (2002–03) of the Transforming Youth Work Development Fund the NVYOs were allocated £2 million.

  The NVYO grant scheme is the only source of direct Government support for the voluntary youth sector; however the Department does fund the Millennium Volunteers (MV) programme. The programme has been designed to encourage 16–24 year olds to make a sustained commitment to volunteering that benefits others and their communities. Currently there are around 140 projects across England and the majority of these are existing voluntary and community organisations, offering a wide range of volunteering opportunities to young people. This year's budget is forecasted for £17.653 million while previous years' budgets have been £18.745 million for 2001–02 and £13.593 million for 2000–01.
  892W
  In addition to the Department's direct funding to the voluntary sector it does provide funds through the following:

  Education Standard Spending (ESS) Fund. For 2002–03 ESS allocated the LEA other block a potential resource of £397 million. £316 million of this total was allocated to the statutory youth services. It is estimated that around 16 per cent. (£50 million) of this allocation was spent on the voluntary sector.

  The Community Champions Fund (CCF) which has been set up by the Department to help support and develop the work of local people who are involved in, or who want to be involved in changing their communities for the better. In 2003, £289,000 of the £3 million is being used specifically to support the development of the fund with just over £2.7 million being devolved to the nine Government Offices, who administer the fund on DfES behalf. The fund will receive £2 million per year from April 2004 March 2006. The Fund is currently in its third year and has helped to turn visions into reality for well over 3,500 individuals and community champions in 2003/04.

  And the Neighbourhood Support Fund (NSF) which supports local Voluntary and Community Organisations to provide innovative projects for the hardest to reach 13–19 year olds. NSF is delivered via three managing agents:
  The Community Development Foundation—a Home Office non-departmental public body and received the bulk of the funds to oversee around 500 projects.
  National Youth Agency (NYA)—Supports approximately 100 projects
  The Learning Alliance—delivers some 36 projects across England

  £60 million has been allocated to the fund over three years until September 2003. The Minister recently announced that NSF will receive funding of £l0 million a year from 2003–04 to 2005–06.

  NSF has supported just over 44,000 participants since it started up with 61 per cent. of leavers achieving positive outcomes.

CABINET OFFICE

  Mental Health
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many of his staff have taken sick leave due to mental health problems in the last year. [111991]

  Mr. Alexander
  Cabinet Office records indicate that approximately 41 staff had absences caused by mental ill health in the year 2002.

  The Cabinet Office is committed to managing attendance effectively, and to meeting its obligation to provide a safe working environment for its staff. We have in place arrangements recommended by the 1998 report, "Working Well Together—Managing Attendance in the Public Sector", and are on schedule to achieving our target for reduced sickness absence of 30 per cent. compared with 1998 levels.
  893W
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many sick days were lost over the last year by his Department through staff mental health problems. [112005]

  Mr. Alexander
  In 2002, an estimated 1,472 working days were lost in the Cabinet Office as a result of absence caused by staff mental health problems.

  The Cabinet Office is committed to managing attendance effectively, and to meeting its obligation to provide a safe working environment for its staff. It is also a priority to reduce the number of days lost generally as a result of sickness and work-related injury. The Department has in place arrangements as recommended by the 1998 report, "Working Well Together—Managing Attendance in the Public Sector", and is on schedule to achieve its target for reduced sickness absence of 30 per cent. compared with 1998 levels.

  Open Source Software
  Mr. Jenkins
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what action his Department is taking to increase confidence in Government Departments in moving to open source operating systems and programmes. [116658]

  Mr. Alexander
  I announced the publication of the Government's Open Source Software (OSS) Policy in July last year. It sets out a level playing field for procuring OSS and proprietary solutions based on value for money considerations.

  We are raising confidence in and awareness of the use of OSS solutions in Government in a number of ways. Firstly, the publication in September 2002 of the Office of Government Commerce's Guidance on implementing OSS has made advice on procuring OSS solutions available to the public sector procurement community. Secondly, the establishment of the UK Public Sector OSS Special Interest Group (OSS SIG) has helped to share best practice on OSS implementations and build competence in procurement.

  Recent research reports supported by Government have also served to increase awareness of OSS solutions: the OGC commissioned case-study based report by QinetiQ provided a documented methodology for approaching OSS case studies in a consistent manner; and the DTI supported report for OpenForum Europe, "Market Perception Analysis of Open Source Software", revealed how business and Government's perceptions of OSS positively changed between 2002 and 2003.

  The Office of the e-Envoy and Office of Government Commerce will continue to appropriately support Departments to ensure that OSS solutions are procured where they demonstrate best value for money.

  Senior Civil Service
  Gareth Thomas
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office pursuant to his answer of 21 May 2003,Official Report, column 774W, if he will list by Government Department the number and proportion of posts in the Senior Civil Service for which sitting an entrance exam and passing it is a compulsory element for recruitment into the Department. [118037]
  894W
  Mr. Alexander
  There is no corporate requirement that applicants to Senior Civil Service posts sit entrance exams.

  With the exception of the most senior posts, recruitment to the Senior Civil Service is the responsibility of individual Government Departments and agencies. Departments are free to choose the selection methods that best suit their individual needs.

  Information is not held centrally on the specific methods of recruitment used for individual posts, but those most often used by Departments include job specific interviews, which address the competencies needed for the post, and/or use of competency-based assessment centres. At assessment centres, applicants may be interviewed, asked to give presentations, or complete job-related exercises.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Nanotechnology
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the economic benefits of developing nanotechnology in the UK. [117008]

  Alan Johnson
  The latest assessment was made in June 2002 by the UK Advisory Group on Nanotechnology Applications led by Dr. John Taylor, Director-General of the Research Councils, and is contained in his report to my noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science and Innovation titled "New Dimensions for Manufacturing—A UK Strategy for Nanotechnology'". The report concluded that it is too soon to produce reliable figures for the global market for nanotechnology. It is simply too early to say where markets and applications will come, and when. So it is important to treat all numbers with caution. However, existing forecasts do hint at the growth that we can expect. Various separate predictions when taken together point to the expectation of a rapid take off in the latter part of the decade.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what inward investment the UK has received in the last 12 months as a result of nanotechnology. [117026]

  Alan Johnson
  Invest UK is focusing its efforts on high value, knowledge driven direct investment projects, including in the area of nanotechnology, to ensure that the UK moves up the value chain and remains the number one location in Europe for inward investment.

  A number of inward investors are supporting nanotechnology work in the UK, including Johnson and Johnson, Smith and Nephew, Epson, Toshiba, Hitachi and SDL/JDS Uniphase.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the total Government spending is on nanotechnology. [117027]

  Alan Johnson
  The vast majority of Government spending has been made by the Research Councils in particular the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological
  895W
  Sciences Research Council. This amounts to a current portfolio of research grants on nanotechnology of £91 million.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether her Department has drawn up a public education strategy for nanotechnology. [117010]

  Alan Johnson
  I am pleased to inform the hon. Member that the Government has today commissioned the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering to undertake an important new study in this area.

  Nanotechnologies could provide immense benefits for all of us. But Government also recognises that there are public concerns. The debate risks confusion. We need to understand first what we mean by nanotechnologies, and then to establish whether there are aspects which should concern us. And if so, we need to look at how well these activities are regulated or whether further regulation is required. The study we are commissioning is intended to help answer these questions. Our approach underlines the Government's desire to acknowledge uncertainties openly and to engage with the public and stakeholders, and reflects our response to recommendations by the Better Regulation Task Force in its report 'Scientific Research: Innovation with Controls', published in January this year. The Task Force's report and the Government response can be found on the BRTF website at http://www.brtf.gov.uk/ taskforce/pastreports.htm

  The Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering will solicit widely for input among stakeholders—including the academic community, relevant industry, policy makers, regulatory bodies, NGOs, other special interest groups and the general public. The work will begin with an open call to the various stakeholders to register their interests and key concerns. Formal evidence sessions will then be held with the key stakeholders to explore their views in more detail.

  The study will be overseen by a working group chaired by Ann Dowling, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Membership of the working group has yet to be finalised but will include those with an understanding of ethical, social and regulatory issues, as well as scientists and engineers. The working group will reflect the range of disciplines and views associated with nanotechnology.

  A number of aspects have been built into the study in order to engage the general public; independent and representative focus groups will be convened, a questionnaire survey undertaken and an online discussion forum established to ensure that any general concerns are addressed. The final report of the study will of course be in the public domain and freely available on the Royal Society website.

  The study is expected to be completed in late Spring 2004.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if her Department will assess the benefits of developing pooled financing for nanotechnology with other Government Departments. [117021]
  896W
  Alan Johnson
  The Department has established a group of officials from all relevant Government Departments, which will take forward the possibility of pooled financing for nanotechnology.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if the DTI, OST and the research councils will form a joint strategy on nanotechnology. [117022]

  Alan Johnson
  The Research councils will be invited to join a Nanotechnolgoy Strategy Group that the Department is establishing.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action her Department is taking to foster closer links between academic institutions involved in nanotechnology research and industry. [117023]

  Alan Johnson
  DTI is working with various research councils, particularly Engineering Physical Sciences Research Council and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and the UK Regional and National Development Agencies (RDAs) to foster closer links between industry and academe. The RDAs are establishing an asset register of nanotechnology capabilities in the UK, which includes both academic and industrial facilities which might be made available to a wider range of users.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many people in her Department are employed to deal with nanotechnology. [117024]

  Alan Johnson
  The Department employs the equivalent of eight full time officials working on nanotechnology. However, due to the broad spectrum of potential applications of nanotechnology there is a wide range of officials across DTI and other Government Departments who deal with nanotechnology as part of their work.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether her Department has drawn up a plan for developing the nanotechnology industry in the UK. [117025]

  Alan Johnson
  The latest roadmap for nanotechnology is contained in Annex B of "New Dimensions for Manufacturing—A UK Strategy for Nanotechnology" (the Taylor Report). This report recommends further roadmapping activity, which will be directed by the National Strategy Group.

  Agency Workers
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many agency workers have been employed by the Department in each of the last two years; and at what cost to public funds. [115210]

  Ms Hewitt
  The Department does not keep central records of the number of temporary agency staff. The overall spend on temporary agency staff was £5.894 million in 2001–02 and £6.426 million in 2002–03.

  Ethnic Minority Business Forum
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the process applied to the selection of members of the
  897W
  Ethnic Minority Business Forum; what review system of the selection methods is in place; and if she will make a statement. [117343]

  Ms Hewitt
  The process of recruiting and selecting members to serve on the Ethnic Minority Business Forum (EMBF) is governed by the Government's Code of Practice for all Non-Department Public Bodies (NDPBs).

  Members of the EMBF are appointed from a broad spread of ethnic minority backgrounds and business sectors to achieve a balanced mix as an advisory body. There is an on-going programme to rotate the EMBF membership periodically.

  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what public monies have been made available in each year since 2001 to(a) the Ethnic Minority Business Forum, (b) individuals who are members of that Forum and (c) organisations and companies connected with individuals who are members of that Forum. [117344]

  Ms Hewitt
  (a) Members are currently unpaid but are reimbursed for travel and subsistence, according to the rates applicable to senior civil servants.

  Name and Title

  Organisation/Company

  (Chair) Yvonne Thompson Ms

  Managing Director, ASAP Communications Ltd.

  Numan Azmi Mr.

  Skills Manager, William Lee Innovation Centre at UMIST

  Vlaxine James Ms

  Partner, Equinox Consulting

  Vlichael Davis-Bingham Mr.

  Head Economic Development Environment & Economy—Borough of Telford and Wrekin

  Jaswin MacDonald Mrs.

  Administrator/Committee member, Anjuman

  Rita Patel Mrs.

  Project Manager, Belgrave Baheno Peepul Centre

  Tony Sealey Mr.

  Business franchise operator, MacDonald' s restaurants

  Leslie Fairclough Mr.

  Managing Director, Premier Care

  Kam Kothia Mr.

  Managing Director, E-Marketing Services Ltd.

  Sfiyazi Enver Mr.

  Managing Director, Nice and Easy Printing

  Dr. Haider Imam

  Director, Durham Organics Ltd.

  Councillor Mohammed Afzal Khan

  Partner, law firm Hussain Singh Khan & Co.

  Mai Sim Lei Ms

  Partner, Pridie Brewster Chartered Accountants

  Adeeba Malik Ms

  Deputy Chief Executive QED

  Sir Gulam Noon MBE

  Chairman and Managing Director, Noon Products

  Prof. Monder Ram

  Professor of Small Business Research, De Montfort University

  Askar Sheibani Mr.

  Chief Executive, Comtek Group

  Mohammed Isap Mr.

  Director, Manchester Print Graphics

  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the material publicly available in respect of the Ethnic Minority Business Forum, with particular reference to the members of that forum. [117347]

  Ms Hewitt
  Details of the Ethnic Minority Forum members are published on their website www.ethnicbusiness.org, which is managed by the Small Business Service and in the Forum's annual report.

  Executive Pay
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will list the publications produced by her Department in each year since 1997 which have made reference to executive remuneration, stating for each the(a) number of copies produced, (b) cost of publication, (c) cost of preparation and (d) cost of production. [117721]

  Ms Hewitt
  This information can be provided only at disproportionate cost.
  898W
  (b) Current members of the Ethnic Minority Business Forum (EMBF) are as follows. (The EMBF currently has two vacancies).

  Ethnic Minority Business Forum members

  Ms Yvonne Thompson (Chair)

  Mrs. Jaswin MacDonald

  Mr. Tony Sealey

  Mr. Kam Kothia

  Mr. Niyazi Enver

  Dr. Haider Imam

  Ms Maxine James

  Ms Adeeba Malik

  Sir Gulam Noon MBE

  Prof. Monder Ram

  Mr. Askar Sheibani

  Mr. Mohammed Isap

  Mr. Leslie Fairclough

  Mr. Michael Davis-Bingham

  Mr. Numan Azmi

  Miss Mai Sim Lei

  Mrs. Rita Patel

  Councillor Mohammed Afzal Khan

  (c) List of organisation and companies connected with individual members of the Forum.

  Export Credits Guarantee Department
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the reasons why the ECGD has deemed that environmental impact assessments are commercially confidential. [117193]

  Ms Hewitt
  The ECGD does not consider Environmental Impact Assessments ("an EIA") commissioned by the ECGD as commercially confidential. However, in the case of an EIA provided to the ECGD by a third part, who claims that it is commercially confidential, the ECGD will consider that claim. Where the ECGD considers that the claims is justified in law then the ECGD will treat it as confidential.

  National Minimum Wage
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many employers were(a) cautioned and (b) prosecuted in each of the Inland Revenue's

  899W
  regions in 2002–03 for failing to pay the national minimum wage; how many employees were affected; what the total was of arrears; what the penalties were; and if she will make a statement. [118111]

  Alan Johnson
  The National Minimum Wage Act 1998 contains a number of provisions empowering enforcement officers to take civil action against non-paying employers and the Inland Revenue always uses these in the first instance.

  In 2002–03, 1,996 employers were found not to be complying with the minimum wage regulations, with approximately 7,373 workers benefiting directly from the Inland Revenue's investigations.

  In addition, the Inland Revenue identified over £3.5 million in arrears. The majority of employers complied without further action being needed and only 26 enforcement notices were issued. To date there have been no criminal prosecutions in relation to underpayment of the minimum wage.

  Outsourcing
  Mr. Simon Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the impact of the change in outsourcing outside the UK on(a) employment and (b) job creation. [115047]

  Alan Johnson
  Outsourcing is one element of globalisation that also includes rising world trade, and greater flows of foreign direct investment (FDI). The key challenge for the UK is to seize the benefits of globalisation, allowing us to attract more FDI, and sell our goods and services into expanding global markets. The UK has the highest stock of FDI as a percentage of GDP in the G7, demonstrating our success in adapting to the opportunities provided by globalisation.

  The Office for National Statistics does not produce estimates of job losses arising from outsourcing. The Government do recognise that job losses, from wherever they arise, are regrettable. However, the role of Government is to ensure that the labour market is flexible enough to generate new opportunities, and that workers have the skills to take advantage of them. Employment is close to a record level, and is nearly 1.5 million higher than in April 1997. Moreover, new jobs continue to be created. Around two million people either move into employment or change jobs each quarter.

  Power Supplies (Dumfries and Galloway)
  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the stability of power supplies in Dumfries and Galloway. [115818]

  Mr. Wilson
  I am aware that SP Transmission and Distribution, the license holder for the Dumfries and Galloway area, is addressing two strategic issues that relate to the security and quality of supply in the area. These are the closure of Chapelcross power station (in or before 2008) and the impact of renewable generation in the area. In the first case, a new substation will be commissioned in Gretna to secure the network against premature closure of the power station. In the case of renewables, SP Transmission and Distribution have 900W
  collaborated with a study on behalf of the Department to identify necessary infrastructure reinforcements to accommodate various scenarios of renewable generation in Scotland.

  Race Relations
  Angela Eagle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress has been made in her Department and non-departmental public bodies on implementing the requirements of the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000; and if she will publish the results of the monitoring required by the Act. [117470]

  Ms Hewitt
  In the middle of 2002, my Department publicly consulted on a draft Race Equality Scheme for DTI and its non-departmental public bodies. These comprise six Executive Agencies, seven Research Councils, 11 executive non-departmental public bodies, 24 advisory non-departmental public bodies and seven tribunals. The draft included a description of DTI's employment practices and of its policy programmes, categorised as having a "high", "moderate" or "low" likely impact on race equality. This consultation resulted in excess of 53,000 hits to the draft scheme on our website, and at the end of December 2002, the results were confirmed and published as DTI's final Race Equality Scheme. Both the analysis of the responses and the final Race Equality Scheme are available on the website or in hard copy. The Scheme includes a commitment to annual monitoring and appropriate publication.

  Redundancy Pay
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the extent to which agency workers can claim statutory redundancy pay; and if she will make a statement. [118504]

  Alan Johnson
  Individuals, including agency workers, dismissed by their employers for reason of redundancy, will be entitled to the statutory redundancy payment if they are employees working under contracts of employment and have worked continuously for the same employer for at least two years since the age of 18. Whether or not an individual is an employee is a mixed question of fact and law, which, in the event of a dispute, can be decided by a court on the basis of the facts of the case. We are, therefore, unable to make an exact assessment of the extent to which agency workers can claim statutory redundancy pay.

  Regional Development Agencies
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry pursuant to her reply of 21 May 2003,Official Report, column 767W, (1) if she will set out in respect of each region the amount allocated in respect of each of her indicators; [118214]

  (2) when the allocation formula was approved and by whom; and when it will be reviewed next. [118215]

  Alan Johnson
  The following table shows the amount of money initially allocated to each of the Agencies for the current financial year in respect of each of the indicators. The allocation formula was approved by my
  901W
  right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in August 2002. The intention is that it will be reviewed at the time of the next Spending Review.

  Indicator

  Regional Development Agencies

  1I

  2II

  3III

  4IV

  5V

  6VI

  7VII

  8VIII

  9IX

  Advantage West Midlands

  5

  5

  23

  5

  6

  71

  99

  8

  7

  East of England

  5

  5

  12

  0

  11

  14

  29

  7

  6

  East Midlands

  5

  4

  15

  2

  9

  35

  34

  6

  6

  London

  5

  6

  0

  5

  0

  91

  222

  6

  6

  North West

  5

  6

  36

  5

  9

  134

  126

  9

  8

  One North East

  5

  2

  23

  13

  4

  58

  107

  5

  4

  South East

  5

  7

  10

  0

  12

  12

  41

  3

  8

  South West of England

  5

  4

  21

  1

  22

  16

  27

  5

  6

  Yorkshire Forward

  5

  5

  27

  25

  6

  74

  98

  7

  6

  1 Flat rate allocation for all RDAs, to cover common administrative overheads.

  2 Population size.

  3 Gross Domestic Product per head, where the richest region gets zero.

  4 Research and Development expenditure per head with the weakest regions benefiting most.

  5 Population of Rural Priority Areas.

  6 Number of people living in the most deprived 10 per cent. of wards.

  7 The hundred poorest authorities in terms of unemployment rate.

  8 The amount of derelict land and pre-used land with planning permission.

  9 The proportion of the working age population classed as partly skilled or unskilled.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Sport (Child Obesity)
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport pursuant to her answer of 24 March,Official Report, column 53W, on child obesity, how many young people were targeted by Sport England's physical activity exercises in each of the last five years; what proportion of those young people who took part were identified as clinically obese; and what proportion of those young people identified as clinically obese saw their weight fall below clinically obese levels. [117841]

  Mr. Caborn
  This information is not available.

  Freeview
  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will estimate the percentage of the UK population able to receive Freeview digital television. [118337]

  Dr. Howells
  I understand from the BBC that at Freeview's launch in October 2002, coverage stood at 72.3 per cent. of UK households. By the end of July 2003, Freeview coverage to correct domestic antennas in good condition is expected to stand at 73.1 per cent. of UK households. Further information can be obtained from Freeview's website at: www.freeview.co.uk.

  Independent Cinemas
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on the future of small independent cinemas. [118505]

  Dr. Howells
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave her on 4 June 2003,Official Report, column 467W.

  Lindisfarne Gospels
  Joyce Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what discussions she has had with the 902W
  British Library about the number of facsimile copies of the Lindisfarne gospels that have been produced; whether copies of the gospels of the type given by the Library to Durham Cathedral and to Lindisfarne are available for purchase commercially; and if she will make a statement. [117315]

  Dr. Howells
  The production and distribution of facsimile copies of the Lindisfarne Gospels is a matter for the British Library and the publisher. It is not therefore an issue about which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had discussions. However, we understand that the publisher has made 980 copies available for sale. This will help to recoup the substantial investment in the development of the facsimile and, to the extent that copies are purchased by other libraries, will help to make them available more widely.

  Lottery Funding
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much lottery funding was spent in the fair share target areas in each of the last 10 years. [118008]

  Mr. Caborn
  The following table, which is based upon information supplied to us by the distributing bodies for the National Lottery awards database, shows (in alphabetical order) how much lottery money has been awarded in the fair share target areas in each calendar year since 1995. The figures for 2003 go up to 1 June.

  Note:
  Lottery awards were made from 1995 onwards. The Fair Share initiative began in April 2002.
  903W

  £

  Local authority

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  Isle of Anglesey

  1,019,251

  897,393

  892,171

  491,085

  1,374,265

  Ards

  100,000

  269,279

  366,674

  941,652

  410,786

  Ashfield

  230,200

  310,743

  399,091

  244,982

  1,598,645

  Ballymena

  165,075

  5,351,404

  807,373

  231,640

  4,372,978

  Barking and Dagenham

  110,700

  1,100,430

  4,082,521

  2,402,999

  1,483,523

  Barnsley

  6,155,211

  1,042,743

  1,023,244

  1,413,835

  4,490,642

  Basildon

  369,139

  574,517

  130,900

  174,742

  825,518

  Belfast

  8,215,128

  11,078,477

  61,479,191

  17,254,126

  20,927,712

  Blackpool

  142,328

  1,337,640

  634,298

  1,616,252

  2,323,526

  Blaenau Gwent

  243,253

  898,913

  389,187

  644,588

  717,779

  Blyth Valley

  1,121,758

  185,985

  276,364

  70,549

  990,718

  Bolsover

  146,297

  216,928

  98,973

  1,603,246

  1,721,742

  Bolton

  399,981

  3,039,798

  2,287,380

  3,654,166

  3,955,193

  Bournemouth

  1,193,530

  705,479

  2,926,815

  1,768,630

  1,019,078

  Brent

  359,548

  3,324,871

  2,098,904

  1,939,972

  122,870,051

  Burnley

  157,170

  2,716,328

  1,376,210

  901,271

  1,849,724

  Caerphilly

  743,477

  2,193,777

  663,327

  886,144

  2,631,248

  Castlereagh

  420,953

  441,050

  1,007,249

  481,933

  2,723,360

  City of Kingston upon Hull

  1,649,756

  2,225,106

  23,289,980

  2,751,994

  5,585,934

  Coleraine

  338,516

  88,613

  291,914

  391,977

  854,501

  Craigavon

  195,905

  1,847,581

  458,632

  989,627

  3,728,189

  Darlington

  284,000

  1,360,033

  179,272

  1,904,102

  1,431,807

  Derby

  1,377,528

  3,604,609

  2,593,271

  2,016,051

  5,623,164

  Doncaster

  40,460,085

  2,987,999

  1,181,965

  2,904,839

  7,518,607

  Dudley

  1,181,526

  4,303,915

  4,621,850

  3,365,442

  4,190,638

  Dundee City

  2,827,166

  7,020,025

  5,696,718

  6,244,636

  1,866,273

  Dungannon

  331,798

  658,218

  1,797,645

  516,120

  1,821,376

  Ellesmere Port and Neston

  0

  1,434,629

  810,600

  651,550

  674,183

  Enfield

  172,884

  1,636,309

  12,521,210

  880,784

  6,529,037

  Glasgow City

  46,042,740

  31,246,325

  108,167,017

  28,677,401

  19,399,236

  Great Yarmouth

  532,905

  484,214

  972,806

  457,795

  683,393

  Hyndburn

  229,496

  350,616

  1,401,229

  184,792

  202,532

  Kirklees

  1,915,237

  10,847,956

  7,794,800

  2,397,648

  5,016,901

  Knowsley

  2,171,294

  1,383,189

  197,265

  164,583

  2,360,325

  Limavady

  124,500

  310,727

  811,948

  674,336

  311,054

  Lisburn

  198,072

  1,541,521

  1,279,492

  1,815,262

  1,237,931

  Londonderry

  2,046,936

  3,747,731

  5,852,206

  5,870,381

  2,482,380

  Luton

  576,542

  4,217,919

  541,947

  510,563

  3,171,524

  Moyle

  226,821

  297,389

  141,290

  717,248

  254,285

  Neath Port Talbot

  266,368

  1,996,974

  992,799

  782,375

  1,964,458

  Newry and Mourne

  1,398,165

  1,568,244

  1,056,374

  1,490,286

  2,397,328

  Newtownabbey

  41,001

  918,965

  474,049

  812,168

  278,890

  North East Lincolnshire

  649,475

  1,103,662

  415,254

  429,142

  2,117,857

  North Lanarkshire

  1,204,250

  1,046,400

  829,609

  2,503,519

  4,614,528

  North Somerset

  3,027,129

  1,173,798

  377,524

  3,356,443

  1,676,757

  Oldham

  634,682

  1,525,953

  3,826,995

  1,519,699

  2,208,801

  Omagh

  596,779

  1,048,252

  771,523

  608,713

  9,313,056

  Pendle

  1,047,066

  1,227,688

  195,531

  98,802

  1,128,751

  Peterborough

  754,119

  7,986,560

  1,659,040

  2,426,939

  2,657,190

  Portsmouth

  44,713,674

  6,668,060

  1,520,918

  2,975,552

  3,007,875

  Renfrewshire

  206,106

  2,331,658

  603,464

  935,485

  3,650,779

  Rochdale

  1,557,057

  1,629,083

  1,116,436

  3,709,859

  2,474,751

  Rotherham

  715,253

  821,556

  23,553,449

  788,862

  2,797,444

  Salford

  1,162,597

  70,106,645

  923,626

  903,390

  2,749,605

  Sandwell

  953,932

  5,902,924

  4,240,804

  6,725,332

  7,667,592

  Sefton

  276,757

  792,799

  2,808,741

  3,907,789

  3,074,110

  Solihull

  853,823

  382,483

  795,542

  133,779

  1,611,985

  South Ayrshire

  757,690

  1,337,835

  387,098

  579,475

  1,192,659

  South Lanarkshire

  2,155,617

  3,547,487

  9,197,556

  2,914,015

  5,928,908

  St. Helens

  1,552,880

  1,119,361

  8,911,882

  1,024,186

  3,610,484

  Stockton-on-Tees

  972,830

  6,789,260

  1,188,977

  706,214

  6,185,635

  Strabane

  182,500

  898,902

  490,648

  962,433

  608,609

  Swindon

  274,304

  2,079,695

  9,195,240

  2,123,528

  5,755,274

  Tameside

  2,248,356

  1,592,000

  904,214

  1,330,163

  2,071,880

  Telford and Wrekin

  1,279,005

  2,580,664

  3,052,833

  841,684

  7,063,890

  Tendring

  512,557

  1,022,643

  941,427

  540,454

  764,496

  Thanet

  400,070

  795,107

  432,720

  1,899,080

  3,806,303

  Trafford

  345,877

  2,972,661

  1,181,288

  2,693,487

  2,537,394

  Wakefield

  536,264

  5,564,848

  4,122,837

  4,515,613

  4,646,931

  Walsall

  1,511,178

  16,710,234

  1,954,081

  5,406,728

  2,332,477

  Waltham Forest

  432,610

  1,863,734

  782,102

  5,613,454

  2,789,588

  Wansbeck

  194,155

  410,794

  160,282

  895,488

  630,324

  904W 905W

  £

  Local authority

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  Waveney

  771,421

  499,497

  412,422

  1,432,691

  556,379

  West Lancashire

  409,786

  2,123,428

  59,340

  780,740

  264,942

  Wigan

  386,310

  1,055,414

  7,640,861

  5,389,444

  4,345,964

  Wirral

  1,275,958

  2,316,483

  1,695,848

  2,081,314

  7,617,952

  Wrexham

  856,855

  4,879,329

  662,869

  2,619,852

  2,541,937

  Total

  201,291,162

  285,671,459

  361,079,132

  179,267,120

  371,873,541

  £

  Local authority

  2000

  2001

  2002

  To June 2003

  Isle of Anglesey

  606,943

  1,061,268

  2,076,840

  99,460

  Ards

  266,440

  633,333

  906,678

  573,961

  Ashfield

  681,770

  2,280,091

  6,560,617

  879,578

  Ballymena

  892,306

  9,030,106

  734,561

  169,270

  Barking and Dagenham

  1,722,844

  3,547,688

  4,112,509

  1,348,100

  Barnsley

  3,623,941

  2,795,108

  3,501,847

  3,775,111

  Basildon

  368,408

  1,451,338

  1,067,878

  466,525

  Belfast

  9,785,816

  15,475,372

  12,642,803

  2,626,883

  Blackpool

  5,041,250

  3,051,422

  997,624

  1,603,886

  Blaenau Gwent

  736,534

  2,520,410

  2,973,398

  205,421

  Blyth Valley

  576,112

  863,528

  692,476

  247,375

  Bolsover

  235,406

  3,746,556

  876,060

  912,659

  Bolton

  14,751,962

  3,455,401

  6,663,986

  3,270,829

  Bournemouth

  743,432

  1,210,622

  1,248,902

  1,194,060

  Brent

  4,916,101

  3,440,967

  3,906,683

  995,425

  Burnley

  658,170

  1,312,582

  1,847,925

  335,947

  Caerphilly

  881,248

  3,586,946

  2,506,397

  1,716,825

  Castlereagh

  1,051,401

  400,248

  783,125

  439,944

  City of Kingston upon Hull

  2,438,574

  6,054,555

  12,495,845

  1,353,691

  Coleraine

  649,421

  203,474

  354,014

  1,015,447

  Craigavon

  802,070

  769,666

  1,213,066

  1,472,550

  Darlington

  420,459

  2,350,457

  5,116,652

  943,999

  Derby

  1,910,955

  10,381,126

  2,165,261

  2,229,053

  Doncaster

  1,998,596

  3,477,546

  9,082,990

  814,927

  Dudley

  3,027,513

  2,542,870

  3,364,331

  1,748,000

  Dundee City

  1,837,720

  6,520,227

  3,312,989

  1,452,797

  Dungannon

  1,092,525

  1,015,621

  537,701

  355,381

  Ellesmere Port and Neston

  858,489

  1,591,528

  760,096

  875,787

  Enfield

  1,381,315

  10,750,422

  2,132,731

  2,080,693

  Glasgow City

  17,299,980

  20,415,008

  26,012,366

  10,782,044

  Great Yarmouth

  556,574

  3,119,575

  2,749,898

  1,469,036

  Hyndburn

  947,403

  925,977

  243,231

  422,691

  Kirklees

  3,367,270

  5,492,155

  8,221,777

  3,307,023

  Knowsley

  3,305,272

  5,334,066

  1,500,158

  3,104,484

  Limavady

  255,465

  1,550,273

  489,278

  104,006

  Lisburn

  1,216,895

  756,813

  1,299,170

  159,640

  Londonderry

  2,916,618

  5,349,666

  3,951,296

  480,099

  Luton

  1,527,421

  2,105,176

  3,262,989

  2,136,932

  Moyle

  223,870

  119,088

  294,595

  238,784

  Neath Port Talbot

  1,513,769

  1,979,711

  2,455,748

  412,577

  Newry and Mourne

  1,883,701

  1,633,451

  874,089

  308,005

  Newtownabbey

  385,192

  517,033

  798,041

  105,839

  North East Lincolnshire

  1,292,458

  2,603,905

  2,201,061

  553,129

  North Lanarkshire

  2,589,247

  2,889,947

  3,545,118

  600,334

  North Somerset

  867,666

  1,736,056

  2,199,377

  1,675,609

  Oldham

  3,552,160

  3,736,524

  3,752,043

  2,397,181

  Omagh

  1,071,588

  762,220

  1,377,794

  880,223

  Pendle

  776,735

  899,843

  1,669,096

  750,777

  Peterborough

  2,097,694

  1,799,776

  3,292,755

  958,456

  Portsmouth

  4,502,616

  3,222,546

  5,765,705

  755,639

  Renfrewshire

  1,043,901

  1,509,684

  2,828,021

  287,961

  Rochdale

  4,313,735

  3,001,481

  3,287,576

  2,593,384

  Rotherham

  2,504,116

  5,525,997

  8,013,656

  2,556,955

  Salford

  6,218,083

  10,748,938

  2,275,655

  13,452,066

  Sandwell

  3,852,429

  21,872,337

  5,334,856

  4,337,235

  Sefton

  5,800,894

  3,033,187

  2,218,638

  3,345,229

  Solihull

  1,220,543

  1,697,602

  1,916,026

  2,097,737

  South Ayrshire

  1,409,531

  1,313,503

  1,112,823

  1,071,370

  South Lanarkshire

  2,303,383

  2,279,152

  5,823,062

  666,028

  St. Helens

  1,414,947

  1,960,962

  3,249,485

  4,176,001

  Stockton-on-Tees

  1,661,480

  2,218,503

  5,778,001

  2,808,915

  906W 907W

  £

  Local authority

  2000

  2001

  2002

  To June 2003

  Strabane

  1,347,462

  1,144,024

  507,434

  312,888

  Swindon

  1,229,033

  2,467,551

  2,069,569

  577,002

  Tameside

  2,333,037

  2,040,217

  6,762,040

  1,569,224

  Telford and Wrekin

  3,799,912

  1,173,348

  1,342,409

  628,877

  Tendring

  636,514

  899,787

  1,732,132

  296,608

  Thanet

  1,414,351

  2,019,388

  1,826,958

  996,162

  Trafford

  3,432,213

  1,853,879

  1,838,432

  880,464

  Wakefield

  8,234,862

  4,335,394

  10,113,602

  3,427,842

  Walsall

  2,169,332

  5,643,089

  4,507,413

  2,769,316

  Waltham Forest

  2,491,469

  3,751,370

  2,500,637

  3,023,997

  Wansbeck

  837,100

  1,739,623

  1,760,008

  870,357

  Waveney

  352,998

  1,718,583

  1,089,222

  959,359

  West Lancashire

  572,241

  680,436

  2,574,310

  641,944

  Wigan

  1,422,483

  4,139,555

  3,360,138

  3,077,344

  Wirral

  3,985,992

  2,664,263

  10,292,360

  4,286,150

  Wrexham

  1,095,193

  972,623

  2,868,861

  402,770

  Total

  183,204,549

  264,873,763

  267,574,894

  128,919,277

  Olympic Bid
  Mr Watts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what estimate she has made of the likely impact that the introduction of a new London Olympic lottery game would have on the level of funds that are being generated by the existing lottery games. [117973]

  Mr. Caborn
  Preliminary estimates suggest that the negative net impact need not exceed 4 per cent. (or about £54m a year) for the remainder of Camelot's licence period (i.e. until 2009). These estimates are subject to the work to be done by Camelot on the design, structure, and marketing of new games, which the National Lottery Commission will need to consider before licensing them.

  Mr Watts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what steps she will take to ensure that the London Olympic Bid will not reduce the level of sports funding to the North West. [117974]

  Mr. Caborn
  The distribution of Lottery Sports funds to the English regions is a matter for Sport England. The Government has guaranteed the percentage shares of Lottery proceeds net of any income generated by the new hypothecated Olympic Lottery games going to the sports, arts, heritage and charities good causes will not fall below their current level of 16 at least until 2009. The National Lottery Commission's prudent assessment is that the Olympic Lottery games could generate £750 million in the period 2005–2012. However it does not discount the possibility of the initiatives out-performing this estimate. Up to a further £340 million will be sought from theestablished Lottery Sports Fund distributors for Olympic costs.

  Preliminary estimates provided by Camelot, as assessed by the National Lottery Commission, suggest that any negative impact on income on the existing good causes from the new Olympic Lottery games would be small—4 per cent. for the remainder of the Camelot licence period, until 2009. That equates to £54 million out of their current forecast annual income of £1.5 billion. The precise impact on existing good causes will depend on the way in which Olympic Games are developed. Camelot will carry out extensive market research to establish how to reduce or even eliminate
  908W
  this negative effect. In fact, any Olympic Games could so invigorate the Lottery that other good causes benefit. Any outstanding balance could be met by changing the percentage shares of Lottery income passing to the existing Good Causes after 2009.

  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will list the estimated(a) number of sales, (b) total revenue, (c) total raised for a London Olympic Games, (d) total paid in prizes, (e) total raised for the Exchequer and (f) total in administration costs of the new lottery games for a London Olympic Games. [118005]

  Mr. Caborn
  Our estimates are that the proposed Olympic Lottery should yield 750 million towards the costs of staging the Olympic games in London, subject to Parliamentary approval of legislation for the introduction of a hypothecated income stream. These amounts together with sales numbers and prize payments will depend on further work to be done by Camelot on the design and structure of the games, which will be necessary before the National Lottery Commission can license them; and on the nature of the Lottery operation following the end of the current licence in 2009. However, the money spent by players on Lottery tickets is currently approximately shared out among the following stakeholders as follows: prize winners 50 per cent.; for the good causes 28 per cent.; to the Exchequer 12 per cent. (Lottery duty); in commission on sales to retailers 5 per cent.; in operating costs 4.5 per cent.; and in profit to Camelot 0.5 per cent. These proportions will not necessarily remain unchanged throughout the relevant period, but if they did so then total sales of £2,680 million would imply Lottery duty of £330 million retail and operating costs of £254 million.

  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on the contingency plans for the financing of a London Olympic Games if(a) Lottery and (b) private sector funds are insufficient to cover the total projected cost. [118006]

  Mr. Caborn
  The agreed public funding package of £2.375 billion in place for a London 2012 Olympics already includes a significant contingency element of more than £1.2 billion over the public subsidy
  909W
  requirement estimated by Arup as part of its cost benefit analysis of a specimen Olympics situated in the Lower Lea Valley. This compares with the required public subsidy for the Sydney Olympics of approximately £750 million.

  The Government plan to be the ultimate guarantor of Olympic funding needs should the shortfall between Olympic costs and revenues exceed the agreed £2.375 billion public funding package. The Government expect to discharge that responsibility in a sharing arrangement to be agreed as appropriate with the Mayor of London and through seeking additional National Lottery funding in amounts to be agreed at the time.

  These expectations will be reviewed in summer 2005 when the bid has been finalised and we have a clearer picture of the likely costs. Any such review would also allow the inclusion of additional funding sources as appropriate.

  Open Air Events
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what restrictions and licensing controls are placed by her Department upon small-scale open air events on(a) public and (b) private land. [118265]

  Dr. Howells
  The London Government Act 1963 provides that premises in the Greater London Area on which any public dancing, music or public entertainment of a like kind or a boxing or wrestling entertainment takes place, requires a public entertainment licence. An open space in Greater London may be "premises" and a performance of music or dancing there may require a public entertainment licence.

  The Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, regulates public dancing, music or other public entertainment of a like kind in England and Wales outside Greater London. A licence is not required for entertainment that takes place wholly or mainly in the open air unless a local authority has passed a resolution that paragraphs 3 and 4 of Schedule 1 to the Act shall have effect. Paragraphs 3 and 4 require public musical entertainment to be licensed if it takes place wholly or mainly in the open air and at a place on private land. The requirement for a licence does not apply to a garden fete, bazaar, sale of work, sporting or athletic event, exhibition, display or other function or event of a similar character or a religious meeting or service, merely because music is incidental to it. No licence is required under these provisions for entertainment held in a pleasure fair.

  If alcohol is to be supplied at an event, the provisions of the Licensing Act 1964 or the Licensing (Occasional Permissions) Act 1983 will apply, requiring authorisation for the activity.

  Pubs (Music)
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport whether(a) pianos and (b) other forms of un-amplified music can be played in pubs without a licence under the Licensing Bill. [118264]
  910W
  Dr. Howells
  Under the Licensing Bill, the provision of regulated entertainment is a licensable activity. Schedule 1 provides that a performance of live music is a description of entertainment under the Bill, and this covers both amplified and un-amplified music. Accordingly, subject to the conditions and exemptions in the Bill, live musical performances in pubs would require the authorisation of a premises licence, a club premises certificate or a temporary event notice.

  The Government have accepted the principle that the performance of live music (as well as the playing of recorded music) which is incidental to activities which are not themselves entertainment or the provision of entertainment facilities should not be regulated entertainment for the purposes of the Bill and it has been amended accordingly.

  Race Relations
  Angela Eagle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what progress has been made in her Department and non departmental public bodies on implementing the requirements of the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000; and if she will publish the results of the monitoring required by the Act. [117475]

  Dr. Howells
  As demonstration of the Department's commitment to promoting equality and diversity, one of the Department's four public service agreements has specific numerical targets for increasing the level of participation in our areas by priority groups. We published our Race Equality Scheme in May 2002 and a summary of the assessments of our functions and policies under the Act in October 2002. The results of the monitoring required under the Act were published in our departmental Annual Report, copies of which were laid before Parliament on 15 May 2003.

  The majority of the non departmental public bodies sponsored by the Department are designated under the Act as public bodies in their own right and information is not held centrally.

  Television Licence Fee
  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on the future of the television licence fee. [118527]

  Dr. Howells
  The Government intends that the television licence fee will remain the main source of BBC funding at least until the expiry of the BBC's current Royal Charter at the end of 2006. The arrangements for funding the Corporation after that date will be considered as part of the Charter review process.

  Youth Sports
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport [pursuant to her answer of 24 March,Official Report, column 54W], on youth sports, how many (a) specialist sports colleges, (b) school sport co-ordinators, (c) Step into Sport programmes, (d) Community Development Club programmes, (e) Sporting Playgrounds, (f) coaches and (g) club and development programmes there were in October 2002,

  911W
  broken down by region; and how many there are expected to be in each region in (i) October 2003, (ii) October 2004 and (iii) October 2005. [117842]

  Mr. Caborn
  In October 2002, there were 161 specialist sports colleges designated and operational, 769 School Sport Coordinators in post and 525 schools involved in Step into Sport. The Community Club Development programme had not commenced, and no Sporting Playgrounds projects had been completed. Robust information on coaches is not currently available; a major data-collection exercise will shortly be conducted to address this. Work to build and enhance school/club links had also not commenced.

  The information for 2002 and expectations for future years, where available, could only be broken down by region at disproportionate cost.

DEFENCE

  Agency Annual Reports
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library the(a) naval bases and Supply Agency Annual Report and Accounts for financial years 1997–98 to 2000–01, (b) RAF Logistic Support Services Annual Report and Accounts for financial years 1997–98 to 1999–2000, and (c) Ships Support Agency Annual Report and Accounts for financial years 1997–98 to 2000–01. [117506]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Annual Report and Accounts for the Naval Bases and Supply Agency and the Ships Support Agency for financial years 1997–98 to 2000–01 have been placed in the Library of the House under classified set 942 and 685 respectively.

  The first Annual Report and Accounts for the RAF Logistics Support Services were produced for the financial year 1998–99. A copy of the report for this year is available in the Library of the House under reference number classified set 879.1.

  The RAF Logistics Support Services ceased to be a Defence Agency on 31 March 2000. For the financial year 1999–2000, the Agency was treated as a conventional management grouping by HM Treasury. No accounts direction was given by the Treasury, and accordingly the Agency did not produce a set of Annual Report and Accounts.

  Army (Gulf)
  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of the Army is deployed to the Gulf region. [118529]

  Dr. Moonie
  As at 6 June 2003, some 12 per cent. of the Army was deployed to the Gulf region.

  Army Disbandment
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what criteria are applied in relation to the disbandment of(a) a regiment and (b) part of a regiment of the Army. [118013]
  912W
  Mr. Ingram
  There are no predetermined criteria for disbanding or restructuring Army units. All military force structures are based on operational need given the current and future security environment in which the armed forces are likely to operate.

  AWE
  Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the(a) personnel, (b) date and (c) purpose of the forthcoming US weapons laboratory visit to AWE. [118403]

  Dr. Moonie
  Visits by United States officials to AWE Aldermaston occur regularly. I am withholding specific details of such visits and their purpose in accordance with Exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information (Defence, Security and International Relations).

  Cluster Munitions
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether his Department has a programme to deal with unexploded ordnance left by cluster bombs. [117039]

  Mr. Ingram
  We have some 200 personnel in the United Kingdom area of operations in Iraq involved in the clearance of unexploded ordnance (UXO), including unexploded cluster bomblets. Royal Engineers are also involved in marking and fencing of bomblet strike and mined areas as part of a coalition-wide operation. In addition, we are providing information on UK use of munitions to civilian clearance organisations to assist in achieving rapid clearance of UXO.

  Colombia
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many UK military personnel are in Colombia; and under which command they operate. [118599]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 10 June 2003]: In addition to military personnel attached to the British Embassy in Bogota, there are a small number of other personnel providing advice and training assistance to the Columbians, the nature of which is confidential between governments. I am therefore withholding further information under Exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information (information the disclosure of which would be harmful to national security, defence or international relations).

  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what training facilities are offered to members of the Colombian military in(a) the UK and (b) Colombia; and if he will make a statement. [118600]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 10 June 2003]: An invitation for a Colombian military officer to attend the Advanced Command and Staff Course at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham, commencing in August 2003, has been issued to the Colombian military authorities and accepted. We do, from time to time, send military liaison teams to Colombia to provide advice and training assistance. The nature of this advice and assistance is confidential between governments and I am withholding the details

  913W
  under Exemption 1 of the code of practice on access to Government Information, which covers information whose disclosure would be harmful to national security, defence or international relations.

  Future Aircraft Carrier
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which of his top level budget holders will be expected to meet the cost of his Department's commitment to participate in the Future Aircraft Carrier programme; when he expects the financial commitment to be quantified; in which future financial years he expects it to arise; and whether he estimates that the cost of this can be contained within present long term expenditure plans without adverse effects on other programmes. [117508]

  Mr. Ingram
  A number of TLBs within the Department will contribute to the cost of the Future Aircraft Carrier project depending on its stage in the acquisition cycle. The main Stakeholders will be the Defence Procurement Agency, Defence Logistics Organisation and Fleet.

  An estimated total cost exists for the programme but financial commitment will be only be formally quantified at the Main Gate assessment point, currently planned for early 2004. It is then planned to place the Demonstration and Manufacture (D&M) contract, which, on current plans, will cover financial commitment until 2016. Funding for this project has been already been set aside within the defence budget and is allocated to the Equipment Plan in keeping with all defence equipment projects.

  Warships
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what factors underlay the decision to sell HMS Sheffield to Chile; and what other bids were received for HMS Sheffield. [115661]

  Mr. Ingram
  The only formal expression of intention to purchase HMS Sheffield came from the Government of Chile.

  HMS Tireless
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the estimated cost and time will be to repair HMS Tireless; and if he will make a statement. [118360]

  Mr. Ingram
  It is too soon to say how long repairs will take or how much they will cost.

  HMS Tireless is currently undergoing planned routine maintenance at Devonport, and will be docked later this month to enable a full survey of the damage to be undertaken.

  Iraq
  Joan Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what records have been kept by coalition forces on the location of cluster munitions used in Iraq; and when this information will be made available to non-governmental organisations. [116814]
  914W
  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 5 June 2003]: A detailed record of the areas where cluster munitions and other ordnance are known to have been used in Iraq, and any ordnance discovered by troops on the ground, is maintained by the coalition in theatre. The information is made available to non-governmental organisations at the Civil Military Operations Centre in Iraq and the Humanitarian Operations Centre in Kuwait.

  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the availability was in percentage terms of the Challenger II fleet deployed in Operation TELIC on(a) the first day of combat operations, (b) 30 April and (c) the average for the duration of combat operations in Iraq; and if he will make a statement. [111823]

  Mr. Ingram
  Post operational reporting will provide analysis and assessment of the performance of equipment deployed on operations in Iraq. It would, therefore, be premature for me to provide a detailed assessment of the performance or availability of individual equipments at this stage. However, the indications are that the Challenger 2 fleet deployed on Operation TELIC was very reliable and performed impressively.

  Mr. Dhanda
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions he is having with(a) his US counterparts and (b) other Coalition forces regarding the clearance of unexploded ordnance in Iraq. [113736]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Joint Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group liaises on a daily basis with their US counterparts through a Liaison Officer in the Coalition Explosive Ordnance Disposal Co-ordination Centre. The group has and will have direct liaison with all coalition Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams as they come into theatre. A Spanish EOD Group is currently carrying out demining in the Safwan area under the tactical command of British forces.

  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many qualified personnel are engaged in clearing cluster bomb type ordnance in Iraq; and how long he estimates it will take to clear them up and make these areas safe for civilians. [117599]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 5 June 2003,Official Report, column 510W, to the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock).

  Providing a safe, secure risk-free environment for the Iraqi people is a key aspect of restoration activity for the coalition, and there is an operation currently under way to locate and mark areas contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance, which also includes bomblets. United Kingdom forces, in conjunction with the Iraqi Mine Action Centre (a part of the Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority), are in the process of marking and documenting over 400 unexploded ordnance sites in the UK area of operation in southern Iraq. Once this task is complete, the process of removing unexploded ordnance will be co-ordinated by the Iraqi Mine Centre. No timescale has been set for completion of the task.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the timescale is for the removal of the unexploded bomblets deposited by cluster bombs from Iraq. [118194]
  915W
  Mr. Ingram
  Providing a safe, secure and risk free environment for the Iraqi people is a key aspect of restoration activity for the Coalition. United Kingdom forces, in conjunction with the Iraqi Mine Action Centre (a part of the Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority), are in the process of marking and documenting around 400 unexploded ordnance sites in the UK area of operation in southern Iraq, which will include unexploded cluster munition bomblets. Once this task is complete, the process of removing unexploded ordnance will be co-ordinated by the Iraqi Mine Action Centre. No time scale has been set for completion of the task.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what record the British Army has of the location of unexploded bomblets in Iraq. [118195]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Joint Force Exploded Ordnance Disposal Cell in Iraq has records of munitions, including bomblets, dropped by coalition aircraft and delivered by artillery, and are consequently aware of possible locations of unexploded bomblets that are as a result of Operation Telic. Areas of suspected mine and UXO contamination (including bomblets), of which there are over 400 in the United Kingdom area of operation, are currently being checked to provide more accurate details of potential hazards.

  Machine Guns
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many Minimi LMGs (light machine guns) will be procured for the armed forces; and how many Light Support Weapons will be taken out of front line service. [117499]

  Mr. Ingram
  We are planning to procure 2,472 Minimi light machine guns. These will supplement the role fulfilled by the Light Support Weapon, all of which will remain in service.

  Merlin Capability Sustainment Plus Programme
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what improvements in capability are being examined as part of the Merlin Capability Sustainment Plus programme. [117495]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Merlin Capability Sustainment Plus programme Assessment Phase is primarily investigating the most cost-effective way to sustain Merlin Mkl's multi-role capability for future operations. It will also, however, investigate the scope for focussed enhancements to improve the utility and versatility of the aircraft, particularly in surface surveillance, interoperability and survivability, building on experience in the Gulf.

  Northern Ireland
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the organisations which have had primacy of intelligence gathering operations in Northern Ireland since 1973. [116869]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Army had lead responsibility for intelligence work in Northern Ireland from 1972 to 1976. Otherwise, the police—first the RUC and then the PSNI—have had primacy in intelligence gathering in Northern Ireland.

  Porton Down
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to his answer of 4 June 2003,Official Report, column 451W, and letter from the Chief Executive of DERA, dated 22 July 1998, what factors have led to changes in numbers of procedures on animals at Porton Down since 1993; and if he will make a statement. [118582]

  Dr. Moonie
  The variations in the number of procedures returned annually to the Home Office by Dstl Porton Down in the years 1993 to 2002 reflects the changes in the research programme as determined by the requirements of the Ministry of Defence.

  Over the last nine years the increase in the overall number of animal procedures returned is mainly accounted for by the increase in the number of mice used. This is a direct result of an increased emphasis on research to develop effective vaccines and other medical countermeasures against biological agents. The programme is progressing well. One new vaccine is already in clinical trails and another is expected to start trials later this year.

  Procurement
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the estimated in-service date is for the(a) PAAMS, (b) A400M, (c) COBRA and (d) MRAV; what the original in-service date was of each; and if he will make a statement. [109086]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 1 May 2003]: The information requested is shown below:

  Project

  Current Forecast ISD

  Original Approved ISD

  PAAMS

  2007

  2007

  COBRA

  2004

  1993

  MRAV

  12008

  2011

  A400M

  2011

  2009

  1 The ISD for MRAV is currently under review.

  Propellants
  Mr. Keith Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the security of supply for propellants for the British armed forces. [115484]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 3 June 2003]: In 1999, the House of Commons Defence Select Committee (HCDC) examined security of supply of propellants as part of its inquiry into the proposed closure of Royal Ordnance Defence (ROD) Bishopton for commercial reasons. The Committee accepted that there were no strategic or defence reasons for the retention of ROD Bishopton. The subsequent review by the National Audit Office of the analysis underpinning the evidence presented by the Ministry of Defence of the HCDC concluded that this remained sound. Security of supply is taken into account when competing all requirements for ammunition including the propellant component; this is an integral part of the vetting process before tenders are progressed. In the event of bids being

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  received from manufacturers or countries that could pose potential risk to security of supply, then these are discounted before the tender process is taken forward.

  RAF Training Sorties
  Mr. Peter Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many RAF training sorties were undertaken in(a) Scottish and (b) UK airspace during each of the last 12 months. [118318]

  Dr. Moonie
  Information on the geographical location of training sorties flown over the United Kingdom or Scotland is not recorded separately. To produce an estimate of the number of sorties undertaken in UK airspace, details of overseas sorties have been removed from statistics which show the total number of all training sorties flown.

  Month

  Sorties originated in UK Airspace

  April 2002

  15,788

  May 2002

  17,579

  June 2002

  14,562

  July 2002

  17,204

  August 2002

  15,649

  September 2002

  17,835

  October 2002

  17,333

  November 2002

  13,726

  December 2002

  10,327

  January 2003

  13,300

  February 2003

  13,556

  March 2003

  14,363

  Note:

  Includes fixed and rotary wing RAF aircraft

  Scientific Exchanges
  Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many scientific exchanges there were in 2002 between UKAWES and US weapons laboratories. [118399]

  Dr. Moonie
  In 2002 there were 182 visits by Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) staff to the United States and 103 visits by US officials to AWE.

  SOMCHEM-designed Modular Charge System
  Mr. Keith Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what the(a) financial and (b) operational consequences are of failure of the SOMCHEM-designed modular charge system to meet the performance specification; [115485]

  (2) for what reason the SOMCHEM-designed modular charge system has not met the performance specification; [115486]

  (3) whether his Department plans to purchase the German Rheinmetall W and M modular propellant charge system. [115959]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 3 June 2003]: The Defence Procurement Agency is working closely with Royal Ordnance Defence, the prime contractor for the Extended Range Ordnance/Modular Charge System project, to address technical problems which are delaying programme delivery. The Somchem-designed modular charge system has contributed to these problems, and the resulting programme, financial and
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  operational implications are currently under review. Although Rheinmetall offers an alternative modular charge system, this is unlikely to meet Ministry of Defence requirements, and there are therefore no plans at present to procure such a system.

  Sri Lanka
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the total value of arms sales originating from the UK to the Sri Lankan government in each of the past five years. [117517]

  Mr. Ingram
  The value of licences issued and actual goods exported to individual countries has, since 1999, been published in the Government's Annual Report on Strategic Export Controls. Copies of these reports are available from the Library of the House and via the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website at www.fco.gov.uk. The value of goods exported in 1998 was £1 million. Figures for 2002 are currently being collated for the Report to be published later this year.

  Strategic Tanker Programme
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the strategic tanker programme. [117667]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft is planned to replace our VC1O and TriStar Air Refuelling aircraft towards the end of the decade. Final bids for this prospective PFI programme were received on 30 April 2003 and our assessment is underway.

  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the UK forces' requirements in relation to the strategic tanker programme. [117668]

  Mr. Ingram
  The United Kingdom Forces' future requirements for fast jet and large aircraft refuelling are planned to be met by the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA). FSTA is currently in its assessment phase which includes assessment of the requirements.

  Final bids for this programme were received on 30 April 2003 and they are currently being assessed.

  UN Personnel (Congo)
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many UN personnel are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; how many more are due to be sent there; and under whose command they will operate. [117696]

  Mr. Ingram
  The information is not readily available in the format requested. However, the UN Security General's report on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) dated 27 May, outlined a current mandate of 7,800 personnel and requested an increase to 10,800 in the coming months, to facilitate the additional requirement in Ituri.

  In addition the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1484 of 30 May authorised an Interim Emergency Multinational Force to help stabilise the situation in the town of Bunia in Ituri, pending the

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  deployment of additional forces by the UN. This should be an ESDP operation with France as framework nation.

  US Weapons Research
  Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the recent meeting between the UK and US nuclear weapon scientists referred to as Stocktake. [118632]

  Dr. Moonie
  The 3 to 4 June 2003 Stocktake was the latest of a long-running series of review meetings between senior officials to discuss co-operation under the 1958 UK/US Mutual Defence Agreement and, as usual, included a short visit to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston.

  Weapons Policy
  Alan Simpson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the Government's policy is on(a) resuming underground nuclear tests and (b) research into weapons under five kilotons. [118398]

  Mr. Ingram
  We have signed, ratified and continue strongly to support the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. We have no plans to resume nuclear weapon test explosions. We are not planning any new nuclear weapons, nor are we modifying current systems to lower their yield. We maintain a research capability to ensure the safety of our existing stockpile and to support the policy set out in the Strategic Defence Review of maintaining a minimum capability to design and produce a successor to Trident should this prove necessary.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Afghanistan
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the total value was of funding allocated to the reduction of opium poppy output in Afghanistan in each of the last three years; and what proportion came from(a) UK funds, (b) EU funds and (c) other sources. [118588]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  [holding answer 10 June 2003]: The total cost of reducing drugs production cannot be clearly separated from broader development programmes, as development assistance helps to create the conditions in which viable alternatives to poppy cultivation can emerge.

  The Tokyo Reconstruction Conference for Afghanistan was held in January 2002. At the conference, a total of £2.7 billion was pledged over five years for development, of which the UK pledged £200 million and the EU pledged £700 million.

  There was no UK assistance in either 2000 or 2001 when the Taliban were in power. In 2002, the UK disbursed £70 million on development assistance in Afghanistan and £24 million on law enforcement. The EU spent £200 million on development assistance. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime spent £5 million on programme activity.

  Asbestos
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the actions his Department, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies are taking to comply with the requirements of the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002; whether he has made an estimate of the cost of compliance; and if he will make a statement. [117707]

  Mr. Rammell
  The FCO maintains an asbestos register, based on the HSE's recommended "Type 2" non-destructive surveys, for all buildings on its UK estate and, through its facilities managers and accredited subcontractors, inspects buildings for asbestos containing materials (ACMs). Where such materials are identified we institute Standard Operating Procedures to ensure that future operations are carried out within the requirements of the Regulations. The cost of compliance to date has been £81,500.

  Overseas, we have for many years maintained registers of known or suspected ACMs on our estate identified through building works and property inspections. We intend to survey and produce management plans as prescribed by the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002. We have recently completed pilot trials in five Eastern European Posts where workplaces and domestic accommodation were surveyed. The objective of the pilot exercise is to refine the scope of the surveys, estimate costs and develop a prioritised programme for the rest of the overseas estate.

  Botswana
  Ms Atherton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will take steps to encourage the diamond industry and government of Botswana to respect the human rights of the Gwi and Gana Bushmen. [118099]

  Mr. Rammell
  We discuss regularly with the Government of Botswana issues relating to the Basarwa (Bushmen). The Government of Botswana assure us that their policy towards the Basarwa is totally unconnected to the issue of diamond mining.

  Burma
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of the extent of production of illegal drugs in Burma for distribution in other countries. [117991]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Burma is believed to be the world's number one producer and trafficker of methamphetamine and the world's second largest producer and trafficker of heroin. Although there has been some progress on counter-narcotics fronts, these drugs continue to flow over the borders with China and Thailand. Outside of these countries there is believed to be wide distribution to the US, Australia and many other countries in South East Asia. We have no evidence to suggest there is any distribution to the UK.

  Council of Ministers
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on how many occasions since May 1997 the Department's vote in the Council of
  921W
  Ministers against a legislative proposal (a) was and (b) was not sufficient to achieve with other member states a blocking minority. [117215]

  Mr. MacShane
  There have been no EU legislative proposals concerning foreign policy since 1997.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on how many occasions since May 1997 the Department abstained in the Council of Ministers on a legislative proposal which was passed by qualified majority voting. [117226]

  Mr. MacShane
  None.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on how many occasions since May 1997 the Department has been outvoted by qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers; and if he will list the legislation by year. [117253]

  Mr. MacShane
  None. There have been no EU legislative proposals concerning foreign policy since 1997. The Department has therefore not been outvoted on any such proposal since that time.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on how many occasions since May 1997 the Department indicated dissent from a proposal in the Council of Ministers but did not register a vote or abstention. [117261]

  Mr. MacShane
  There have been no EU legislative proposals concerning foreign policy since 1997.

  Democratic Republic of the Congo
  Adam Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on recent events in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [118020]

  Mr. Rammell
  We remain concerned by the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), particularly the humanitarian crisis in the north-eastern Ituri region. An Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF) has been mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 1484 to contribute to the stabilisation of the security conditions and the improvement of the humanitarian situation in Bunia. The UK has undertaken to participate in the IEMF.

  EU Draft Constitution
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is covered by the marine resources of the sea allocated to the exclusive competence of the EU by the draft EU constitution. [117727]

  Mr. MacShane
  "The conservation of marine biological resources under the Common Fisheries Policy", is allocated to the exclusive competence of the EU by the draft EU Constitutional Treaty. This concept is set out in Council Regulation (EC) No 2371/2002 of 20 December 2002 on the conservation and sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources under the Common Fisheries Policy, which provides, inter alia, for "coherent measures concerning conservation, management and exploitation of living aquatic resources."
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  "Living aquatic resources" is further defined as "available and accessible living marine aquatic species, including anadromous (those that migrate up rivers from the sea to breed) and catadromous (those that migrate down rivers to the sea to breed) species during their marine life."

  G8 Global Partnership
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information the Government has collated on the numbers of(a) physical attacks against women and (b) politically motivated physical attacks (i) this year and (ii) last year in Afghanistan; and if he will make a statement. [117913]

  Mr. Straw
  The Government do not collate figures on the numbers of physical attacks against women, or politically motivated physical attacks, in Afghanistan. Nor have we been able to find comprehensive figures collated by other agencies or organisations. We are, however, aware of a number of incidents, including attacks on girls' schools in Afghanistan. We are also aware of a number of politically motivated attacks, including in the run up to the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002. We condemn all such attacks.

  Security is essential to improve the quality of life for all Afghans. The UK is committed to assisting the Afghan Government to improve security throughout the country. We have pledged £52 million over three years towards security sector reform, including building a national police force. On 8 May the Secretary of State for Defence announced to Parliament that the UK will deploy a Civil-Military Provincial Reconstruction Team to Mazar-e-Sharif in July. This should help to improve security in north-western Afghanistan, and thereby facilitate security sector reform and reconstruction. We hope it will also facilitate an improvement in the human rights environment.

  Prisoner Transfer Agreements (US)
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what negotiations have taken place about the setting up of a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with the US; and if he will make a statement. [118263]

  Mr. Straw
  The Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons (CECTSP) is a multilateral Prisoner Transfer Agreement which currently has 52 contracting member countries. The United Kingdom acceded to the Convention (CECTSP) in 1985. On 21 March 1983 the United States signed the CECTSP and following ratification procedures, US accession to the treaty also came into force on 1 July 1985.

  The CECTSP allows prisoners to apply to transfer to serve the remainder of their sentence in their home country. Seven US states have not signed up to the CECTSP; but the US federal Government has said publicly that it is encouraging these states to do so. Therefore, there is no practical need for the UK to negotiate an additional bilateral Agreement with the US.

  Indonesia
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the nature and cost of bilateral military co-operation between the UK and Indonesia, including the training and education of military and police personnel, in each of the last three years. [118137]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Since 2000 all UK bilateral military assistance with Indonesia has been conducted through the UK Security Sector Reform Strategy for Indonesia. This strategy commenced in March 2001 and is a 3-year, £2.5 million programme funded by the MOD, DFID and FCO through the Global Conflict Prevention Pool. Assistance under this strategy is targeted at helping the Indonesian security services become more professional, accountable, transparent and democratic. Projects undertaken so far include human rights training for the Indonesian military through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); support to establish a democratic framework for policing; and support to help Indonesia move towards a system for civilian authorisation of Rules of Engagement along UK lines.

  I refer my hon. Friend also to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) on 4 June 2003, Official Report, column 436W.

  Diamond Smuggling
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what role Britain is playing in efforts to detect and prevent international diamond smuggling. [118162]

  Mr. Rammell
  The European Community is a participant in the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, an international agreement initiated by the UK and others, which regulates the international rough diamond trade in order to deal with the threat posed by conflict diamonds. Rough diamonds not accompanied by the appropriate certificate are now classified as prohibited goods in the UK.

  The scheme is complemented by a voluntary system of self-regulation implemented by industry, which also covers the cut and polished sector.

  Iraq
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the total UK non-military expenditure in Iraq is since the cessation of hostilities. [118204]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  [holding answer 9 June 2003]: We have so far allocated £240 million for humanitarian assistance in Iraq since the cessation of hostilities. Actual DfID disbursements to Iraq to date total £85 million. A further £60 million was set aside on 9 April 2003 for Departments to use if needed.

  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Christian community in Iraq; and what plans he has put in place to ensure that that community plays a full part in the rebuilding of the country. [118358]
  924W
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  There have been numerous meetings between FCO officials, including the UK Representative to Iraq, John Sawers, and members of the Iraqi Christian community. Representatives of the community are participating in the on-going dialogue between Iraqi groups, the Coalition Provisional Authority and the UN Special Representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, on the future Iraqi Administration.

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the reports by(a) UNSCOM and (b) UNMOVIC which demonstrated Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction since 1991. [117627]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Published reports from UNSCOM and UNMOVIC are listed and available for viewing on the United Nations' internet website www.un.org.

  Gibraltar
  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans the Minister for Europe has to visit Gibraltar. [117870]

  Mr. MacShane
  I hope to visit Gibraltar in due course.

  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with Buckingham Palace regarding a potential visit to Gibraltar by Her Majesty the Queen. [118267]

  Mr. MacShane
  My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has had no such discussions.

  Paper Supplies
  Sue Doughty
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to his answer of 22 January 2003,Official Report, column 357W, on paper supplies, whether any of the paper or paper products supplied to his Department by Premier Paper are supplied by Stora Enso's Veitsiluoto Mill in Finland; and what assessment he has made of whether this paper contains timber from (a) old growth forests and (b) timber that may have been logged illegally in Russia. [117573]

  Mr. Rammell
  None of the paper or paper products supplied to the FCO by Premier Paper are supplied by Stora Enso's Veitsiluoto Mill in Finland.

  Representation of Women
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made in the representation of women at all levels of government in each Commonwealth country since 1990; and if he will make a statement. [118420]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The 1991 Harare Declaration identified as a priority for the Commonwealth "equality for women so that they may exercise their full and equal rights". And at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 1997 the Heads of Government set a target of no less than 30 per cent. of women in decision making in the political, public and private sectors by 2005. In a presentation to the Sixth Commonwealth Women's Affairs Ministerial Meeting
  925W
  in 2000, The Gambia was the only country which so far exceeded the 30 per cent. target of women in Cabinet, while South Africa was the only country with more than 30 per cent. of women in Parliament. In local government positions, Seychelles, Uganda, India and Canada exceeded this target. A questionnaire exercise is to be repeated for the next Women's Affairs Ministerial in 2004. The Commonwealth Secretariat continues to devote a major part of its budget to building capacity and providing practical assistance to women, which includes increasing their political participation and decision making. Its gender section works with governments, parliamentarians and civil society to achieve the Commonwealth target.

  Sudan (Shariah Law)
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Government of Sudan on the application of the shariah law to juveniles; and if he will make a statement. [117384]

  Mr. Rammell
  Our embassy in Khartoum regularly raises cases concerning juveniles and other human rights cases, with the Government of Sudan. Most recently this has included the case of juveniles sentenced to death in Darfur and the sentence of lashings given to a 14-year-old girl convicted of adultery. As part of a recent DFID review of the Justice sector in the North of Sudan, experts on law enforcement, good governance and human rights and shariah raised many issues with the Government of Sudan including the application of shariah and criminal law to juveniles. This review will help to inform HMG's development policy in Sudan and ensure that human rights is a key element of that policy.

  UN Decolonisation Committee
  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations the British Government made to the recent meeting of the UN Decolonisation Committee in Anguilla. [117866]

  Mr. MacShane
  We made clear at the seminar that the agreement of the British and Anguillian governments that the Decolonisation Committee (C24) annual seminar could take place in Anguilla does not represent a change in HMG's policy of informal co-operation with the Committee. We took the opportunity to update the Chairman and members of the C24 on developments in our relations with the Overseas Territories (OTs) since publication of the 1999 White Paper, and in particular the process of constitutional modernisation. We invited the Committee to take account of the extent to which most UK OTs are democratically governed and economically vibrant in their deliberations on whether some of the Territories might soon be removed from the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.

  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the implications for the remaining British colonies resulting from the recent meeting of the UN Decolonisation Committee in Anguilla. [117867]
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  Mr. MacShane
  We await the formal conclusions of the UN seminar, which have to be approved by the Committee of 24 meeting in plenary.

  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the recent meeting of the UN Decolonisation Committee in Anguilla. [117868]

  Mr. MacShane
  The UN Special Committee on De-Colonisation, known as C24, holds an annual seminar which alternates between the Pacific and Caribbean Regions. This year's seminar (20–22 May) was held in Anguilla and focussed on advancing the de-colonisation process in the Caribbean Overseas Territories and Bermuda. Anguilla is one often British Territories on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. The Anguilla seminar was attended by Chief Ministers and senior representatives of several of the Territories on the UN list and by invited experts and NGOs. The conclusions of the seminar, when finalised and approved by the C24, will be published as a UN document.

  Visas
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many family visit visa applications were(a) received, (b) determined and (c) refused in each month since 1 January. [117345]

  Mr. Rammell
  The information requested is as follows:

  Family visitor applications received

  Family visitor applications determined

  Family visitor applications refused

  January

  19,013

  18,182

  4,995

  February

  16,972

  18,207

  4,908

  March

  22,223

  18,238

  5,347

  The table shows the number of family visitor applications received, determined and refused at our visa issuing posts world wide for the period January to March 2003. The figures for April and May are currently being collated and are not yet available. Those family visitor applications which have been 'determined' are those which have been resolved, either refused or granted entry clearance.

  My hon. Friend may find apparent discrepancies in the figures—for example in February 16,972 applications were received but 18,207 applications were resolved. This can be caused by a variety of reasons. Applications can be carried forward from one year to another before being resolved. Applications may be withdrawn during processing (but still count as an application received). Posts are also required to count all applications received (a mother and three children on one passport may count as four applications but only one entry clearance may be issued).

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Child Poverty
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether statistics on child poverty include the children of asylum seekers. [117375]
  927W
  Malcolm Wicks
  Poverty and social exclusion are complex and multi-dimensional issues, affecting many aspects of people's lives. The fourth annual "Opportunity for all" report (Cm 5598), published in September 2002, sets out the Government's strategy for tackling poverty and social exclusion and presents information on the range of indicators used to measure progress against this strategy.

  The indicators used to monitor progress for children and young people cover a variety of domains. Whether statistics of child poverty include the children of asylum seekers depends on the source of the statistics. Statistics relating to income, housing, post-16 education and (parents') employment will include the children of asylum seekers if they are living in private households and have responded to the relevant survey. Similarly, statistics on smoking during pregnancy and among children aged 11 to 15 include all those who responded to the relevant surveys. Those relating to compulsory education include all children who attend a mainstream school with over ten pupils. Those relating to Sure Start areas, births, deaths and injuries relate to all children. Figures relating to local authority care and the Child Protection Register will cover all children affected.

  In summary, the indicators for children and young people monitored in "Opportunity for all" do include the children of asylum seekers where possible. However the ability to specify results for these children is limited by a number of factors: asylum seekers are not normally identified separately in such surveys; their characteristics may mean that they are less likely to be sampled or to respond to surveys; and they will in most statistical instruments represent too small a population to provide robust estimates.

  "Opportunity for all" is available in the Library.

  Incapacity Benefit
  John Mann
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people are on incapacity benefit in(a) Bassetlaw constituency and (b) England. [116614]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  The information is in the table.

  People receiving Incapacity Benefit in England and the parliamentary constituency of Bassetlaw at 3CT November 2002

  People claiming Incapacity Benefit

  Bassetlaw

  3,500

  England

  1,172,100

  Notes:

  1. Figures are rounded to the nearest hundred.

  2. Figures exclude people receiving National Insurance credits only.

  Source:

  5 per cent. sample of the Incapacity Benefit computer system, which excludes a small number of cases held clerically.

  Council Tax Benefit
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people in Scotland are in receipt of council tax benefit, broken down by local authority. [118463]
  928W
  Malcolm Wicks
  The available information is in the table.

  Council Tax Benefit recipients in Scotland by local authority— November 2002

  Local Authority

  Council Tax Benefit Recipients

  Aberdeen

  16,580

  Aberdeenshire

  11,600

  Angus

  7,540

  Argyll and Bute

  7,780

  Clackmannanshire

  5,310

  Comhairle nan Eilean Siar

  2,970

  Dumfries and Galloway

  12,400

  Dundee

  21,090

  East Ayrshire

  13,640

  East Dunbartonshire

  5,720

  East Lothian

  7,190

  East Renfrewshire

  4,790

  Edinburgh

  38,510

  Falkirk

  14,290

  Fife

  32,670

  Glasgow

  108,370

  Highland

  16,950

  Inverclyde

  10,900

  Midlothian

  6,440

  Moray

  5,500

  North Ayrshire

  15,090

  North Lanarkshire

  39,940

  Orkney

  1,240

  Perth and Kinross

  8,490

  Renfrewshire

  19,410

  Scottish Borders

  8,240

  Shetland

  1,120

  South Ayrshire

  10,500

  South Lanarkshire

  36,040

  Stirling

  6,490

  West Dunbartonshire

  14,150

  West Lothian

  14,730

  Total

  526,000

  Notes:

  1. The data refer to households claiming Council Tax Benefit which may be a single person, a couple or a family. More than one benefit household can live in one property, for example two or more adults in a flat or house share arrangement.

  2. Local authority figures are rounded to the nearest 10; the total for Scotland is rounded to the nearest thousand. Figures do not sum due to rounding.

  3. The totals include estimates for local authorities that have not responded. These estimates are based on historical and regional data. This type of estimate is standard practice in reporting totals where there have been non-respondents.

  4. Figures exclude any Second Adult Rebate cases.

  Source:

  Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Management Information System Quarterly statistical enquiry, November 2002.

  Crown Immunity
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when he intends to bring forward legislation to remove Crown immunity in respect of health and safety offences committed by Government Departments. [118566]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  The Government stand by their commitment to remove Crown immunity from statutory health and safety enforcement and will seek a legislative opportunity, when parliamentary time allows.
  929W
  In the meantime the Health and Safety Executive continues to enforce health and safety requirements in Crown bodies and applies the Crown censure procedure, where but for Crown immunity, prosecution would have been justified.

  Disabled People
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether he plans to make public funds available to assist disabled people taking up public appointments(a) through the Access to Work Scheme and (b) through other mechanisms. [110742]

  Maria Eagle
  Our first priority is to help those without jobs into paid work. Jobcentre Plus has a wide range of support that would be available to disabled people who wish to take up paid employment, whether full or part time, including some public appointments. Access to Work, for example, helps disabled people who require extra support to overcome work-related obstacles resulting from disability. For public appointments which are not paid employment, help from Jobcentre Plus would not be appropriate.

  We recognise the benefits that diversity brings to public appointments, and the Commissioner for Public Appointments provides guidance which states that care must be taken when making appointments not to discriminate on the grounds of disability and to ensure that positive action is taken wherever possible to attract suitable candidates. In addition, the Disability Rights Commission, which is sponsored by this Department, will continue to work closely with the relevant unit in the Cabinet Office, and disabled people, with the aim of increasing the proportion of public appointments held by disabled people.

  Identity Fraud
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many national insurance accounts the(a) National Insurance Integrity Programme and (b) National Insurance Work Programme identified as inactive, broken down by category, in each year since they were established. [116728]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The National Insurance Integrity Programme was superseded in mid-2000 by Personal Account Security, now known as the National Insurance Number (NINO) Allocation Project. The NINO Allocation Project has responsibility for taking forward the Departmental for Work and Pensions National Insurance Work Programme.

  The overall stock of NINOs is 71.5 million; 49 million of these accounts are active. The NINO Allocation Project has identified a total of 14 million accounts as deceased records. Of the remaining 8.5 million records, analysis has taken place and we have concluded that 6.7 million of these records are not being used because either they are deceased records or the customers have gone abroad. The remaining cases have all been dormant for over 3 years and we are currently looking at ways to police these accounts in future.

  Health and Safety
  Brian Cotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on the progress being made by his Department in establishing the Incident Contact Centre. [117278]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  [holding answer 9 June 2003]: The Incident Contact Centre (ICC) was successfully launched by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in April 2001 to process all statutory reports notified under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 1995.

  HSE established the ICC as part of the Government's e-programme.

  There has been a continued positive shift towards electronic reporting since the service was launched. The number of reports received by post has dropped from over 80 per cent. at the beginning to around 40 per cent. now, with a corresponding increase in the number of telephone reports from less than 10 per cent. initially to 25 per cent. in April 2003.

  Income Support
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people are in receipt of income support. [118502]

  Malcolm Wicks
  Income support statistics are published in the Income Support Quarterly Statistical Enquiries. These are available in the Library.

  Work-related Deaths and Injuries
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many(a) work-related deaths and (b) serious injuries have occurred in the Bolton, South-East parliamentary constituency in each of the last 10 years; and how many prosecutions there have been as a result. [117133]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  The number of work-related deaths and major injuries reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the Metropolitan borough of Bolton since 1996–97, and the numbers of prosecutions by HSE as a result, are as follows:

  Table 1

  Year1

  Work-related deaths

  Separate offences prosecuted

  Major injuries

  Separate offences prosecuted

  1996–97

  2

  1

  330

  —

  1997–98

  1

  1

  192

  1

  1998–99

  1

  —

  138

  —

  1999–2000

  2

  —

  116

  3

  2000–01

  1

  —

  100

  —

  2001–02

  2

  —

  152

  —

  The number of (a) work-related deaths and (b) major injuries reported to Bolton metropolitan borough council since 1996–97, and the total number of health and safety at work prosecutions by the council each year are as follows:

  931W

  Table 2

  Year1

  Work-related deaths

  Major injuries

  Separate offences prosecuted (all health and safety offences) 2

  1996–97

  —

  90

  3

  1997–98

  —

  56

  6

  1998–99

  —

  65

  3

  1999–2000

  —

  82

  9

  2000–01

  —

  50

  4

  2001–02

  2

  60

  Not yet available

  1 The annual basis is the planning year from 1 April to 31 March.

  2 Figures for offences prosecuted specifically following death or major injury are not available except at disproportionate cost.

  Information at constituency level is not available. Information in answer to this question for the years before 1996–97 is not available except at disproportionate cost.

  Work-related Stress Disorder
  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people were diagnosed with work-related stress disorder making them unable to work for a longer period of time in(a) 1990, (b) 1995, (c) 2000 and (d) 2002; and if he will make a statement. [113888]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  We are not able to supply the information in the format requested. Information on cases diagnosed (by consultant psychiatrists or specialist occupational physicians) of anxiety, depression and other stress related ill health is available for 1999, 2000, and 2001 from the Health and Safety Executive's Occupational Diseases Surveillance Scheme (ODIN).

  Newly diagnosed cases of anxiety, depression and other stress related ill health (in a 12 month period) (ODIN)1

  1990

  Not available

  1995

  Not available

  1998–99

  Not available

  1999

  5,523

  2000

  6,327

  2001

  6,735

  2001–02

  Not available

  1The ODIN surveillance system covers work-related mental ill-health as reported by Occupational Physicians and Psychiatrists. For the purposes of measuring Work- related Stress, cases diagnosed as "Anxiety/Depression" and "Other Work-related Stress" are used.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Claims Factories
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will conduct an inquiry into the operations of claims factories. [117103]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  The Government are keeping under review the operation of the claims management market and are working with a range of organisations including the Law Society to encourage high and common standards in accident compensation. Claims management companies can provide an efficient and affordable means of handling claims for compensation and provide access to justice to people who might not otherwise be able to afford it. Those who provide the 932W
  services which claims management companies organise are regulated by a range of bodies, including the Law Society, the General Council of the Bar, the Financial Services Authority and the General Insurance Standards Council. The Government have undertaken to set up a review of the regulatory framework for legal services the exact parameters of which will be announced before the summer break.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many staff have been employed in the Ministerial Correspondence Unit of the Department in each of the last two years. [115879]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  The number of staff employed in my Department's Ministerial Correspondence Unit, at 1 April of the last two years, is as follows:

  Number

  2002–03

  2

  2003–04

  2

  These numbers are of substantive civil servants only and exclude the temporary agency and contract staff who may have worked in the Ministerial Correspondence Unit over this period. The Ministerial Correspondence Unit currently employs one temporary agency staff/member.

  Departmental Underspend
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what plans the Lord Chancellor has to reduce the Department's underspend in 2003–04 from that of 2002–03. [112773]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  My Department is currently expecting to spend under 1 per cent. less than its 2002–03 Resource Estimate. This outturn position is provisional.

  Planned spending for 2003–04 is set out in the Departmental Report 2001–02 CM5408, Table A1: Public Spending, page 94.

  Legal Aid (Northern Ireland)
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what percentage of civil legal aid claimants in Northern Ireland(a) were successful, (b) were unsuccessful and (c) settled in 2002. [118436]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  In Northern Ireland 23,106 civil legal aid cases were closed during 2002. Of these:

  26.0 per cent. (5,999) were successful;

  14.4 per cent. (3,329) were unsuccessful;

  45.5 per cent. (10,525) were settled; and

  14.1 per cent. (3,253) were withdrawn

  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many civil legal aid applications were made in Northern Ireland in 2002; and how many were granted. [118439]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  During 2002, 14,032 civil legal aid applications were received and 11,481 civil legal aid certificates were granted in Northern Ireland.
  933W
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many criminal legal aid applications were made in Northern Ireland in 2002; and how many were granted. [118440]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  During 2002, 21,125 applications for criminal legal aid were made and 20,364 criminal legal aid certificates were granted in Northern Ireland.

  Legal Services Commission
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the budget allocated to the Legal Services Commission was in 2003–04; and what the corresponding figures were in(a) 1999, (b) 2000 and (c) 2001. [117477]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  For the financial years from 1999to 2001 the respective annual budget allocations to the Legal Services Commission for legal aid were:

  £ million

  1999–2000

  1,200

  2000–

  1,248

  2001–02

  1,219

  The figures do not include the amounts allocated to criminal cases in the higher courts. For the corresponding years the funds made available for criminal cases in the higher courts were:

  £ million

  1999–2000

  412

  2000–01

  435

  2001–02

  474

  Note:

  These figures are described in cash terms.

  The annual budget allocation to the Legal Services Commission for legal aid in 2003–04 is £1,726 million. This now includes legal aid for cases in the higher criminal courts. It does not, however, include resources for immigration/asylum matters, which are now to be included in a separate, single asylum fund. Resources for that budget are yet to be finalised.

  In line with changes in Government accounting this amount is described in terms of resources, which differs from cash in that resources are accounted for as and when they are consumed rather than when they are paid for.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Asylum Seekers
  David Davis
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many asylum seekers are housed by the local authorities in(a) the East Riding of Yorkshire and (b) Hull; and how many were housed by each in each month of the last two quarters for which figures are available. [116772]

  Beverley Hughes
  I have been asked to reply.

  The information is not available in the form requested.
  934W
  The availability of information on the location of asylum seekers in the UK is currently linked to the support the asylum seeker receives. Asylum seekers in the UK either receive support from the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), local authorities or the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or are supporting themselves.

  Information on outstanding asylum cases, initial decision outcomes and asylum case processing times relating to persons in particular areas of the UK is unavailable as are statistics regarding the location of asylum seekers not in receipt of support.

  NASS does not disperse asylum seekers to any areas in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The following table shows the number of asylum seekers (including dependants) accommodated by NASS and receiving subsistence only support in Hull as at the end of each quarter since June 20021

  As at end of quarter

  Number of asylum seekers (including dependants) supported in NASS accommodation in Hull

  Number of asylum seekers (including dependants) receiving subsistence only support in Hull2

  June 2002

  995

  3—

  September 2002

  995

  3—

  December 2002

  1,010

  35

  March 2003

  940

  50

  1 Figures have been rounded to the nearest five. These figures exclude cases where support has been ceased.

  2 Figures on the location of cases receiving subsistence only support only became available below regional level from December 2002.

  3 Figures for subsistence only cases by Local Authority are only available from December 2002.

  From grant claims sent to the Home Office by local authorities, as at the end of March 2003, there were the following additional number4 of asylum seekers being supported by the local authorities in Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire: (Asylum seekers are not necessarily resident in the Local Authority that supports them due to the voluntary dispersal programme which operated prior to NASS).

  Local Authority

  Number of singles supported as at end March 2003

  Number of families supported as at end of March 2003

  East Riding

  5

  0

  Hull

  20

  5

  Statistics on the number of asylum seekers supported by NASS in each region are available on the Home Office's Immigration and Asylum Statistics website: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration 1.html
  4 Figures have been rounded to the nearest five. These figures exclude cases where support has been ceased.

  Banking Services
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what steps he is taking through the work of the(a) Social Exclusion Unit and (b) Neighbourhood Renewal Unit to ensure that banking services, including ATMs, are available and accessible to all sectors of the community. [118159]
  935W
  Mrs. Roche
  The Social Exclusion Unit examined the issue of access to financial services in deprived areas in Policy Action Team 14 (led by Her Majesty's Treasury), within the framework of the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal. Much of the current work across Government on areas such as credit unions, basic bank accounts and universal banking services results from this work.

  Within the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, a £15 million Deprived Urban Post Office Fund was established (Commitment 15), managed by the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, that operates to help keep post offices open in England's most deprived urban areas. Post offices are often the only accessible financial service in the most deprived communities and they are used disproportionately by the more disadvantaged members of society, including those on low incomes and by the elderly.

  The Post Office network now also offers access to basic bank accounts through the Universal Banking Services (Commitment 13), which are being promoted by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of Work and Pensions and the Post Office. These services will give an important boost to financial inclusion as they will help to give the estimated 3.5 million adults in the UK currently without bank accounts access to them.

  Homeless People
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many single(a) women and (b) men were housed in bed and breakfasts (i) in each of the last five years for which figures exist and (ii) on 1 April 2003. [117995]

  Mrs. Roche
  Estimates of the type of homeless household in bed and breakfast accommodation have only been made from 31 March 2001. The available estimates for the number of single homeless women and men in bed and breakfast accommodation in England is shown in the following table:

  Estimates of number of single homeless women and men in bed and breakfast accommodation in England

  Women

  Men

  31 March 2001

  1,520

  3,250

  31 March 2002

  1,760

  3,430

  Note:

  Figures for March 2002 include hotel annexe accommodation where some or all basic facilities are shared.

  Source:

  ODPM P1(E) Annual Supplement housing return

  Bob Spink
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what funds were made available for Castle Point borough council to eradicate bed and breakfast housing for families by 31 March. [117997]

  Mrs. Roche
  Castle Point borough council has been allocated £25,000 in 200304 specifically to help the authority reduce the number of homeless families with children in Bed and Breakfast hotels (B&B). This is in addition to the £20,000 allocated to the authority by the Homelessness Directorate to assist the council deliver an effective homelessness service including meeting the national commitment of ensuring that by March 2004,936W
  no homeless family with children is placed in B&B other than in an emergency and even then for no more than six weeks.

  Minimum Income Guarantee
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will estimate how much extra grant would have been gained by Cambridgeshire in 2003–04 if an additional 1,000 pensioners in the county received the minimum income guarantee. [117977]

  Mr. Raynsford
  The number of pensioners receiving the minimum income guarantee is not a factor in distributing formula grant to councils, so Cambridgeshire's settlement for 2003–04 would be not be affected.

  Social Housing
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many new social houses are planned to be built in each of the next five years in Shrewsbury and Atcham. [115027]

  Mr. McNulty
  This information is not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many social houses were built in Shrewsbury and Atcham in each year since 1992. [115031]

  Mr. McNulty
  The numbers of social houses (registered social landlord and local authority) reported by the local authority to have been built in Shrewsbury and Atcham are tabled as follows:

  Number

  1992

  0

  1993

  20

  1994

  21

  1995

  36

  1996

  24

  1997

  0

  1998

  0

  1999

  2

  2000

  15

  2001

  26

  2002

  4

  Telephone Masts
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister on how many occasions in each of the last five calendar years for which figures are available the failure of a local authority to issue a refusal within the 42-day notification period for the erection of mobile telephone masts has been the subject of a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman; how many complaints have been upheld; and if he will make a statement. [117399]

  Mr. McNulty
  The Local Government Ombudsman's Office does not record the number of complaints received by subject matter to the level of detail requested, this information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, they have issued three reports following complaints where a local authority has failed to comment on a telecommunications development within the time period allowed at the time the proposal was received. The details are provided as follows:
  937W

  Year

  LGO Reports issued following a complaint

  2001

  November—Dacorum

  2002

  July—Swindon

  July—Blyth Valley

HEALTH

  Accident and Emergency (Child Transit)
  Dr. Pugh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the Department recommends a minimum(a) distance and (b) travel time for the safe transit of children to a NHS accident and emergency unit. [117764]

  Jacqui Smith
  The Department of Health does not recommend a minimum distance and travel time for children attending an accident and emergency unit. This will be subject to clinical judgement and local circumstances. Children need access to the closest unit which offers appropriate initial assessment and treatment. Where there is need for paediatric intensive care or other specialist intervention following the child's resuscitation and stabilisation, then onward transfer to a unit specialising in this form of care, and offering the best achievable outcome for the child, will be arranged.

  Dementia
  Dr. Richard Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to improve respite care and other facilities to support patients with dementia under the age of 65 in the community. [118143]

  Jacqui Smith
  The majority of people with dementia are cared for at home, which can be a very demanding and exhausting task for their carers. Their carers are entitled to an assessment to determine their needs as carers and eligibility for support. The carers grant, worth £100 million this year, provides money for local councils to provide short breaks and services for carers to enable them to continue in their caring role. Carers are also entitled to cash payments for carers' services to enable them to purchase the type of support they require and promote a better quality of life.

  Dentistry
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 22 May 2003,Official Report, column 966–67W, on dentistry, what research he has commissioned on the long term effects of people being unable to access non-urgent oral health services; and if he will make a statement. [116914]

  Mr. Lammy
  No specific research has been commissioned on the long-term effects of people being unable to access non-urgent oral health services.

  The Health Technology Assessment Programme has recently published a systematic review and economic evaluation of the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of routine dental checks. It concluded that more work needed to be done on this area. A copy of this has been placed in the Library.
  938W
  The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has been asked to prepare guidance for the national health service in England and Wales on the clinical and cost effectiveness of the six month recall period for individual patients at an interval based on the risk from oral disease.

  Osteoporosis
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many osteoporosis(a) units and (b) nurses there are; and if he will make a statement. [116637]

  Jacqui Smith
  This information is not collected centrally.

  A range of professionals across a number of specialties are involved in providing treatment for osteoporosis in both primary and secondary care settings.

  Many of these health professionals will deal with osteoporosis alongside other conditions. It is therefore not possible to identify either specific units or exact numbers of professionals involved.

  Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
  Dr. Evan Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library the advice by the Chief Medical Officer on whether SARS should be made a notifiable disease. [110962]

  Ms Blears
  Under Paragraph 4 for the Code of Practice on Open Government, internal documents are not routinely published.

  Based on information from the World Health Organisation, the Chief Medical Officer recommended that making severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) a notifiable disease from the outset, would slow down the reporting of probable cases at a critical time. Moreover, there was nothing to suggest that people with possible SARS or their contacts would set out to reject medical help and advice and thus require compulsory detention. This is however, an evolving situation and this policy is kept under constant review.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Motoring Convictions
  Mr. Greg Knight
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many motorists have been convicted in the last 12 months for which figures are available for misuse of or breach of the restrictions surrounding the use of flashing amber beacons. [115370]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  The Home Office Court Proceedings Database for England and Wales does not separately identify offences associated with the misuse or breach of flashing amber beacons from other summary motoring lighting offences.

  Animal Welfare
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what criteria he applies when deciding the form a Government investigation should take into
  939W
  allegations that the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Inspectorate has failed to fulfil its role properly in relation to a particular establishment. [117605]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  There are no set criteria, as the handling of such allegations against the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Inspectorate must be determined in the light of the particular circumstances of each case. I must reserve the right on each occasion to commission whatever form of investigation seems to be most appropriate.

  I should add that the Government has confidence in the integrity and high professional standards of the Inspectorate, and in the rigorous way the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 is administered and enforced.

  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps the Government is taking to reduce the number of animals used in scientific procedures. [117606]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  Under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 the Home Office can only license the use of animals for scientific purposes where there is no non-animal alternative, and then only when both the number of animals and their suffering is minimised. This reflects the principles of the 3Rs—replacement, reduction and refinement.

  As a regulator the Home Office has no control over the number of project licence applications which it receives. While therefore we must seek to minimise the number of animals used in particular programmes of work, the Home Office cannot influence the overall amount of animal research and testing which takes place—that is determined by many other factors, including the economic climate and global trends in scientific endeavour.

  Although scientific activity has increased dramatically since the 1986 Act was introduced, technical progress with development and adoption of 3Rs strategies has resulted in an overall reduction in the number of animals used each year over the same period. There are, however, current developments—such as advances in the use that can be made of genetically modified animals, and the proposed European chemical testing strategy—which may in coming years reverse that trend and lead to more rather than fewer animals being used.

  The Government fully supports and encourages development and promotion of the 3Rs in a number of ways, and additional impetus has been given to its efforts to that end by the related recommendations recently put forward by the House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures. One of those recommendations—that there should be a centre for the 3Rs—is now being considered by the Inter-Departmental Group on the 3Rs, which is also reviewing the effectiveness of the Inter-Departmental Datasharing Concordat.

  This is not however an area where quick gains can be expected. In the longer term we must rely for any further significant reduction in animal use largely on the scientific community's own continuing efforts to develop, validate and adopt non-animal alternative methods.
  940W
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps are being taken to establish a culture of care in laboratories which carry out scientific procedures on animals. [117607]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  In their Report published last year, the House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures recognised the progress that had been made since the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 came into force, in fostering a culture of care in establishments designated under that legislation.

  The culture of care as regards animals used in scientific procedures in the United Kingdom is indeed probably better than anywhere else in the world, and we remain committed to maintaining and improving that position.

  The animals must be housed and cared for in accordance with codes of practice published and laid before Parliament under the 1986 Act. These codes set standards which have to be met as a requirement of licence conditions, and the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Inspectorate closely monitors compliance.

  A number of other measures have, we believe, contributed to a culture of care. These have included the mandatory training of prospective and existing licence holders, and of named veterinary surgeons—and we plan shortly to bring in such training for named animal care and welfare officers—and the introduction and development of ethical review processes in designated establishments. Expansion of the Inspectorate is also beginning to make a difference in this area, as it enables more resources to be devoted to the proactive dissemination and promotion of best care and husbandry practice. Moreover, we continue to encourage communication and networking among licence holders so that best practice can be shared, and we continue to press for the highest standards to be incorporated in European legislation.

  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research or training the Government are funding abroad concerning animals in scientific procedures; and if it is his policy that the requirements of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) 1986 Act are followed in such cases. [117608]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  The Government accept that Government-funded procedures should be consistent with the principles of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. The Home Office does not routinely collect information on the funding of such research, or training. I shall, however, consult Government colleagues and write to the hon. Member.

  Asylum Seekers
  David Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many asylum seekers there were in(a) Hull and (b) the East Riding of Yorkshire in each month in the last two quarters for which figures are available; how long each application took to process; and how many applications were successful. [116771]

  Beverley Hughes
  The information is not available in the form requested.
  941W
  The availability of information on the location of asylum seekers in the UK is currently linked to the support the asylum seeker receives. Asylum seekers in the UK either receive support from the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), local authorities or the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), or are supporting themselves.

  Information on outstanding asylum cases, initial decision outcomes and asylum case processing times relating to persons in particular areas of the UK is unavailable as are statistics regarding the location of asylum seekers not in receipt of support.

  NASS does not disperse asylum seekers to any areas in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The following table shows the number of asylum seekers (including dependants) accommodated by NASS and receiving subsistence only support in Hull as at the end of each quarter since June 20021

  As at end of quarter

  Number of asylum seekers (including dependants) supported in NASS accommodation in Hull

  Number of asylum seekers (including dependants) receiving subsistence only support in Hull2

  June 2002

  995

  3—

  September 2002

  995

  3—

  December 2002

  1,010

  35

  March 2003

  940

  50

  1 Figures have been rounded to the nearest five. These figures exclude cases where support has been ceased.

  2 Figures on the location of cases receiving subsistence only support only became available below regional level from December 2002.

  3 Figures for subsistence only cases by Local Authority are only available from December 2002.

  From grant claims sent to the Home Office by local authorities, as at the end of March 2003, there were the following additional number4 of asylum seekers being supported by the local authorities in Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire: (Asylum seekers are not necessarily resident in the Local Authority that supports them due to the voluntary dispersal programme which operated prior to NASS).

  Local Authority

  Number of singles supported as at end March 2003

  Number of families supported as at end of March 2003

  East Riding

  5

  0

  Hull

  20

  5

  Statistics on the number of asylum seekers supported by NASS in each region are available on the Home Office's Immigration and Asylum Statistics website: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigratio 1. html
  4 Figures have been rounded to the nearest five. These figures exclude cases where support has been ceased.

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether accusations of domestic violence to the police about the behaviour of an asylum seeker are taken into consideration by Ministers when considering deportation. [117925]
  942W
  Beverley Hughes
  Before a person can be removed or deported full account is taken of all known relevant factors. These include any criminal convictions, and the individual's personal history including his or her character and conduct.

  Drugs
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of Class A drugs supplied to the UK market he estimates were intercepted in each six month period since January 2000. [117917]

  John Healey
  I have been asked to reply.

  Work is under way to improve estimates of the total supply of Class A drugs to the UK but law enforcement agencies are currently working on the basis that in 2001–02, they took out an estimated 10 per cent. of heroin and 21 per cent. of cocaine supply to the UK. Information for other periods and other Class A drugs is not available.

  Community Sentences
  Mr. Cameron
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of(a) offenders, (b) adult offenders, (c) young male offenders and (d) female offenders who completed community sentences in the most recent year for which figures are available were reconvicted for a standard list offence within two years. [116006]

  Paul Goggins
  There is no available information on reconviction rates for offenders completing community sentences.

  Of all offenders commencing community penalties in the first quarter of 1999, 44.3 per cent. were reconvicted within two years. This was a 3.1 per cent. fall from the expected rate based on first quarter 1997. These figures have been adjusted to exclude breaches and convictions after the start of the community sentence where the offence had been committed before the community sentence started.

  More detailed figures are available only in respect of offenders who started community sentences in 1995. Of those offenders, (a) 56 per cent. of all offenders (b) 51 per cent. of all adult offenders (c) 73 per cent. of young male offenders1 and (d) 42 per cent. of all female offenders had been reconvicted within two years. These figures have not been adjusted.
  1Young offenders are defined here as those aged under 21 years at the date of commencement of the order.

  Correspondence
  David Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the hon. Member for Walsall, North will receive a response to his letter of 14 May 2003 regarding a constituent. [118586]

  Beverley Hughes
  [holding answer 10 June 2003]: I wrote to my hon. Friend on 11 June 2003 and will reply more fully once current investigations into his constituent's concerns are completed.

  Crime (Merseyside)
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what assessment he has made of the crime trends on Merseyside since 1995; which criminal activity has declined most in Merseyside since 1995; and what estimate he has made of the reasons for that decline; [116472]

  (2) what the total number of crimes recorded per head of population was in Merseyside in each year since 2000. [116474]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  Information on the total number of recorded crimes per 100,000 of the population is given in the table.

  Number of recorded crimes per 100,000 population: Merseyside

  Number of offences

  1999–2000

  10,513

  2001–01

  10,174

  Recorded crimes by offence group—Merseyside1

  1995

  1996

  1997

  Offence group

  Offences recorded

  Offences per 1,000 population

  Offences recorded

  Offences per 1,000 population

  Offences recorded

  Offences per 1,000 population

  Violence against the person

  8,098

  5.6

  8,236

  5.8

  8,083

  5.7

  Sexual Offences

  937

  0.7

  891

  0.6

  906

  0.6

  Robbery

  2,768

  1.9

  2,985

  2.1

  2,141

  1.5

  Burglary

  34,497

  24.0

  29,437

  20.6

  26,266

  18.5

  Theft and Handling

  74,797

  52.1

  71,393

  50.0

  58,520

  41.2

  Fraud and Forgery

  4,259

  3.0

  4,288

  3.0

  4,269

  3.0

  Criminal Damage

  25,855

  18.0

  26,907

  18.9

  23,677

  16.7

  Drug Offences3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Other Offences

  2,174

  1.5

  1,819

  1.3

  2,117

  1.5

  Total

  153,385

  106.9

  145,956

  102.3

  125,979

  88.7

  1998–992

  2000–01

  2001–02

  Offence group

  Offences recorded

  Offences per 1,000 population

  Offences recorded

  Offences per 1,000 population

  Offences recorded

  Offences per 1,000 population

  Offences recorded

  Offences per 1,000 population

  Violence against the person

  12,208

  8.6

  14,639

  10.4

  15,855

  11.3

  16,030

  11.4

  Sexual Offences

  1,019

  0.7

  935

  0.7

  982

  0.7

  1,018

  0.7

  Robbery

  2,484

  1.8

  2,663

  1.9

  2,405

  1.7

  3,155

  2.3

  Burglary

  26,498

  18.8

  25,638

  18.2

  23,938

  17.1

  25,478

  18.2

  Theft and Handling

  59,044

  41.8

  62,230

  44.2

  57,844

  41.2

  59,698

  42.5

  Fraud and Forgery

  4,884

  3.5

  4,794

  3.4

  5,021

  3.6

  5,380

  3.8

  Criminal Damage

  27,465

  19.4

  30,822

  21.9

  30,593

  21.8

  33,899

  24.2

  Drug Offences3

  5,620

  4.0

  4,838

  3.4

  4,421

  3.2

  4,390

  3.1

  Other Offences

  1,652

  1.2

  1,613

  1.1

  1,748

  1.3

  1,886

  1.3

  Total

  140,874

  99.7

  148,172

  105.1

  142,807

  101.7

  150,934

  107.6

  1 Crime statistics were collected on a calendar year basis up to 1997, and on a financial year basis thereafter.

  2 The number of crimes recorded in that financial year using the expanded offence coverage and revised counting rules which came into effect on 1 April 1998. Numbers of offences for years before and after this date, and figures calculated from them, may therefore not be directly comparable.

  3 Prior to April 1998, the only drug offences recorded were 'Trafficking in controlled drugs', which were recorded within the Other Offences Group. After this date, the Home Office Counting Rules were revised and expanded to include the further drug offences of 'Possession of controlled drugs' and 'Other drug offences'.

  944W

  Number of recorded cirmes per 100,000 population: Merseyside

  Number of offences

  2001–02

  10,755

  1 Numbers will be affected by the size of the resident population relative to the transient or visiting populations and may therefore over-represent the number of crimes relative to the real population of potential victims.

  There was a change in counting rules for recorded crime on 1 April 1998, which had a tendency to increase the number of offences counted. Numbers of offences for years before and after this date, and figures calculated from them, willtherefore not be directly comparable.

  The table contains recorded crime figures for the number of offences recorded and the number of offences per 1,000 population for the nine main offence groups. Despite the change in counting rules the figures show that the offence group with the biggest decline in the number of offences recorded per 1,000 population from 1995 to 2001–02 is Theft and Handling. This group includes vehicle crime offences. The offence group with the largest percentage decrease is burglary.

  Detective Chief Superintendent Ellie Baker
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) on what dates meetings took place between the West Midlands police and the Crown Prosecution Service investigating the allegations against Detective Chief Superintendent Ellie Baker; [115696]

  (2) if he will make a statement on the reasons for the time taken to investigate the allegations against Detective Chief Superintendent Ellie Baker of the West Midlands Constabulary; and how much it cost to investigate the allegations against her. [115697]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  The West Midlands police inform me that the involvement of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), the appointment of the metropolitan police service (MPS) to conclude the investigation and consideration of the matter by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are all factors which have contributed to the time taken in the investigation. Once the CPS determined that no criminal proceedings should be instigated, further delays have arisen through the need to consider whether DCS Baker should face misconduct proceedings and the processes of disclosure of relevant information and subsequent interviews that this required. Further written representations submitted by DCS Baker in May are currently under consideration by the PCA before they make their recommendations on whether DCS Baker should face misconduct proceedings.

  The West Midlands police advise me that a detailed account of the costs of the investigation is not available. However, they advise that a conservative estimate of the cost of the investigation so far would be in the region of £150,000.

  I am further advised that the West Midlands police met the CPS on 17, 23 and 30 October 2002 before the matter was voluntarily referred to the PCA and the MPS were appointed to oversee the investigation. A West Midlands police representative also attended a meeting between the MPS and the CPS in January 2003 when it was determined that there would be no criminal proceedings against DCS Baker.

  Dungavel Detention Centre
  Annabelle Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the race relations policy that has been approved for Dungavel Detention Centre. [118610]

  Beverley Hughes
  I shall arrange for copies of the race relations policy for Dungavel House Immigration Removal Centre to be placed in the Library.

  Hotel Accommodation
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the amount spent by(a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) its non-departmental public bodies on hotel accommodation (i) in the UK and (ii) abroad for (A) Ministers, (B) staff and (C) others, and if he will list the average cost per hotel room, in each year since 1997. [117569]
  946W
  Mr. Blunkett
  The detailed information requested is not held centrally, and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. All travel by Civil Servants within the Home Office is conducted in accordance with the Civil Service Management Code.

  The Government publishes an annual report of Ministerial travel overseas. Which includes the costs of accommodation. The information sought in respect of accommodation within the United Kingdom is not held centrally. All travel is conducted in line with the requirements of the Ministerial Code.

  International Organisation for Migration
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which countries have an International Organisation for Migration office; where are they located and what funding he provides to each office; how many individuals have been assisted to return to each country; and how many of them have received reintegration assistance. [117766]

  Beverley Hughes
  The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is an intergovernmental, and independent organisation that operates in more than 100 different countries. Full and detailed information regarding their activities and worldwide office locations is available on their inlernet website at www.iomlondon.org

  Funding for IOM is commercially confidential and cannot be disclosed. I can however say that the Government of the United Kingdom, along with other United Nation member states, makes an assessed contribution towards the administration budget of the IOM's worldwide operation. IOM also operate, on behalf of the Home Office, an assisted voluntary return programme, which is co-financed by the European Refugee Fund.

  Regarding the numbers of individuals who have been assisted to return to their country of origin and/or have received reintegration assistance:

  Revised figures regarding persons who left the UK under Assisted Voluntary Returns (AVR) Programmes in 2002 are not yet available but will be published on the Home Office website later in the year in the Home Office Statistical Bulletin "Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 2002". I can however provisionally say:
  890 principal asylum applicants left the United Kingdom under AVR Programmes during 2002 and 980 during 2001.
  In addition, 305 dependants of asylum seekers who left the UK under such programmes in 2002 and 230 in the period April to December 2001.
  Data on dependants removed have only been collected since April 2001.
  A nationality breakdown of this information is not available.
  Reintegration assistance was introduced to the assisted voluntary return programme, from 2002, in support of the sustainability of return. This information is therefore not yet available.

  Labour Party Conference
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will determine the
  947W
  application by Dorset police for the additional funding needed to finance the policing of the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth in 2003. [118211]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  [holding answer 9 June 2003]: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, informed the Chief Constable (Mrs. Jane Stichbury QPM) on 4 June that Dorset police would receive a special grant of £1.9 million as a contribution towards the additional cost of policing this years Labour Party Conference.

  We have separately provided in the Dorset Police Authority's capital allocation for 2003–04 a further £0.2 million for new CCTV equipment for party conferences. The total funding we are providing in 2003–04 is therefore £2.1 million.

  Partnership Agreements
  Angela Eagle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he plans to conclude a partnership agreement with the trade unions representing the staff in his Department. [117455]

  Mr. Blunkett
  I can confirm that it is our intention to seek to work in partnership with recognised unions. In accordance with Cabinet Office guidance about the benefits of partnership working and related best practice different areas of the Home Office Group have decided for themselves how to develop their own partnership working arrangements.A "voluntary" agreement between the Prison Service and the Prison Services Association/Prison Governors Association providing, among other things, the general principles for resolving disputes came into effect in May 2001.
  The Passport and Records Agency signed a partnership agreement with the Public and Commercial Services Union in May 2002.
  The Forensic Science Service has met Prospect and PCS to discuss the concept of partnership. Further discussions are planned.
  The National Probation Directorate (NPD) have a joint Staff Consultative Committee and a National Health and Safety Forum with the National Association of Probation Officers, Unison and GMB. NPD will be meeting with their three recognised unions in July to agree a protocol on how they will work together.
  Within the Non-Agency Home Office discussions are taking place with FDA, PCS and Prospect about the terms of a draft Industrial Relations Agreement.
  The Immigration and Nationality Directorate and the Immigration Service Union are discussing the terms of a draft "Working Together" agreement.

  Passports
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of whether to use credit reference checking agencies to reduce fraud as set out in the UKPS business plan 2002–07. [117123]

  Beverley Hughes
  The UK Passport Service (UKPS) has conducted a limited pilot on using private sector databases to assist in the confirmation of the identity of people applying for passports. UKPS will be conducting a more extensive pilot in the autumn of this year with a view, if successful, of integrating these checks into the passport issuing process.
  948W
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many and what percentage of successful dummy fraud applications were detected as set out in the UKPS business plan 2002–07. [117124]

  Beverley Hughes
  The UK Passport Service (UKPS) has initiated a programme of testing its systems and procedures through the introduction of dummy fraudulent applications. This is a diagnostic tool used by the UKPS to check the effectiveness of its fraud prevention and detection arrangements. It would be prejudicial to the UKPS's business interests to publish detailed information on the results of this testing.

  The UKPS is actively using the results to develop its procedures and systems. This includes a large scale pilot of arrangements to access commercial databases to support the identity validation process which will commence this autumn. As indicated in its 2003–08 Corporate and Business Plan the UKPS will be introducing a range of initiatives designed to support examiners in identifying fraudulent applications.

  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what investigations are in progress within the UK Passport Service relating to criminal trading of passports taken from within passport offices. [117106]

  Beverley Hughes
  There are no such investigations in progress.

  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many staff in the UK Passport Service have received training in fraud identification; and how many Special File sections there have been in the UKPS in each of the last five years. [117107]

  Beverley Hughes
  Fraud identification and awareness is part of the training provided by the UK Passport Service (UKPS) for staff involved in the examination of applications for United Kingdom passports. In addition to this, UKPS has just delivered fraud awareness sessions for all examination staff in all of its seven regional offices.

  Staff employed in Special Files sections receive on the job training in fraud identification as part of their induction to these specialist sections. A number of staff within these sections have undertaken training in fraud investigation as part of a programme accredited by the University of Portsmouth. Several of these staff are now recognised as accredited counter-fraud specialists. To strengthen its fraud prevention and detection arrangements, as indicated in its 2003–08 Corporate and Business Plan, the UKPS plans to put all staff dedicated to fraud investigation through such an accredited training programme.

  Special Files sections are an integral part of all UKPS regional offices. All offices have had such a section throughout the last five years.

  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate his Department has made of(a) the number of fraudulent applications for passports and (b) the number detected in each of the last five years. [117113]
  949W
  Beverley Hughes
  It is very difficult to establish the precise level of identity fraud and this is reflected in the findings of a Cabinet Office study on identity fraud which was published last year.

  As part of its Fraud Action Plan the UK Passport Service (UKPS) has undertaken an exercise involving some 10,000 passport applications to establish an indication of the levels of fraudulent application being received. This exercise was run during a peak period in the summer of last year and further exercises need to be run to take account of seasonal variations but if the results of this first exercise are extrapolated they indicate that the level of fraud may run at around 0.18 per cent. of applications received. With around 5 million passports being issued each year this would equate to 9,000 fraudulent applications per year.

  This exercise represents a snapshot of the possible level of fraud at a particular time of year. It is to be repeated on a routine basis at different times of the year.

  UKPS is currently reviewing its systems for collecting, collating and analysing management information relating to passport fraud. The figures available form existing systems for fraudulent passport applications which have been detected in each of the last five years are given in the table.

  Fraudulent passport applications

  Number

  19981

  1,368

  1999–2000

  1,596

  2000–01

  1,484

  2001–02

  2,419

  2002—03

  1,973

  1 Calendar year

  The figures for 2002–03 do not include a significant number of cases which are subject to major and ongoing investigations.

  Strengthening its fraud prevention and detection arrangements while monitoring its customer service standards is a business imperative for the UKPS, and its 2003–08 Corporate and Business Plan details a range of initiatives to improve identity authentication, and to counter fraud. These include improving staff training in fraud detection, the creation of specialist fraud and intelligence units, the launch of a global passport database, building a global lost, stolen, and recovered database, and greater date sharing with public and private sections.

  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information the UKPS lost and stolen passport database collects as set out in the UKPS business plan 2002–07; and if he will place a copy of this information in the Library. [117122]

  Beverley Hughes
  The information that will be collected on the UK Passport Service's lost, stolen and recovered database will comprise the personal details of the passport holder, including address; details of the passport concerned; details of the person reporting the loss; and, the circumstances of the loss including any police references. The details which will be collected in relation to recovered passports will be broadly the same as for loss but with details of the person who has 950W
  recovered the passport and the circumstances of the recovery in place of details of the loss reporter and circumstances of the loss.

  The forms associated with loss and recovery notification are still being developed but I will be happy to place copies in the Library once they have been finalised.

  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many passports have been lost from the passport offices in(a) Belfast, (b) Durham, (c) Glasgow, (d) Liverpool, (e) London, (f) Liverpool, (g) Newport and (h) Peterborough in each of the last five years. [117126]

  Beverley Hughes
  A total of 15 passports have been reported lost in three separate incidents from passport offices between 1998 and 2002. The breakdown for each of the last five years is as follows:

  Passports reported lost from passport offices

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  2002

  Total

  Belfast

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Durham1

  n/a

  n/a

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Glasgow

  0

  0

  14

  0

  0

  14

  Liverpool

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  London

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Newport

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Peterborough

  0

  0

  1

  0

  0

  1

  Total

  0

  0

  15

  0

  0

  15

  1 The Durham office did not open until April 2000

  In each case a full and thorough investigation was undertaken by UK Passport Service security personnel. A police investigation was also undertaken into a single incident in Glasgow when 13 passports could not be accounted for. Details of these passports have been passed to the Immigration Service.

  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate the UK Passport Agency has made of how many people in the UK have duplicate passports. [117127]

  Beverley Hughes
  The UK Passport Service (UKPS) does not issue duplicate passports. All passports are uniquely numbered and identified. In certain limited circumstances UKPS will consider issuing a second passport to someone who can demonstrate a legitimate and imperative need for two passports. In such cases the second passport is a unique document with its own unique number.

  Equal Opportunities
  Angela Eagle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made on completing a pay audit in his Department and its non-departmental public bodies to measure any disadvantage in terms of remuneration for(a) women, (b) ethnic minorities and (c) people with disabilities; and if he will publish the results of such an audit. [117436]

  Beverley Hughes
  The Home Office completed the final report of its Equal Pay Audit, including an action plan, and submitted it to Cabinet Office on 6 May 2003. The report found at non-Agency Home Office pay structures and practices had been "equality-proofed"
  951W
  and were within the tolerance standards set by the Equal Opportunities Commission in relation to gender. The Home Office action plan includes undertaking a second equal pay review later in 2003, which in addition to considering gender, will seek to measure any disadvantage in terms of remuneration for ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.

  A copy of the action plan will be placed in the Library once any arising discussions with Cabinet Office have been concluded.

  Non-Departmental Public Bodies were not formally covered by the commitment but may have carried out their own Equal Pay Audits.

  Police
  Kate Hoey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers were involved in policing the England football match at Leicester on 3 June; and what the cost was to the police authorities. [118172]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  The Leicestershire police operation involved the deployment of 379 officers and 27 support staff, including 50 officers, 10 police horses and special vehicles provided by neighbouring forces in accordance with mutual aid arrangements. 107 police officers were deployed inside the ground for at least part of their duties. The Police Authority has yet to calculate the full cost of the operation.

  Mr. Oaten
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research his Department has commissioned on the safely of the Airwave Communications police communications system. [118348]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  [holding answer 10 June 2002]: Following independent expert advice on the health and safety aspects of the TETRA technology used by Airwave, the Home Office has set up an extensive research programme. We have recently announced a £5 million national health monitoring study of Airwave police users, to be carried out by Imperial College. Other key elements of the research are a study by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory on the possible biological effects of TETRA and independent checks of the emissions of Airwave radios. All the results so far confirm that Airwave equipment is safe.

  Updates on our TETRA health programme are available on the Home Office web site at http:// www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs/tetra.html.

  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what funding is available for the establishment of police station shops in local shopping centre precincts; and if he will make a statement. [116017]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  Police authorities may use their general capital and revenue grants to provide such facilities as they consider appropriate in local circumstances.

  Terrorism
  Linda Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans will be made to protect an Olympic Games held in London from terrorist attack. [116048]
  952W
  Mr. Blunkett
  Security arrangements for any major event are of the utmost importance, and an Olympic Games would be no exception. The Government and their partners will work alongside the bidding organisation and in the event of a successful bid, the organising committee, to ensure that the appropriate arrangements are in place.

  Linda Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he has taken to reduce the risk of a terrorist attack at venues where large groups of people gather. [116049]

  Mr. Blunkett
  Cross-government contingency plans have always been in place and regular exercises test responses to a wide range of different threats. The exercises test the roles of all relevant Government Departments, military, police and local authorities. The Government give the police and security forces the funds and powers necessary to do their job. Day to day operational considerations are a matter for the heads of the appropriate authorities in any particular area. It would not be appropriate for me to disclose contingency arrangements or how particular authorities utilise the resources available to them.

  Linda Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to reduce the time taken for those detained under the Anti-Terrorism and Security Act 2001 to be brought to trial. [116050]

  Mr. Blunkett
  Individuals detained under s23 of the Anti-Terrorist, Crime and Security Act 2001 (ATCSA) are detained under a primary immigration power and are free to leave the country.

  Individuals detained under the ATCSA have a Right of Appeal against certification exercisable to the Special Immigrations Appeals Commission (SIAC). SIAC began hearing the first of 15 appeals on 19 May 2003.

  The detainees exercised their right to contest the Government's derogation from Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which underpins Part IV of Act, by lodging an appeal to the Special Immigration Appeals' Commissioner. This matter was taken up in the Court Appeal and resolved in October 2002. Any delays to the individual detainee appeal hearings have followed from these legal challenges, as well as delays in the preparation of material by those acting for the detainees themselves.

  Linda Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures he is taking to prevent incidents of terrorism in the UK. [116438]

  Mr. Blunkett
  As I have made clear in the House on a number of occasions, safeguards are in place across the country to combat the threat posed by terrorism. It would not be appropriate to comment on particular measures or operational procedures.

  The security and intelligence agencies continue to gather, analyse and assess intelligence, working closely with others, to thwart and disrupt those individuals and organisations involved in the facilitation, preparation or commission of terrorist acts.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Accountancy Services
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the total cost to his Department was for accountancy services in 2002–03. [109491]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  In 2002–03, the Northern Ireland Office (including its Agencies but excluding NDPBs as we do not have a breakdown of their expenditure) spent an estimated £213,775 on accountancy services.

  Much of this figure relates to implementing Resource Accounting and Budgeting, and installing a new Financial Information System. It was necessary for the Department to employ external consultants for these projects, as the required expertise and resources were not available in-house to introduce them.

  The estimated total cost of accountancy services in the Northern Ireland administration is £1,575,034. The figure is estimated, as final invoices have not been received in all cases.

  Agency Workers
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many agency workers have been employed by the Department in each of the last two years; and at what cost to public funds. [115205]

  Mr. Pearson
  In 2001–02, a total of 170 employment agency workers were engaged by Northern Ireland Departments and the Northern Ireland Office at a cost of £620,182. In 2002–03, the totals were 213 and £1,099,225, respectively.

  Ambulance Service
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many members of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service are unable to work as a result of violent attacks by(a) patients and (b) other members of the community. [115961]

  Mr. Browne
  Since 1 January 2003 there have been 70 reported incidents of violent attacks on ambulance staff, as a result of which 7 staff have been unable to work. The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service does not differentiate between attacks by a patient or other members of the community when recording violent attacks.

  Assaults (Health Professionals)
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many violent attacks have been initiated by patients and directed at(a) doctors, (b) nurses and (c) other health care professionals in Northern Ireland over the 12 month period from 1 May 2002. [115925]

  Mr. Browne
  The information is not available in the format requested. However in the financial year 2002–03 the recorded number of assaults (both verbal and physical) reported in Health and Personal Social Services Trusts was 5065.
  954W
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many violent attacks by patients, directed against paramedics, have occurred in Northern Ireland in the last 12 months. [115964]

  Mr. Browne
  The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service does not record attacks on its staff in the manner requested. However, the total number of attacks on Ambulance Service personnel during 2002 and 2003 to date is as follows:

  Total

  2002

  96

  2003 (to date)

  70

  Autism
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what progress has been made on boards and trusts producing costed proposals on autism services by September as indicated in the Priorities for Action document. [115926]

  Mr. Browne
  Health and Social Services Boards and Trusts have identified the diagnostic, assessment and support services that need to be enhanced. They are about to develop costed proposals. This will be done in consultation with Education and Library Boards.

  Brain Surgery
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action he will take to reduce the waiting lists for brain surgery in Northern Ireland; and if he will make a statement. [116382]

  Mr. Browne
  Pressures on the neurosurgery service have arisen mainly as a result of a need for more theatre time, and shortages in experienced nursing staff. This is not a problem unique to Northern Ireland—there are similar problems with this service throughout the NHS.

  The Royal Group of Hospitals, in liaison with the four Boards, has been working hard to improve the situation, both in the short-term, and with regard to the longer-term development of the service.
  A task force was established by the Trust to lead the effort in addressing the problems faced by the service;
  Extra theatre lists have been introduced;
  A twin-track approach to enhance the recruitment and retention of nurses has been implemented to restore nursing levels and enable more beds to be opened. This has involved:
  the appointment of a 'clinical educator' to enhance training opportunities and to support and increase the number of nurses in training; and
  the recruitment of additional nurses, allowing the phased opening of beds from June 2003, with all beds re-opening by January 2004.
  A clinical careers framework for nurses has also been launched to improve opportunities for personal development and career pathways;
  In addition, treatment has been provided for some suitable patients in units outside Northern Ireland.

  These measures should make a significant contribution to addressing the problems in this service. I have asked my Department, in liaison with the Boards and the Trust, to keep me apprised of progress.

  Child Support Agency
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make it his policy to ensure that regular maintenance payments are paid by non-resident parents to the Child Support Agency. [116097]

  Mr. Browne
  It is already the policy to ensure that all non-resident parents comply with their maintenance liabilities in full. Where parents are outside the jurisdiction of the Child Support Agency, they can pursue maintenance payments through the court system in the appropriate country.

  Civil Service (Newry and Mourne)
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many posts in the Northern Ireland Civil Service have been publicly advertised since 14 October 2002 for which Irish nationals have been ineligible. [110400]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Since 14 October 2002 the Northern Ireland Office has advertised seven competitions publicly and of these Irish nationals have been ineligible for two.

  Within the Northern Ireland Administration 13 posts were reserved for UK nationals.

  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he has received external independent legal advice since suspension on the legality of the exclusion of Irish citizens from reserved posts in the Northern Ireland Civil Service. [110401]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Since suspension the Northern Ireland Office has continued to treat publicly advertised vacancies as before. The business area where the vacancy arises makes the decision as to whether a post should be open to Irish citizens or not. This is based on information used by all Departments when deciding if a post is public or non public service. Therefore since suspension there has been no independent legal advice received on the legality of the exclusion of Irish citizens from reserved posts in the Northern Ireland Office.

  Within the Northern Ireland Administration independent legal advice on the application of nationality restrictions has been sought but not yet received.

  Human Rights/Equality Commissions
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much the costs were of the(a) Human Rights Commission and (b) Equality Commission over the last 12 months. [116979]

  Mr. Browne
  The costs of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in the financial year 2002–03 were £1,217,250.

  The costs of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland in the financial year 2002–03 were £7,512,000.

  Cycling
  Kate Hoey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what criteria have been used to decide that the Sports Council of Northern Ireland does not recognise the British Cycling Federation as the governing body for cycling within Northern Ireland. [116444]
  956W
  Angela Smith
  British Cycling does not operate in Northern Ireland whereas Cycling Ulster does, and it has a clear link with the world governing body—the Union Cyclist Internationale. On this basis, and given the four home country sports councils have an agreed policy of recognising only one governing body per sport; the Sports Council for Northern Ireland have decided to recognise Cycling Ulster.

  Dementia
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he will initiate a review into services for those who suffer from dementia in Northern Ireland. [116381]

  Mr. Browne
  A detailed examination of service provision for people with dementia was carried out by a multidisciplinary team led by the Department with representatives from Boards, Trusts, the University of Ulster and the Alzheimer's Society in 1994. Its aim was to examine policy on dementia in Northern Ireland and to provide Boards and Trusts with guidance, which would contribute to a more co-ordinated and better targeted approach to meeting the needs of people with dementia and their carers. The Department accepted the Report of the Dementia Policy Scrutiny published in 1995 and adopted its 33 recommendations as the basis for policy in this area.

  While progress has been made in implementing the recommendations of the Dementia Policy Scrutiny Report, more needs to be done. The Department is now looking at what further action can be taken to improve services, in the light of developments since this report. Boards, Trusts and significant groups such as the Alzheimer's Society will be fully involved in this process.

  Departmental Underspending
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans he has to reduce his Department's underspend in 2003–04 from that of 2002–03. [112776]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Northern Ireland Office takes all steps possible to minimise underspends, though sometimes operational circumstances make these unavoidable. We will not know the extent of any underspend for 2002–03 before the end of June 2003.

  Because of the commitments the Department faces in the current financial year, we are confident that any underspend will be less than in previous years.

  Within the 11 Departments of the Northern Ireland administration information on the extent of any underspend for 2002–03 will not be available until late June 2003. However, on the basis of underspends in previous years an action plan to address this issue was set out in a statement to the Assembly on 1 July 2002 by the (then) Minister of Finance and Personnel. This included setting spending plans at a level which exceeded the actual spending power available by building in underspend assumptions, and the revised spending plans for 2003–04 to 2005–06, announced on 11 December 2002, built on that approach. Full details are set out in section two of the Budget Document "Building on Progress: Budget 2003–2006", copies were placed in the Library on 11 December 2002.

  Digital Hearing Aids
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on progress since 1st January on making digital hearing aids more widely available in Northern Ireland. [115924]

  Mr. Browne
  Digital hearing aids (DHAs) are to be introduced, on a phased basis, from September this year. Trusts with audiology departments have started to recruit additional audiologists and to install specialist testing equipment needed to support the introduction of DHAs. The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has established a small working group that includes head audiologists, a consultant ENT surgeon and the Northern Ireland Director of RNID to develop guidance on candidacy for the new aids and to oversee introduction.

  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the criteria for the allocation of NHS digital hearing aids in Northern Ireland. [116367]

  Mr. Browne
  Digital hearing aids are to be introduced, on a phased basis, from September this year. The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has established a small working group that includes head audiologists, a consultant ENT surgeon and the Northern Ireland Director of RNID to develop guidance on candidacy for the new aids and oversee introduction of digital hearing aids. Draft guidance has been issued for consultation and it is expected that final guidance will issue before the summer.

  Education Funding
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much finance will be received by each further education college as part of the funding for the sector which was recently announced. [116923]

  Jane Kennedy
  Colleges will receive the following allocations in respect of their main recurrent block grant allocations for the 2003–04 academic year.

  College

  £

  Armagh College of Further and Higher Education

  4,167,783

  Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education

  25,482,613

  Castlereagh College of Further and Higher Education

  4,130,391

  Causeway Institute of Further and Higher Education

  4,914,222

  East Antrim Institute of Further and Higher Education

  6,824,152

  East Down Institute of Further and Higher Education

  4,509,722

  East Tyrone College of Further and Higher Education

  4,116,439

  Fermanagh College of Further and Higher Education

  5,273,300

  Limavady College of Further and Higher Education

  4,431,085

  Lisburn Institute of Further and Higher Education

  4,899,571

  Newry and Kilkeel Institute of Further and Higher Education

  8,410,605

  North Down and Ards Institute of Further and Higher Education

  9,485,688

  North East Institute of Further and Higher Education

  8,701,192

  North West Institute of Further and Higher Education

  13,843,976

  Omagh College of Further and Higher Education

  3,935,546

  Upper Bann Institute of Further and Higher Education

  6,873,715

  Total

  120,000,000

  The additional £14 million which will be made available to colleges for special initiatives has not yet been allocated on an individual college basis.

  Employment Opportunities
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland pursuant to his answer of 19 May 2003,Official Report, column 594W, on manufacturing, what percentage of the jobs created in Northern Ireland since the signing of the Belfast Agreement were (a) public sector, (b) private sector, (c) full-time, (d) part-time and (e) temporary contract. [117072]

  Mr. Pearson
  The most comprehensive information available for which it is possible to provide a breakdown by areas requested relates to the period spring 1998 (March-May 1998) to winter 2003 (December 2002-February 2003) and refers to employment levels not jobs. The net change in employment levels in Northern Ireland by employment status over that period as estimated by the Labour Force Survey (LFS) is provided in Table 1.

  Table 1: Change in employment status spring 1998 to winter 2002–03

  Spring 1998

  Winter 2002–03

  Change

  Percentage change

  Public sector employment

  210,000

  230,000

  21,000

  10

  Private sector employment

  471,000

  517,000

  45,000

  10

  Full-time employment

  541,000

  582,000

  40,000

  7

  Part-time employment

  139,000

  166,000

  28,000

  20

  Permanent employees1

  530,000

  596,000

  66,000

  13

  Temporary employees1

  36,000

  33,000

  -3,000

  -9

  All in employment2

  687,000

  751,000

  64,000

  9

  1 Note that permanent/temporary nature of job only applies to employees and not to other types of employment.

  2 Status not known or does not apply.

  Note:

  The Labour Force Survey is a sample survey and as such estimates are subject to sampling variability. For example, the estimate of net annual change in total employment has an associated sampling "error" of ±27,000 which indicates that 95 per cent. of the time the true population figure of net change in employment is expected to lie within the range 64,000 ±27,000. A similar principle underlies each of the estimates of net change in the table and this should be taken into account when interpreting the results.

  Source:

  Labour Force Survey (LFS)

  Employment Relations Act
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many staff in his Department have taken time off from work in order to attend to domestic incidents as provided for by the Employment Relations Act 1999. [108345]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The legislation in Northern Ireland corresponding to the Employment Relations Act 1999 is the Employment Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1999. Special Leave policy rests with individual Departments and Agencies who are free to decide on the amounts of special leave and the circumstances for which it is granted, including whether it is paid or unpaid.

  Within the Northern Ireland Office, 109 Northern Ireland Civil Service staff were granted absence for domestic incidents (which includes bereavement leave, childcare, domestic emergency, partner care, elderly/relative care, paternity leave) from 16 October 2002 to 11 April 2003. A total of 298.5 days was taken. Statistics on Home Civil Service staff could be collected only at disproportionate cost.
  959W
  Statistics on those members or staff working in NI Departments who have taken time off from work in order to attend domestic incidents since the introduction of the legislation on 15 December 1999 could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Central records have, however, been maintained since 16 October 2002. Between that date and 31 March 2003, 1,104 members of staff working in NI Departments have taken time off from work in order to attend to domestic incidents.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many staff in his Department have used their leave entitlement under the Parental Leave Directive since it came into force. [108419]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Within the Northern Ireland Office, since the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations (NI) 1999 came into operation on 15 December 1999, giving staff the right to Parental Leave, 24 members of staff have made use of this entitlement.

  Within the Northern Ireland Administration, 12 members of staff have made use of it.

  Energy Industry
  Lembit Öpik
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans he has to bring forward legislation to allow for a low-cost borrowing mechanism in the Northern Ireland energy industry. [116823]

  Mr. Pearson
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave on the 4 March 2003. (97894)

  I am currently awaiting a report and recommendations from a working group, involving my officials and economists from the Northern Ireland Authority for Energy Regulation, which I set up to examine practical options for reducing energy costs in Northern Ireland. I will also wish to hear the views of the Authority, particularly in the light of their latest consultation paper, "Competition and Customer Empowerment—The Next Steps in the Northern Ireland Electricity Market".

  I have made clear my commitment to reducing energy costs for consumers and business in Northern Ireland in the context of the Department's consultation paper "Towards a New Energy Strategy for Northern Ireland" published on 17 April 2003.

  PQ 1000/03

  Northern Ireland Departments—Energy Consumption (kWh)—1997–2000

  Department

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  3-year total

  DANI

  10,983,386

  11,526,184

  12,231,997

  34,741,567

  DENI

  643,353,807

  612,434,387

  582,684,752

  1,838,472,946

  DED

  6,353,084

  6,709,184

  6,924,027

  19,986,295

  DFP

  1—

  1—

  2,289,207

  2,289,207

  DHSS

  759,388,330

  784,182,266

  756,347,671

  2,299,918,267

  Energy Efficiency
  Mr. Roger Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what targets his Department has for improving energy efficiency; and how he intends to achieve these targets. [116649]

  Mr. Pearson
  The Climate Change Programme, published by the then Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions in November 2000, was laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly. The energy efficiency targets it contains were included in the Northern Ireland Executive's Programme for Government and also adopted by the Northern Ireland Office for the areas within its control. These targets are being pursued by:(a) programmes of training in energy awareness for key staff; (b) regular investment in projects to improve the energy efficiency of, and reduce emissions from, buildings occupied by Departments; and (c) regular monitoring of buildings' energy performance.

  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement, in relation to his Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which his Department is responsible, on(a) the amount of energy consumed, (b) spending on (i) energy and (ii) energy efficiency measures, (c) the amount saved through energy efficiency measures and (d) energy policy in each of the last five years. [108863]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Administration do not hold the information in the format requested.

  With the establishment of the Northern Ireland Executive, all the Northern Ireland Departments, their agencies and many other public bodies were reorganised. Furthermore, the basis on which information is collected was changed from April 2000. The combined effect of these changes means that it is difficult to make meaningful comparisons across the period as a whole.

  The information available is given in the following tables.

  Investment in energy efficiency includes support from the Central Energy Efficiency Fund, a measure unique to Northern Ireland. Between 1997–98 and 2001–02, in addition to departmental investment, the Fund has invested £12.7 million, producing an estimated cumulative saving for that period of £16.4 million.

  Departments and other public bodies in Northern Ireland have been actively seeking to improve their energy efficiency for many years, and are aware of the targets for improvement contained in the Climate Change Programme.
  961W

  PQ 1000/03

  Northern Ireland Departments—Energy Consumption (kWh)—1997–2000

  Department

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  3-year total

  DOE

  218,792,842

  234,805,178

  343,617,604

  797,215,624

  NIO

  2—

  2—

  2—

  2—

  Prison Service

  73,869,698

  82,317,445

  74,246,430

  230,433,573

  Probation Board

  1,073,261

  899,348

  1,540,705

  3,513,314

  RUC Estate Services

  96,563,720

  95,532,284

  99,029,833

  291,125,837

  Total

  1,810,378,128

  1,828,406,276

  1,878,912,226

  5,517,696,630

  Northern Ireland Departments—Energy Consumption (kWh)—2000–2002

  Department

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2-year total

  DARD

  10,168,997

  11,569,966

  21,738,963

  Agricultural Research Institute of NI

  1,301,334

  1,329,036

  2,630,370

  DCAL3

  Libraries

  5,964,224

  4,577,739

  10,541,963

  Museums

  8,779,037

  8,345,822

  17,124,859

  DE1

  Education and Library Bds

  446,963,427

  385,658,801

  832,622,228

  DETI

  3,207,072

  2,995,316

  6,202,388

  DFP

  10,053,611

  9,326,485

  19,380,096

  DHFETE/DEL1

  Universities

  148,775,528

  147,115,033

  295,890,561

  Further Education Colleges

  47,737,238

  47,142,103

  94,879,341

  DHSS and PS

  728,632,911

  695,895,376

  1,424,528,287

  Core Buildings

  7,586,115

  7,156,556

  14,742,671

  Fire Authority for NI

  13,805,387

  13,909,716

  27,715,103

  DOE

  9,141,076

  7,590,212

  16,731,288

  DRD

  16,542,982

  17,085,341

  33,628,323

  Roads Service

  99,245,787

  102,136,164

  201,381,951

  Water Service

  221,433,423

  236,514,571

  457,947,994

  DSD

  23,526,414

  23,429,749

  46,956,163

  NI Housing Executive

  11,292,658

  10,547,529

  21,840,187

  Total—NI Departments

  1,814,157,221

  1,732,325,515

  3,546,482,736

  NIO

  4,001,502

  4,285,481

  8,286,983

  Prison Service

  54,098,541

  46,861,152

  100,959,693

  Probation Board

  1,034,087

  1,611,872

  2,645,959

  Royal Ulster Constabulary/Police Service for NI Estate Services

  101,046,077

  100,412,788

  201,458,865

  Total—NIO

  160,180,207

  153,171,293

  313,351,500

  Overall total

  1,974,337,428

  1,885,496,808

  3,859,834,236

  1 DFP did not have any buildings of its own and occupied buildings managed by DOE as part of the Office Estate.

  2 With the exception of Hillsborough Castle, all energy consumed in NIO buildings is managed through the Construction Service, formerly part of DoE but now with DFP. Until 2000, electricity was supplied to the Stormont Estate by NIE. The cost was then apportioned to the user departments according to their space occupancy but no kWh figures were ever produced. The information for Hillsborough Castle and the amount of oil burned at Stormont House is available but the inclusion of these figures in the table would be misleading.

  * Figures for DCAL, DE and DHFETE/DEL are not currently available.

  Evacuated Dwellings (Special Purchase)
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the total costs of the special purchase of evacuated dwellings scheme were in each of the financial years since 1996. [115996]

  Mr. Browne
  The total costs of the Special Purchase of Evacuated Dwellings scheme were as follows:

  Cost (£ million)

  1996–97

  6.062

  1997–98

  5.873

  1998–99

  9.840

  1999–2000

  5.945

  2000–01

  6.550

  2001–02

  11.310

  2002–03

  32.925

  Fisheries
  David Burnside
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action is being taken by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to stop the importation of fish from any area with lower fish health status than Northern Ireland. [115269]

  Mr. Pearson
  The movement of live fish, eggs and gametes within the European Union is governed by Council Directive EC 91/67 (as amended). This Directive provides for the establishment of Approved Zones for the List II Diseases Viral Haemorrhagic Septicaemia (VHS) and Infectious Haematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) and prohibits the import of fish into Approved Zones from non Approved Zones i.e. areas of a lower health status. Northern Ireland has Approved Zone status for both VHS and IHN and therefore can only import fish from other VHS and IHN Approved Zones. Due to the additional guarantees obtained
  963W
  by Northern Ireland in relation to the disease Gyrodactylosis Salaris (GS), imports of live salmonids into Northern Ireland must also be certified as coming from an area regarded as free from GS. Great Britain also has Approved Zone status for VHS and IHN and is regarded as an area free from GS and therefore fish can move freely between GB and Northern Ireland.

  However the Directive does not provide the Department with the legislative authority to prevent imports of fish into Northern Ireland from areas in which the List III Disease Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis (IPN) is present providing, they are certified as coming from an Approved Zone for the List II Diseases VHS and IHN and from an area regarded as free from GS. It is therefore the Department's policy to advise fish farmers of the risks of importing fish from these areas and to carry out rigorous testing of any such imports to determine whether the IPN virus is present. Should the presence of the IPN virus be detected it is the Department's policy to use its powers under the Diseases of Fish Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 to take the necessary measures to prevent, control and eradicate the virus.

  David Burnside
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the origin of the fish confirmed as having infectious pancreatic necrosis in the latest outbreak in Northern Ireland is. [115270]

  Mr. Pearson
  The latest incident of the infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN) virus occurred in a marine fish farm off the coast of County Antrim. The infected fish have been bred from broodstock selected from salmon stocks on the farm and reared in the farm's hatchery. However tests carried out on samples of fish taken from the hatchery have indicated that the virus is not present in the hatchery and this evidence suggests that the fish have become infected following transfer to the marine environment. The IPN virus is endemic in the marine environment around the coast of Scotland and scientific evidence therefore suggests that any vector such as wild fish, species cohabiting with farmed fish, plankton, crustaceans, birds or mammals could be the source of infection.

  David Burnside
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is taking to prevent further outbreaks of infectious pancreatic necrosis within the wild trout and salmon populations in Northern Ireland. [115271]

  Mr. Pearson
  Scientific evidence suggests that removal of the source of infection in farm fish means that the infection does not persist in wild populations. The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has used its powers under the Diseases of Fish Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 to make Infected Waters Orders declaring the fish farms infected with the infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN) virus to be infected areas and providing the Department with the power to take such measures to prevent, control and eradicate the virus.

  In respect of the fish farm located in inland waters the Department has used its powers to direct the occupier to depopulate, clean down and disinfect the farm. The Department also directed that the farm remain fallow
  964W
  for a period of six weeks prior to restocking following which further sampling will be undertaken as a precautionary measure.

  In respect of the fish farm located in the marine environment the Department has used its powers to prohibit all movements of fish to and from the farm except under the authority of a licence issued by the Department. The Department has also introduced a number of precautionary measures at the infected area for the purpose of controlling the spread of the virus and is undertaking regular inspections of the area to ensure that these measures are being implemented.

  Although the Department has no powers to prevent imports of live fish from areas in which IPN virus is present providing the import is in accordance with EC Directive 91/67 (as amended) concerning the animal health conditions governing the placing on the market of aquaculture animals and products, the Department advises fish farmers of the risks of importing live fish from such areas and carries out rigorous testing on any such imports to determine whether the IPN virus is present. Should the presence of the IPN virus be detected it is the Department's policy to use its powers under the Diseases of Fish Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 to take the necessary measures to prevent, control and eradicate the virus.

  Football
  Kate Hoey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much funding in(a) 2000–01, (b) 2001–02 and (c) 2002–03 from the (i) Exchequer and (ii) Lottery was given to football teams who are not playing in a UK league. [117121]

  Angela Smith
  Derry City Football Club is the only football team based in Northern Ireland which has been allocated funding by the Sports Council for Northern Ireland. The club have been awarded funding as follows:

  Exchequer Funding

  Safe Sports Grounds Programme

  £

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Major Works

  9,724

  —

  —

  Urgent Works

  25,000

  —

  —

  Safety Management

  1,540

  6,270

  4,560

  Football Development Centre Programme

  In addition Derry FC received £52,164 towards the establishment of a Football Development Centre.

  Lottery Funding

  Derry City has not been allocated any Lottery Funding.

  General Practitioners
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many doctors are acting as locum general practitioners in Northern Ireland. [116988]

  Mr. Browne
  There is no comprehensive list of locum General Medical Practitioners held centrally. However, a voluntary register is maintained by Central Services Agency for the purposes of circulating relevant
  965W
  information about their profession. As at May 2003, there were 162 locum General Medical Practitioners recorded on this register.

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the(a) smallest and (b) greatest number of patients a general practitioner in Northern Ireland has on their caseload. [116992]

  Mr. Browne
  As at May 2003, the smallest number of patients a general practitioner in Northern Ireland has on their caseload is 0 and the greatest number is 4,448. The general practitioners who have a caseload of 0 are either new general practitioners who have no patients registered yet or those who have retired but have come back to work in a practice and are working off another general practitioners list.

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many GP registrar posts there will be in Northern Ireland in(a) 2003–04, (b) 2004–05 and (c) 2005–06 for senior house officers wishing to pursue a career in general practice who have trained in various specialities at different hospitals across the Province, rather than in geographically based schemes. [116984]

  Mr. Browne
  The number of GP Registrar posts available to doctors, whose training in various approved Senior House Officer posts was not part of the three-year training scheme, is as follows:

  Number of Posts

  2003–04

  16

  2004–05

  5

  2005–06

  10

  1 In reality there may be a small number of posts available due to doctors dropping out of the three-year scheme or taking up research posts.

  Hockey
  Kate Hoey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assistance his Department gives to young people living in Northern Ireland who wish to play in a British hockey team rather than an Irish hockey team. [117129]

  Angela Smith
  A hockey player who has declared to play for Great Britain, and is talented enough, may benefit from any support provided for squad preparation through UK Sport and could apply to the Sports Lottery Fund in Northern Ireland for support under the Talented Athlete Programme.

  Honours
  Mr. Pope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many officials in his Department have received honours; and how many honours are held by his officials, broken down by category of honour. [111486]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  During the period from New Year 1998 to New Year 2003, a total of 97 State Servants in the Northern Ireland Administration and the Northern Ireland Office received honours, as follows:966W

  Number

  Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB)

  3

  Commander of the Order of the Bath (CB)

  9

  Commander of the order of the British Empire (CBE)

  12

  Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)

  24

  Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)

  49

  Data are not routinely kept on those officials awarded honours before joining either the Northern Ireland Administration or the Northern Ireland Office or those officials who are awarded honours in recognition of activities outside their departmental duties.

  Hospital Beds
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many beds are provided for inpatient care in hospitals in Northern Ireland. [118015]

  Mr. Browne
  The average number of available beds provided for inpatient care in hospitals in Northern Ireland during 2001–02 was 8419.1.

  This figure is taken from Hospital Statistics 2001–02 and includes all Programmes of Care. The average number of available beds is defined as those beds in wards which are open overnight, measured at midnight. Hospitals may also have a number of beds in wards which are only open during the day. Beds reserved for day care admission or regular day admission are not included.

  Hospital Births
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many women from Great Britain gave birth at hospitals in Northern Ireland in the last 12 months; and what the length of time was before delivery commenced that each patient presented at hospital. [116972]

  Mr. Browne
  During 2002–03, a total of 72 women from Great Britain gave birth at hospitals in Northern Ireland.

  Information on the length of time between each patient presented at hospital and delivery commenced is not available.

  Information Technology
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what his Department's(a) total managed expenditure, (b) total spending on Information Technology and (c) spending on Information Technology as a proportion of its total managed expenditure was in each financial year since 1997–98. [107178]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Within the Northern Ireland Office including its agencies and NDPBs, resource figures are only available from 1998–99.

  The percentages provided in the table are approximate only. The table shows details of the Information Technology spend by Northern Ireland Office.

  967W

  TME (£)

  Total Information Technology spend (£)

  Proportion of total (%)

  1998–99

  940,534,000

  4,406,471

  0.50

  1999–2000

  1,057,141,000

  7,990,677

  0.75

  2000–01

  882,789,000

  8,165,504

  1

  2001–02

  1,035,308,000

  7,175,757

  0.75

  2003–03

  1,285,321,000

  9,516,007

  0.75

  1 Estimated outturn

  2 Full-year estimate

  3 The Figures for 2003–03 are based on estimates only. Provisional outturn figures are not yet available.

  The introduction of Resource Accounting and Budgeting within the Northern Ireland Administration means it is not possible to make meaningful comparisons between outturn information across the years requested. However, the following table shows Total Managed Expenditure (TME) for NI Departments, total spending by the core Departments on Information Technology (IT) and spending on Information Technology as a proportion of total departmental TME for 2000–01 and 2001–02.

  TME for NI Departments (£ million)

  Core Departmental Spend on IT1 (£ million)

  IT as a proportion of Total TME (%)

  2000–01

  10,692.8

  27.4

  0.26

  2001–02

  10,845.3

  30.9

  0.28

  1 This does not include spending on IT by Executive Agencies

  This information relates to the 11 Departments of the Northern Ireland Administration.

  Irish Language
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what costs have been incurred by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety as a result of its Irish language policy; and if he plans to discontinue this practice. [115962]

  Mr. Browne
  In the financial year 2002/03, the cost associated with Irish translations for the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety amounted to £107,500. There are no plans to change the current arrangements and the existing practice with regard to the use of Irish will remain as it is for the time being.

  Lagan Valley Hospital
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when the location of a second specialist elective surgical centre in addition to Lagan Valley Hospital will be confirmed. [116976]

  Mr. Browne
  In my announcement of 24 February 2003 on Developing Better Services, in addition to a protected elective centre at Lagan Valley Hospital, I said that the new acute hospital to the north of Enniskillen will be designed to include a protected elective centre. I also announced that the current proposals for a protected elective facility at South Tyrone should also be taken forward.

  Maternity Services
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when the location of a new regional maternity unit in Belfast will be made public. [116977]

  Mr. Browne
  I hope to be in a position to announce my decision on the location of the new regional maternity unit in the coming weeks.

  Mental Health
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many of his staff retired on medical grounds due to mental health problems in the last year. [111958]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  In the Northern Ireland Office (including the Northern Ireland Prison Service) three officers retired on medical grounds due to mental health problems in 2002–03 financial year.

  During the financial year 2002–03, 184 staff within the 11 departments of the Northern Ireland administration were retired on medical grounds. The details of the medical condition giving rise to these ill-health retirements are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. McKenna
  Mr. Gregory Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland pursuant to his Answer of 19 May 2003,Official Report, column 594W, whether the policy described was followed in the case of Mr.McKenna and when the internal policy on harassment and bullying commenced operation with the Department of Education. [117807]

  Jane Kennedy
  The Department of Education has had a policy on harassment in place since December 1995. I can confirm that in investigating the complaint against the named individual the internal policy was fully adhered to and that the individual was afforded the opportunity to obtain in full a copy of the written complaint.

  Multiple Sclerosis
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the most recent date that a multiple sclerosis sufferer from Northern Ireland has commenced(a) beta interferon and (b) glatiramer treatment. [116986]

  Mr. Browne
  The last patient to commence treatment on the interferon/glatiramer acetate treatment programme started on 14 April 2003.

  Muckamore Abbey and Stradreagh Hospitals
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans there are to modernise Muckamore Abbey and Stradreagh Hospitals. [115967]

  Mr. Browne
  A Business Case has been approved for the redevelopment of Muckamore Abbey Hospital as a purpose built 115 bedded regional core hospital. Funding of £5 million has been secured through the Reinvestment and Reform Initiative (RRI) to take forward the first phase of the project which will provide
  969W
  for the development of a 35 bedded regional admissions and assessment service and a 23 bedded regional forensic assessment and treatment service. Construction of Phase 1 is due to commence in September 2003 with a completion date of May 2005.

  A Business Case has also been approved for the replacement of the current Stradreagh Hospital with a 43-bed in patient treatment assessment unit, a 20-place challenging behaviour unit and a 5-place rehabilitation unit. RRI funding of £4 million has been secured for the project. Initial work has commenced making good progress and is on track for completion in November 2004.

  Neurosurgery
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when the last date was that a scheduled neurosurgery operating list was performed at the Royal Victoria Hospital that did not comprise emergency cases. [116982]

  Mr. Browne
  Up to and including 2 June 2003, the most recent scheduled neurosurgery operating list performed at the Royal Victoria Hospital which did not comprise emergency cases, took place on 30 May 2003.

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what criteria are used in classifying particular neurosurgery patients as emergency cases. [115956]

  Mr. Browne
  Neurosurgeons at the Royal Victoria Hospital use clinical judgement in determining whether a patient is classified as an emergency case. An assessment is made as to whether the patient's condition is immediately life threatening, or is such as to demand prompt action in order to preserve neurological function.

  Omagh Bombing
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what representations he has made to the Government of the Irish Republic regarding the investigation into the Omagh bombing in August 1998. [115985]

  Jane Kennedy
  There has been frequent contact at ministerial level between the two Governments on a wide range of issues including the Omagh bomb investigation. The Government wants to see those responsible for the Omagh bomb brought to justice and PSNI continue to fully investigate this atrocity.

  Police Service
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for what reasons PSNI personnel policing the Loyalist parade in Lurgan on 3 May 2003 were not wearing identification numbers; and what measures he has taken to ensure that PSNI personnel wearing protective gear over their uniform may still be identified by a clearly displayed identification number. [113346]

  Jane Kennedy
  Police officers are required to wear protective overalls (which display their identification number) to meet health and safety regulations. Overalls 970W
  should be worn over their personal protective equipment. Personal protective equipment has recently been improved but as it is bulkier, some officers found it necessary to wear this over, rather than under, the protective overalls and as a result the identification numbers were obscured. However, PSNI is taking steps to resolve this matter to ensure that protective overalls are worn 'over' personal protective equipment.

  The PSNI is an open and transparent service and there is no attempt to hide the identity of officers. Identification numbers do appear on their helmets. Vehicles also display identifying unit numbers on the front, side and rear.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the budget is for PSNI training; and how much and what percentage is spent on(a) new recruit training, (b) refresher training for staff and (c) management training in 2003–04. [114144]

  Jane Kennedy
  The PSNI training budget for 2003–04 is £2.53 million. The estimated spend for(a) new recruit training is £253,600 (10 per cent.), (b) refresher training is £199,000 (7.9 per cent.) and (c) management training is £872,000 (34.5 per cent.)

  The above mentioned training budget is for the provision of external courses, guest speakers and training aids only.

  Part-time Workers
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assessment he has made of the impact of the Part-time Workers Directive on staff in his Department. [109274]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Within the Northern Ireland Office, no formal assessment has been made of the impact of the Part-time Workers Directive on staff. But managers are committed to the concept of good work-life balance.

  A total of 186 staff currently job share or work part-time.

  Part-time working is only one of several ways in which the Northern Ireland Office offer staff flexibility in their working patterns.

  Prior to the introduction of the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) regulations (Northern Ireland) 2001, which were effective from the 21 October 2001, the 11 Departments within the Northern Ireland Administration had already introduced measures to ensure that part-time staff were treated no less favourably than their full time counterparts.

  On foot of the Directive, these measures were examined to ensure that they were fully compliant. Since the Directive, in itself, had no impact on the policies in place, an assessment would not be meaningful.

  The departments within the Northern Ireland Administration continually strive to be a "Good Employer" and are committed to the concept of good work-life balance for its staff in serving Ministers and the public to the highest standards.
  971W
  Part-time working and job sharing are only two of the options which NI Departments offer staff to provide flexibility in their working patterns.

  At the 1 January 2003, NI Departments had 1,124 staff who were either employed on a part-time or job sharing basis making up 11 per cent. of the overall staff workforce.

  Police Service of Northern Ireland
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the budget is for PSNI training; and how much and what percentage is spent on(a) new recruit training, (b) refresher training for staff and (c) management training in 2003–04. [114144]

  Jane Kennedy
  The PSNI training budget for 2003–04 is £2.53 million. The estimated spend for(a) new recruit training is £253,600 (10 per cent.), (b) refresher training is £199,000 (7.9 per cent.) and (c) management training is £872,000 (34.5 per cent.)

  The above mentioned training budget is for the provision of external courses, guest speakers and training aids only.

  Private Care Homes
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what safeguards there are to ensure the highest standards of care are practised in private care homes for the elderly. [115954]

  Mr. Browne
  Under the terms of the Registered Homes (Northern Ireland) Order 1992, homes in the private and voluntary sectors which seek to provide care for older people must register with the Registration and Inspection Unit of their local Health and Social Services Board. To be successful in registration, the person in charge of the home and manager, if different, must be fit persons, the premises used, staffing or equipment must be suited to the purpose and the home must be run in such a way that it provides the services or facilities that are reasonably required. Further, in the case of a nursing home, the person in charge must either be a medical practitioner or a qualified nurse and the staff skills-mix and deployment must ensure that appropriate staff are available on duty. Conditions may be applied to registration so as to safeguard the quality of the service to be provided and a home may only provide the service for which it is registered. A home must make application to the Registration and Inspection Unit if it wishes to vary the service that it provides. In addition, homes must maintain specified records and these along with the care they provide is subject to inspection by the Board's Registration and Inspection Unit. Under the Registered Homes Regulations (N.I.) 1993, there is a minimum requirement for homes to be inspected at least twice yearly and generally one of these inspections is unannounced. During the inspections the premises and care are measured against standards set by the Registration and Inspection Unit relating to the quality of care, management and the environment of the home together with the life experiences of the residents. Standards are drawn from the Department's Social Services Inspectorate guidance contained in documents such as "Standards for Residential Homes for Elderly People", "Inspecting for Quality" and "Homes are for 972W
  Living In". There is a requirement under the Registered Homes Regulations for homes to make adequate arrangements to ensure that appropriate activity programmes are in place to meet the needs of residents.

  Any shortfalls which are identified during inspections are brought to the attention of home managers at the time of the inspection and also through official inspection reports together with recommendations on how the shortfalls might be addressed. Where necessary, additional visits are arranged to make sure that recommendations are addressed or that any complaint received has been addressed.

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what means are used to standardise services at private care homes for the elderly. [115955]

  Mr. Browne
  The Registration and Inspection Units of each Health and Social Services Board are responsible for evaluating and monitoring the quality of care provided and the quality of life experienced in statutory, private and voluntary sector residential settings. The Units are responsible for ensuring that a consistent approach is taken to the inspection of statutory, private and voluntary sector provision and they are required to carry out a minimum of two inspections each year, one announced and one generally unannounced, of each residential care home and nursing home in the Board area. The inspection reports, the comparative analysis of trends in care home provision and Annual Reports by the Registration and Inspection Units all contribute to establishing and monitoring of standards of care in residential settings.

  The Health and Personal Social Services (Quality, Improvement and Regulation) (Northern Ireland) Order 2003 will create a new independent HPSS Regulation and Improvement Authority which will operate on a regional basis and, among other things, take over the functions of the current Registration and Inspection Units. The Order also allows for the introduction of minimum care standards and the development of clinical and social care governance, the latter underpinned by a statutory duty of quality. The Order, combined with a strengthening of the regulation of the workforce should offer powerful safeguards for the quality and consistency of services to be provided.

  Public Administration Review
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the timescale is for completion of the consultation process for the Review of Public Administration in Northern Ireland; when the results will be published; and if he will make a statement. [116836]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I announced in my statement of 26 March 2003 that the Review of Public Administration would not be going out to consultation during the lead-up to elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. In the light both of the subsequent postponement of these elections and the continuing interest in and support for the Review, I am currently considering options for its future conduct and will make an announcement in the near future.

  School Capital Expenditure Projects
  Mr. Gregory Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much public funding has been allocated for capital expenditure projects to each school in voluntary grammar and grant maintained sectors within the past five years. [115698]

  Jane Kennedy
  The amount of public funding allocated to each school in the voluntary grammar and grant maintained integrated sectors for capital expenditure projects over the last five years is as follows:

  £ million

  Schools

  Public funding allocated

  1. Major capital projects1

  1999–2000

  Voluntary grammar schools

  Thornhill College, Londonderry

  (Phase 1)

  10.6

  Royal School Dungannon

  8.0

  St Patrick's G.S. Armagh

  2.0

  Grant maintained integrated

  Loughview Integrated P.S.

  0.3

  2000–1

  Voluntary grammar schools

  Drumragh Integrated College

  0.15

  Newbridge Integrated College

  0.62

  Integrated College Dungannon

  0.55

  North Coast Integrated College

  0.61

  Slemish Integrated College

  0.62

  Malone Integrated College

  5.7

  2002–03

  Voluntary grammar school

  Our Lady and St. Patrick's College, Knock

  11.0

  St Patrick's G.S. Downpatrick

  8.5

  Thornhill College, Londonderry (Phase 2)

  4.2

  Grant maintained integrated

  Drumragh College Omagh

  10.2

  Lagan College Belfast

  11.0

  2003–04

  Voluntary Grammar Schools Integrated

  Drumragh Integrated College

  0.14

  Newbridge Integrated College.

  0.06

  Integrated College Dungannon

  0.09

  North Coast Integrated College

  0.18

  Slemish Integrated College

  0.57

  Malone Integrated College

  0.62

  Shimna Integrated College

  0.03

  Oakwood Integrated P.S.

  1.7

  Spires Integrated P.S

  1.9

  2. Specialist accommodation programme2,3 and capital development costs of grant maintained integrated schools3

  1999–2000

  Voluntary grammar schools

  Convent G.S. Strabane

  0.5

  Loreto College Coleraine

  0.78

  St. Colman's College Newry

  0.44

  St. Macnissis's College

  0.1

  Grant maintained integrated

  Drumragh Integrated College

  0.5

  Newbridge Integrated College

  0.3

  974W

  £ million

  Schools

  Public funding allocated

  Integrated College Dungannon

  0.85

  North Coast Integrated College

  4.6

  Slemish Integrated College

  5.44

  2000–01

  Voluntary grammar schools

  Hunterhouse College

  0.25

  Larne G.S.

  0.95

  Our Lady and St. Patrick's College, Knock

  0.12

  Portora Royal School

  0.77

  Sullivan Upper School

  0.37

  Royal School Armagh

  0.65

  St. Louis G.S Ballymena

  0.12

  St. Malachy's College Belfast

  0.18

  Wallace H.S.

  0.39

  Grant maintained integrated

  Dominican College, Belfast

  13.1

  Convent G.S. Enniskillen

  6.3

  Grant maintained integrated

  Cranmore Integrated P.S

  1.4

  2001–02

  Voluntary grammar schools

  Rathmore G.S. Belfast

  17.0

  Grant maintained integrated

  Oakgrove Integrated College

  12.5

  2001–02

  Voluntary grammar schools

  Ballymena Academy

  0.97

  Bangor G.S.

  1.0

  Belfast High School

  0.33

  Belfast Royal Academy

  0.56

  Coleraine Academical Institute

  0.38

  Friends School Lisburn

  0.74

  Larne G.S.

  0.16

  St. Louis G.S. Ballymena

  0.43

  St. Michael's G.S. Lurgan

  0.2

  Wallace High School

  0.32

  Grant maintained integrated

  Newbridge Integrated College

  0.03

  Drumragh Integrated College

  0.04

  Integrated College Dungannon

  0.07

  North Coast Integrated College

  0.7

  Slemish Integrated College

  0.34

  Malone Integrated College

  0.65

  2002–03

  Voluntary grammar school

  Hunterhouse College Belfast

  0.65

  Dalriada School Ballymoney

  0.88

  St. Michael's G.S. Enniskillen

  0.65

  Friends School Lisburn

  0.4

  Sullivan Upper School

  0.3

  Grant maintained

  Assumption G.S., Ballynahinch

  15.9

  Dominican College, Portstewart

  0.8

  Mount Lourdes G.S., Enniskillen

  9.7

  St. Colman's College Newry

  1.2

  St. Dominic's H.S. Belfast

  16.7

  Abbey G.S. Newry

  12.2

  St. Joseph's Convent G.S., Donaghmore

  11.6

  St Patrick's Academy Dungannon

  17.5

  Strathearn G.S. Belfast

  10.0

  975W

  £ million

  Schools

  Public funding allocated

  Grant maintained integrated

  Loughview Integrated P.S (Phase 2)

  2.1

  Omagh Integrated P.S.

  2.5

  Windmill Integrated P.S.

  2.6

  2003–04

  Voluntary grammar schools

  Coleraine Academical Institute

  0.1

  Belfast Royal Academy

  0.55

  Ballymena Academy

  0.52

  Belfast High School

  0.42

  Wallace High School

  0.3

  Grant maintained integrated

  Erne Integrated P.S.

  0.2

  Cedar Integrated P.S.

  0.3

  Drumragh Integrated College

  0.1

  Newbridge Integrated College

  0.8

  Integrated College Dungannon

  0.2

  North Coast Integrated College

  0.04

  Slemish Integrated College

  0.2

  Malone Integrated College

  0.1

  Strangford Integrated College

  7.0

  Spires Integrated P.S.

  0.1

  Ulida Integrated College

  8.0

  Millennium Integrated P.S.

  2.2

  Sperrin Integrated College

  6.0

  1 Funding announced in March preceding the financial year and for 2002–03 also in July of that year.

  2 Funding to improve facilities in schools for science, technology and design and ICT.

  3 Funding allocated to the project may be spent over more than one financial year depending on the length of the contract.

  Financial assistance paid by NITB and DARD to all tourism projects by constituency

  Constituency

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  2002

  Total

  Belfast East

  0

  1,000

  38,300

  2,200

  2,000

  10,500

  54,000

  Belfast North

  0

  1,552

  213,256

  232,515

  15,529

  5,000

  467,852

  Belfast South

  2,791,802

  968,417

  555,579

  1,338,651

  1,941,769

  16,686

  7,612,904

  Belfast West

  39,020

  25,348

  98,898

  20,000

  774,500

  53,000

  1,010,766

  East Antrim

  562,951

  74,001

  50,612

  76,163

  1,014,280

  132,330

  1,910,337

  East Londonderry

  366,130

  221,741

  110,575

  823,144

  473,009

  394,880

  2,389,479

  Fermanagh and South Tyrone

  1,205,388

  1,261,432

  755,454

  843,694

  1,805,126

  238,360

  6,109,454

  Foyle

  976,033

  71,387

  460,733

  678,524

  623,670

  2,606,564

  5,416,911

  Lagan Valley

  4,614

  1,036

  5,600

  73,716

  23,837

  27,788

  136,591

  Mid Ulster

  133,213

  106,406

  117,715

  94,927

  592,571

  128,007

  1,172,839

  Newry and Armagh

  613,755

  2,087,003

  459,998

  733,362

  1,565,799

  1,765,741

  7,225,658

  North Antrim

  981,459

  260,468

  543,459

  1,357,211

  1,223,975

  119,013

  4,485,585

  North Down

  52,907

  31,688

  68,559

  55,876

  17,231

  10,700

  236,961

  South Antrim

  1,400,455

  1,927,237

  1,290,105

  90,074

  127,412

  98,842

  4,934,125

  South Down

  1,852,888

  793,905

  1,465,495

  2,539,531

  2,546,277

  475,087

  9,673,183

  Strangford

  586,324

  778,009

  393,075

  94,859

  248,675

  5,000

  2,105,942

  Upper Bann

  39,204

  82,912

  111,622

  82,587

  69,547

  13,806

  399,678

  West Tyrone

  223,324

  434,010

  192,363

  443,333

  434,989

  199,917

  1,927,936

  11,829,467

  9,127,552

  6,931,398

  9,580,367

  13,500,196

  6,301,221

  57,270,201

  Notes:

  1. Spend in the Belfast constituencies by DARD reflect payments to organisations based in Belfast. Actual expenditure by those Organisations would have related to tourism across Northern Ireland.

  2. Some events support paid by NITB between 1997–99 not included because data was not held on a constituency basis.

  3. A further amount of £204,109 was spent by NITB on projects which were not constituency specific.

  Stevens Inquiry
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what instructions were issued to RUC Special Branch concerning co-operation with and disclosure to the inquiry conducted by Sir John Stevens. [110863]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I understand that the then Chief Constable wrote to Sir John Stevens on 13 May 1999 confirming, inter alia, that he would have unlimited access to all intelligence and information available to the RUC and all files held by them.

  The Chief Constable copied the above-mentioned letter to the Assistant Chief Constable with responsibility for Special Branch. As a result, a senior officer was appointed within that Department to liaise with the Stevens Team.

  Tourism
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much has been spent on tourism in each Northern Ireland constituency in each year since 1997. [112909]

  Mr. Pearson
  Based on records held, the amount of selected financial assistance spent by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) to develop accommodation, amenity and visitor attractions and events support in each constituency during the period 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2002 is detailed in the following table.

  In addition, £5,819,194 was spent by NITB on marketing projects during the period from 1 April 1997 to 31 March 2003. Also during the period 1997–2002, £2,695,164 was spent by DARD on the maintenance of facilities such as access to forests and camping/caravanning sites. Information on these projects is not available on a constituency basis.

  Victoria Square (Redevelopment)
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what share of profits in the Victoria Square redevelopment will be paid to the Department of Social Development. [115500]

  Mr. Browne
  It would be premature for me to comment on the specific arrangements that the Department for Social Development might enter into with the developer associated with the site, Multi Development Corporation, in respect of its proposal for Victoria Square since the Department has yet to come to a decision on whether or not to proceed with the vesting of lands within the site. However, if vesting proceeds the Department will carefully consider the financial aspects of any development agreement including appropriate overage (ie super profits) provision to safeguard the public interest.

  Websites
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the(a) cost of and (b) number of visitors to each website operated by his Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which his Department is responsible in each year since its establishment. [107636]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The main Northern Ireland Office website was launched in 1997 and developed in house. It was redesigned in June 2001. Monthly assessment reports for the Northern Ireland Office site are forwarded to the Office of the e-Envoy and are placed in the Library.

  The Northern Ireland Office also has responsibility for management of two internal websites: the Criminal Justice System for Northern Ireland site, which was launched in July 2002; and the Organised Crime Task Force site, which was launched in September 2002.

  The total cost of all three sites to date is as follows:

  £

  NIO website

  Redesign cost

  23,402.00

  Operating cost for the 12 months

  4,939.97

  CJNI website

  Cost to date

  13,160.00

  OCTF website

  Cost to date

  4,960.00

  Total costs to date

  45,761.97

  Cost of Websites

  £

  Department

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  OFMDFM

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  2,661

  DARD

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1,900

  DCAL

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  24,000

  DE

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  DEL

  0

  0

  0

  270,000

  289,972

  39,805

  DETI

  0

  0

  0

  12,200

  0

  50,400

  DFP

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  DHSSPS

  0

  7,100

  0

  0

  0

  0

  978W
  The figures provided do not include staffing costs.

  The Northern Ireland Office website has received the following number of page hits (the number of visits could be obtained only at disproportionate cost):

  Northern Ireland Office

  Number

  1997

  398,832

  1998

  2,655,045

  1999

  2,728,304

  2000

  3,506,310

  2001

  4,959,502

  2002

  8,379,957

  2003 (on 30 April)

  5,587,572

  BDS (an agency of DFP) provided hosting services for all Departments, except DEL, at a notional cost of £219,000 for 2001–02 and £172,000 for 2002–03, which have been included in the figure for costs. It is not possible to provide figures prior to 1 April 2001, as web information and costs were then an integral part of other telecommunications services. The figures provided do not include staffing costs.

  The Criminal Justice System Northern Ireland site has received the following visits:

  Criminal Justice System Northern Ireland

  Number

  July 2002

  78

  August 2002

  784

  September 2002

  1,241

  October 2002

  1,405

  November 2002

  1,265

  December 2002

  1,047

  January 2003

  1,490

  February 2003

  1,324

  March 2003

  1,345

  The Organised Crime Task Force Site (OCTF) has received the following number of visits:

  Organised Crime Task Force

  Number

  September 2002

  543

  October 2002

  1,711

  November 2002

  2,866

  December 2002

  2,206

  January 2003

  3,194

  February 2003

  3,270

  March 2003

  3,862

  The cost of the Northern Ireland Administration's websites and the number of hits to each website in each year from 1997 are set out in the tables:
  979W

  Cost of Websites

  £

  Department

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  DOE

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  24,000

  DRD

  0

  0

  0

  0

  10,000

  24,000

  DSD

  0

  0

  0

  0

  6,251

  9,376

  Total

  0

  7,100

  0

  282,200

  306,223

  176,142

  BDS

  —

  —

  —

  —

  219,000

  172,000

  Total

  0

  7,100

  0

  282,200

  525,223

  348,142

  Number of Hits

  Department

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  OFMDFM

  —

  —

  —

  395,640

  586,500

  674,324

  DARD

  169,966

  242,179

  643,840

  1,293,900

  4,841,813

  4,447,528

  DCAL

  —

  —

  32,652

  351,885

  514,263

  1,115,902

  DE

  231,648

  595,359

  1,582,770

  2,194,800

  371,564

  14,998,806

  DEL

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2,571,227

  5,929,386

  DETI

  —

  —

  417,098

  243,576

  2,665,363

  3,940,545

  DFP

  11,214

  62,230

  142,798

  257,345

  361,998

  532,582

  DHSSPS

  64,742

  443,225

  2,085,913

  1,726,407

  5,529,678

  9,332,949

  DOE

  283,959

  1,977,486

  4,424,783

  2,403,468

  163,935

  3,420,266

  DRD

  —

  —

  0

  58,176

  240,237

  5,599,072

  DSD

  —

  —

  27

  417,998

  432,450

  4,149,133

  Total

  761,529

  3,320,479

  9,329,881

  9,343,195

  19,002,745

  55,558,711

  The Northern Ireland Devolved Administration was established on 2 December 1999. At that date new Departments were created and there was a transfer of
  980W
  functions, which resulted in some Departments having their responsibilities adjusted. The Administration does not hold records in relation to hits on websites prior to 1997.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Family Visitor Appeals
  The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes)
  In January 2001, we announced a review of the family visitor appeal system introduced under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The review was undertaken by officials from UK visas, the Lord Chancellor's Department, the Home Office, HM Treasury and the Legal Services Commission. A discussion exercise was held towards the end of 2001 and research was commissioned from the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate to inform the review.

  I am pleased to announce that the final report of the review team is published today, and has been placed in the Library of the House.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Planning Inspectorate
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty)
  I am pleased to announce today the targets I have set this year for the Planning Inspectorate Executive Agency.

  We are reforming the planning system to make it faster, fairer and more efficient. I need to ensure that the Planning Inspectorate is well placed to respond robustly to the increasing demands for its services and to the changes we are introducing. We have set in hand a business process "end to end" review* of the Planning Inspectorate which will be completed by the Autumn and there are implications for the Inspectorate in the provisions of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill which is currently before Parliament.

  Against this background I have decided to maintain most of the existing targets in place for this year. These are set out below. The exceptions are the targets for the completion of Inspectors' reports on called-in planning applications and recovered appeals and for appeals going to hearings.

  In line with the Office's PSA6 target, by March 2004 80 per cent. of Planning Inspectors' reports to the Secretary of State on called-in and recovered appeal cases must be delivered within seven weeks of the close of the inquiry.

  The only other change involves the timeliness target for planning appeals going to hearings, which, in order to deal with a backlog of cases, is now the same as for planning appeals going to inquiry.
  48WS
  These targets are not just about speed, they are about reaching the right decision and providing the community with a quality service. The Planning Inspectorate is responding well to the challenge this presents.

  TIMELINESS

  Planning Appeals

  Eighty per cent. of all planning appeals decided by written representations to be determined within 16 weeks.

  Eighty per cent. of all planning appeals decided by hearings to be determined within 30 weeks.

  Eighty per cent. of all planning appeals decided by inquiries to be determined within 30 weeks.

  Enforcement Appeals

  Eighty per cent. of all enforcement appeals decided by written representation to be determined within 32 weeks.

  Eighty per cent. of all enforcement appeals decided by hearings to be determined within 33 weeks.

  Eighty per cent. of all enforcement appeals to be decided by inquiries to be determined within 43 weeks.

  Called In and Recovered Appeals

  By March 2004, 80 per cent. of Inspectors' reports to the Secretary of State on called-in and recovered appeal cases to be delivered within seven weeks of the close of the inquiry.

  Development Plan inquiries

  To provide an Inspector for development plan inquiries in 90 per cent. of cases on the date requested by the local authority, provided that the objection period has ended and at least six months' notice has been given.

  To deliver 90 per cent. of Inspectors' reports on development plan inquiries to local authorities according to timescales agreed under service agreements.

  QUALITY

  To satisfy the Advisory Panel on Standards for the Planning Inspectorate, and thus the Secretary of State and the First Minister of the National Assembly for Wales, annually and following rigorous monitoring, that the quality of all the Inspectorate's work is being maintained at a high standard, with 99 per cent. of its casework free from justified complaint.

  INFORMATION AND GUIDANCE

  To undertake a time series customer satisfaction survey of the Inspectorate's performance and to act upon the results.

  *This review, whose conclusions will feed into the 2004 spending review round, was announced in Parliament by Mr Tony McNulty, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, on 4 February, 2003, Official Report, column 9WS.

  Aggregates
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty)
  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has today published the following revised regional guidelines for the amount of rock and sand and gravel to be produced for use in construction to 2016. These replace guidelines contained Minerals Planning Guidance Note 6 (MPG6), 'Guidelines for Aggregates Provision in England', published in April 1994. The policy sections
  49WS
  of MPG6 remain in force pending the outcome of public consultation on a revised text, which will take place later this year.

  The new figures are about 19 per cent. lower nationally than the previous guidelines, published in 1994, although there may be regional and local variations from that average. They reflect up-to-date information in the patterns of supply and demand, the extent of use of recycled and alternative materials, and projections of the requirements of the construction industries. A new target of 60 million tonnes per annum is set for the use of recycled materials and industrial by-products in place of natural aggregates by 2011, building on a 63 per cent. increase in the use of these materials since the 1994 guidelines were issued.

  Over the next six months, the Regional Planning Bodies, in association with the Mineral Planning Authorities, will consider how the guidelines should be broken down to local level, taking environmental implications into account, and then applied in regional and local plans.

  The Government will regularly monitor the operation of these new guidelines.

  Copies of the guidelines are available in the Library of the House.

  National and Regional Guidelines for Aggregates Provision in England, 2001–2016 (million tonnes)

  Guidelines for land-won production

  Assumptions

  New Regions

  Land-won Sand & Gravel

  Land-won Crushed Rock

  Marine Sand & Gravel

  Alternative Materials

  Net Imports to England

  South East England

  212

  35

  120

  118

  85

  London

  19

  0

  53

  82

  6

  East of England

  256

  8

  32

  110

  8

  East Midlands

  165

  523

  0

  95

  0

  West Midlands

  162

  93

  0

  88

  16

  South West

  106

  453

  9

  121

  4

  NorthWest

  55

  167

  4

  101

  50

  Yorkshire & the Humber

  73

  220

  3

  128

  0

  North East

  20

  119

  9

  76

  0

  England

  1068

  1618

  230

  919

  169

DEFENCE

  Met Office
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie)
  The Chief Executive of the Met Office is responsible for providing meteorological and related environmental services, including climate change prediction, to a wide range of customers, including the armed forces, Government, civil aviation, shipping, emergency services, media, commerce, industry and the general public. The Met Office also undertakes research related to meteorology and climate.

  The next 12 months will be one of considerable challenge for the Met Office as it completes its relocation from its present home in Bracknell to a brand new,
  50WS
  purpose built headquarters and operations centre in Exeter. The move is believed to be one of the largest IT relocation projects ever undertaken in Europe. It is the Met Office's intention that the transition will be as seamless as possible from the perspective of its customers, but nevertheless it represents a significant upheaval for the staff and their families and its ultimate success will require the utmost dedication of all concerned. It is in the context of prioritising the maintenance of its service delivery to customers through relocation, and thereby establishing a solid base from which to improve future efficiency and profitability, that the Met Office has been set the following challenging targets for 2003–04:

  KEY TARGET 1:
  To achieve a value for the Numerical Weather Prediction Index of at least 111.8 on 31 March 2004, from a baseline of 100.0 on 31 March 2000.

  KEY TARGET 2:
  To achieve a value for the Service Quality Index of at least 120.1 on 31 March 2004, from a baseline of 100.0 on 31 March 1997, in line with customer requirements.

  KEY TARGET 3:
  To achieve a value for the Efficiency Index at 31 March 2004 of at least 120.1.

  KEY TARGET 4:
  To deliver an operating profit before strategic investments of at least £14 million in FY 2003–04. This is in support of a long term target to achieve a return on capital employed, averaged over the period from 1 April 2002 to 31 March 2007, of at least 4 per cent.

  KEY TARGET 5:
  To transfer our Bracknell-based weather forecasting operations to our new operations centre in Exeter by 30 September 2003.

  KEY TARGET 6:
  To achieve a total contribution from commercial activities in FY 2003–04 of at least £4.0 million.

  KEY TARGET 7:
  To achieve a value for the Staff Skills Index of at least 107.5 by 31 March 2004, from a baseline of 100.0 as at 31 March 2001.

  Democratic Republic of Congo
  The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr. Adam Ingram)
  The House will be aware of the humanitarian crisis in the Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, particularly in and around the town of Bunia in the north-east of the country.

  The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has requested an interim multinational force to stabilise the town of Bunia and to facilitate the arrival of UN reinforcements. This is likely to be a EU-led operation under European Foreign and Security Policy auspices.

  The UK is discussing possible contributions with EU Member States and other potential contributors. We are considering providing a small contingent of support elements together with aircraft to assist in the deployment of the force. The House will be informed once final decisions have been taken on the size and scale of UK contributions.

  Iraq
  The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Noon)
  In the Written Statements of 11 April 2003,Official Report, columns 38–39WS and 30 April 2003, columns 15–16WS, I described UK force level adjustments to reflect the evolving strategic situation in Iraq, including the call-out of up to 1,200 reservists. In the subsequent Written Statement of 22 May 2003, Official Report, columns 44–45WS, I announced the call-out of a further 1,500 reservists to support continuing operations within Iraq. We continue to assess the requirements for a continued UK presence in Iraq in support of the Iraqi people. This process is dependent on a number of factors, including progress made against our military campaign objectives, and multinational contributions to stabilisation operations.

  Positive discussions continue with a number of nations regarding military deployments to Iraq. We have so far received commitments from seven countries for contingents comprising a total of around 5,500 personnel to contribute in the UK area of operations. A Danish Marine battalion has already arrived, and is making a valuable contribution to Coalition operations in Al Qurnah.

  Overall, 25,000 UK servicemen and women have returned from operations in the Gulf—more than half those originally deployed. Some 17,000 UK servicemen and women currently remain in the region. We will maintain a balanced and flexible force to suit the operational situation in Iraq. To this end, I am now in a position to announce a number of further adjustments to our forces in the region.

  Since the statement of 30 April, we have continued where possible to scale back our military presence within Iraq and the surrounding region. The maritime presence in the Gulf now comprises two frigates, currently HMS Richmond and HMS Chatham, and a nuclear-powered submarine, supported by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels Brambleleaf and Diligence. On current plans, we envisage maintaining a maritime presence at this level for the foreseeable future.

  For land forces, the planned withdrawal of 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines and of other land personnel, which I announced on 30 April, is now complete. In addition to the movements set out in that statement, 16 Air Assault Brigade has now been withdrawn, including 3 Parachute Regiment arid 3 Army Air Corps. We have also withdrawn the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, 1st Battalion The Light Infantry, the Queens Royal Lancers and 1st The Queens Dragoon Guards. These adjustments will be followed by the replacement of HQ 1 (UK) Armoured Division with HQ 3 (UK) Armoured Division, which we anticipate will complete by mid-July. As I have previously announced, we envisage that 19 Mechanised Brigade will deploy within the same timescale, and preparations are underway to prepare for and to facilitate this movement. HQ 102 Logistic Brigade completed its hand-over to HQ 101 Logistic Brigade in early May as planned, and the Brigades' sub-units are currently engaged in a phased rotation. When fully assembled, these units will represent a total of around 10,000 servicemen and women.
  52WS
  Around 90 fixed-wing aircraft and some 80 helicopters have returned following the highly successful contribution of the Royal Air Force and the Joint Helicopter Command to the Coalition air campaign. The deployment of the 1st Air Control Centre to Tallil to contribute to an overall ground-based radar picture over Iraq has allowed for the withdrawal of our two deployed E3D aircraft. The Royal Air Force now has 8 Tornado GR4s remaining in theatre with a number of supporting aircraft. In addition, the Joint Helicopter Force retains a balanced rotary-wing presence, 18 helicopters comprising Chinook, Sea King, Lynx and Gazelle helicopters.

  Since the statement of 30 April, around 850 additional reservists have been accepted into service, and the call-out process continues. Our reservist men and women continue to play a vital role in supporting stabilisation operations in Iraq, in accordance with the aims of the Strategic Defence Review that the reserve forces should be more integrated, relevant and useable. In parallel to the call-out process, we have so far demobilised over 1,700 reservists who have returned from Iraq as a part of the wider programme of withdrawals.

  I pay tribute to all the men and women who have contributed so successfully and professionally to the military campaign in Iraq. We continue to assess the situation as military operations contribute to the gradual return of stability to the country, and to respond in an appropriate manner; our presence will continue to be dictated by the requirements of Iraq and the Iraqi people. The House will be kept informed of any further significant developments.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Local Worklessness
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Malcolm Wicks)
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of Exchequer announced last November plans to test a new approach of offering intensive support to residents in neighbourhoods with very high concentrations of worklessness.

  From April 2004 pilots will begin in 12 sites to help residents access the jobs that can often be found within travelling distance of where they live. In each pilot area
  residents claiming Jobseeker's Allowance will benefit from accelerated access onto the New Deal programmes after just three months of unemployment
  partners and lone [parents will attend more frequent interviews with personal advisers
  new Incapacity Benefit claimants will also be given more help to ensure that employment opportunities and barriers to work are regularly discussed.
  There will be access to a flexible discretionary fund to allow personal advisers, working in cooperation with Local Strategic Partnerships. To tackle the substantial and varied barriers that prevent residents in these neighbourhoods from returning to work. This will prove flexibility to deliver services in ways that best meet the needs of the local community.
  53WS
  I can now announce that these pilots will be allocated in neighbourhoods based in the local authority wards set out in the table. Over the coming months Jobcentre Plus will work with Local Strategic Partnerships and other key stakeholders to plan how the pilots will operate locally to deliver the help residents need.

  Local Authority

  Wards

  Tower Hamlets

  Bromley-by-Bow East India & Lansbury Limehouse

  Knowsley

  Northwood

  Wirral

  Birkenhead

  54WS

  Local Authority

  Wards

  Sheffield

  Manor

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  Monkchester

  Birmingham

  Aston

  Middlesbrough

  Thorntree North Ormesby Barmbles Farm

  Swansea

  Penderry

  Great Yarmouth

  Central & Northgate Nelson

  Hastings

  Castle

  Glasgow City

  Parkhead Ward

  Glasgow City

  Hutchesontown Ward

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Sheffield.

Creationism
Baroness Rendell of Babergh Baroness Rendell of Babergh asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether creationism is being taught in schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Baroness Ashton of Upholland): My Lords, pupils are encouraged to explore different views, theories and beliefs in many national curriculum subjects, including science and religious education. All state-funded schools, including those governed by funding agreements with the Secretary of State, such as academies and city technology colleges, are required to provide a broad and balanced curriculum to their pupils and to teach the core subjects of the national curriculum, including science.
Baroness Rendell of Babergh: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her Answer. Would she agree that creationism and natural selection should not be taught as equally faith-based, but that the creationism of Genesis, albeit an ancient and beautiful tradition, should be taught as an allegory and evolution as science-based? Would she also agree that pupils should never be tested on the faith-based theory of creationism as part of the science syllabus?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, on the latter point, the science curriculum at key stage 4—that is, for 14 to 16 year-olds—is tested on evolution as part of science. In key stage 3 of the RE curriculum there is a unit—it is unit 9B, for those who might he interested—entitled "Where did the universe come from?" I am in the middle of Bill Bryson's exposé of that subject at the moment. The unit considers the issues of science and religion and the perception of conflict between them. The overarching point is that within the national curriculum we are very clear about what we expect to be taught, but we have always allowed schools to teach beyond the national curriculum.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, these Benches have a great deal of sympathy with the concerns expressed in the Question asked by the noble Baroness. Would the Government agree that the time is right to investigate the possibility of a nationally agreed RE syllabus along the lines of a certain recent ecumenical initiative?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, as the right reverend Prelate knows, some discussions are
188
taking place. I know that he will be involved in further discussions with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State on the question of an RE syllabus. It may be worth saying to the right reverend Prelate that there are different views about that, not least from the SACREs in different localities, many of which feel it is appropriate to have a locally based curriculum.
Lord Taverne: My Lords, if the Government are to allow the teaching of creationism, will they also allow the teaching of pre-Copernican astronomy, that the earth is flat and that the sun goes round the earth?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Lord should reflect on the basis on which a Secretary of State and a Government must act in determining what elements of faith should or should not be allowed in an education system. When the noble Lord reflects on that, he will recognise that our responsibility is to ensure that children receive a broad and balanced curriculum, are taught the national curriculum, are regularly inspected and that we ensure that children and young people get the opportunity to explore theories and beliefs.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, are the theories of Charles Darwin included in such teaching, notably on the origin of species and the survival of the fittest?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, as I have already indicated, within the science curriculum we ensure at key stages 3 and 4 that children and young people have the opportunity to explore the different theories of creation and evolution. I have also made it clear on which they are tested.
Lord Tanlaw: My Lords, I declare an interest as the chairman of the All-Party Astronomy and Space Environment Group. This Question has a very deep relevance. In America, there has been a complete mixture and muddle between religion and science. In the lovely prayer with which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield opened today's proceedings, he made reference to the four corners of the earth. Most of us would agree that the earth is not flat, and that should not be taught as a literal scientific lesson. The same goes for Genesis I; it is astro-physically totally unsound to believe that the earth was formed before the stars. It is very dangerous that those thoughts can be transmitted to young people via the educational system, as they are in America.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I am very impressed by the noble Lord's credentials in this area. The only school in which the issue was raised was written to, and discussions took place with the Chief Inspector of Schools, who was completely satisfied that the school was acting correctly in the presentation of the science curriculum. There are no other indications that at other schools it has even been raised as an issue.
Lord Peston: My Lords, does my noble friend accept that the Secretary of State does have some

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responsibility if nonsense is taught in our schools? Will she comment on my discovery that, in a school that is not a religious school, children as young as six are being taught that the world is full of evil due to the existence of Satan? When that was put to me by my grandchild, I said, "Well, that's rubbish". He said, "No, it's not—my teacher told me".
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point; namely, in the course of the education of all children, as noble Lords will know from their own experience, views are expressed by individual teachers. The difficulty and difference for a government is to ensure that children get the best possible curriculum, and, within that, that we do not censure, if I may describe it as such, what is a widely held belief for many people. It is important, as noble Lords have said, to make sure that within the science curriculum we are clear about what we are teaching. The only case raised has been investigated. We also need to be clear that we have a broad-based faith society and we should recognise and celebrate it.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, will the Minister kindly explain to the uninitiated what on earth creationism is?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I may not be the best person to do so, but I shall make an attempt. Essentially, creationism is based on the teachings of the Bible. It is based on the idea that the earth was created after the stars, by having a timeline that suggests, as I understand it, that the earth is only several thousand years old.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, given that the ideas of Darwin are generally regarded by many scientists as the greatest break-through in science in the past couple of hundred years, will the Minister assure the House that in those schools where creationism is taught the children are also exposed to the full science curriculum and that they understand the ideas of Darwin and evolution?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, as I believe I have indicated, there is only one school where this has been raised as an issue. The Chief Inspector of Schools was satisfied that within the curriculum the young people were indeed exposed at key stage 4 to the appropriate theories mentioned by the noble Baroness. Underneath your Lordships' questions are issues as to whether we should be concerned about this matter. Perhaps I may quote the Vardy Foundation, which is thinking of opening another school. It has said:
"Other faiths will also be taught and students encouraged to come to their own personal decisions about what to believe and why".
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I think that noble Lords will agree that that is an appropriate statement.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, I am afraid that we are well over time.
Mr James Miller: Israeli Shooting Inquiry
2.45 p.m.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I should tell the House that James Miller was known to me, being the brother of my daughter-in-law.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have obtained from the Government of Israel an acknowledgement of responsibility for the shooting of Mr James Miller, cameraman and director, by a soldier of the Israeli army on 2nd May.
The Minister for Trade (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, the Israeli Government have acknowledged responsibility for Mr Miller's death, but the Israeli defence force's inquiry into the full circumstances of this tragic case is still under way. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary raised the case on 8th and 15th May with the Israeli Foreign Minister and is writing to Mr Shalom following the recent meeting with Mr Miller's family on 2nd June. We are pressing for a full and transparent Israeli military police investigation and a written apology.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. I also thank the Foreign Secretary for his courtesy in seeing the family. However, have not the Israeli Government failed to put in train the full and transparent investigation asked for by the British Government? Is not the so-called command inquiry likely to end in the kind of cover-up that has followed other shootings such as that of Ian Hook, the UN worker, in Jenin? Is it not already plain that the tale originally told—that James was shot in the back having been caught in cross-fire—was completely false? The bullet entered the front of his neck. The film of another camera crew shows that the firing was coming from Israeli troops alone, and James was killed when he and his companions were wearing helmets with "TV" on them and carrying white flags and shouting that they were British journalists. When the British Government are giving all possible support to the Israeli Government in their fight against terrorism, are they not entitled to expect in return a proper investigation to establish responsibility for this crime and redress for the family of a British citizen unlawfully killed?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord's last point. We are pressing for a full and transparent inquiry, as I hope I made clear in my original Answer. I thank the noble Lord for

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his remark about the Foreign Secretary. Obviously, we need to wait for the findings of the Israeli defence force inquiry when it publishes its report into the full circumstances surrounding what I am sure all noble Lords will acknowledge is a desperately sad case. But it is very difficult to establish exactly what happened. The noble Lord referred to some conflicting reports about the exact circumstances. This incident took place late at night. It is important that we do everything we can to establish the full circumstances. I know that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will be writing to James Miller's widow within the next couple of days.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, will the Minister underline to the Israeli authorities that there is widespread support for the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, in many parts of this House and outside it? Does she agree that, not only in the case of Ian Hook but also in that of Tom Hurndall, internal inquiries were perceived to be partial and were not seen as dispassionate or objective? Great cynicism was expressed subsequently about their findings. Does the Minister agree that the transparency she mentioned and the independence of such an inquiry in investigating the case of James Miller are paramount?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I shall ensure that these exchanges are drawn to the attention of the Israeli authorities. The noble Lord refers to two other tragic cases. We are very concerned about civilian casualties resulting from Israeli operations. By "civilian" I mean both civilians who are indigenous to the area and those who go in to investigate what is happening. We urge the Israelis to do everything they can to ensure that civilian casualties are avoided and that their actions always fall within international law. Given the number of recent incidents, to which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred, we have asked, through Mr Shalom, to establish whether anything can be done about revising the rules of engagement for the Israeli defence forces so that they can do their best to avoid these tragic and terrible incidents.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, what timescale do the Government believe will be involved for the internal inquiry to come to its conclusion? Most of the work already appears to have been done, including a comprehensive autopsy. Are the Government raising the very real concerns about indiscipline inside the Israeli defence force, which led to so many of these incidents?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am not able to give a timescale. It is important, when trying to establish exactly what happened in such an incident, that any inquiries are exhaustive. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, versions of what happened on that terrible night have already changed during the course of some of the inquiries so far. It is important to ensure that that is properly dealt with. As to what the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, referred to as indiscipline, I hope that
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I made clear that we have expressed our concern to the Israeli Government about the rules of engagement. The noble Lord will understand what I mean when I say that the rules of engagement are a matter of concern to Her Majesty's Government.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, we join others in extending our sympathies to James Miller's family and relations following his tragic death. What further advice and recommendations will Her Majesty's Government give to journalists, including cameramen, to help to protect their safety when working in areas of conflict?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords wish to send their sympathy to James Miller's widow and two young children. We advise that everyone going into the area looks very carefully indeed at the travel advice that the Foreign Office issues. I understand that although some individuals know that the travel advice is unequivocal in advising against travel to the West Bank and Gaza, they none the less feel that they have a very strong reason to go. A number of peace workers and journalists are there. We advise them, as the travel advice states, that if they feel they really must be there, they must take every possible precaution against getting into situations in which there may be cross-fire or flash points of violent incidents. As we know, there have been several fatal attacks. All of that is made very clear in the Foreign Office travel advice.

Royal Mail: Transport Policy
2.53 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw Lord Bradshaw asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they support the decision of the Post Office to remove the carriage of mail from the railways.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville): My Lords, Royal Mail planned under its transport review to continue to use rail as part of its integrated transport network. However, two years of negotiation with English, Welsh and Scottish Railway have stalled on cost grounds. Royal Mail's board has decided therefore to drop plans to include rail in its new network. The Government regret that loss of business for rail freight but stand by their policy of allowing Royal Mail freedom to operate commercially.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. I seek an assurance from him that the Government will examine the basis of the costing that the railway and Post Office have adopted. Is a full cost associated with the rail mode and has the road mode been assessed on a marginal cost basis, which, among

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other things, does not take into account the fact that the heaviest lorries do not pay a proper contribution to the maintenance of the highway?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, that commercial decision will be taken by Royal Mail; that is its decision. The costing basis that it uses is for it to decide. I should have thought that in both cases marginal costing was very important for those decisions.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. First, my noble friend said in his Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, that Royal Mail's decision to use road instead of rail was taken on cost grounds. Is he aware that there are three other rail freight operators who could quote for that work, and does he know whether they have been asked to do so? When I discussed this with Royal Mail some time ago, the answer was that it had not.
My second point relates to Royal Mail's facilities at terminals and in trains, which are probably used for only eight hours a day. Royal Mail could surely save an enormous amount of money if it allowed third-party operators, such as DHL, Securicor and others, who are very keen to use rail freight, to use those expensive facilities as well.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, again, whether Royal Mail approaches other operators is entirely a commercial decision for it. If the other operators were any good, however, I should expect that they would have seized the opportunity to approach Royal Mail and make it an offer.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it will be very environmentally damaging to make the proposed change of mode? The Post Office spokesman, when challenged about the environmental implications of its policy, was wholly unconvincing. It is totally unacceptable, and quite contrary to the Government's policy of encouraging transfer from road to rail, to allow that to go ahead. The Minister's answer that it is simply a matter of commercial judgment must be challenged by a Government who are serious about the environment.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the right position is to leave that as a commercial decision. However, the road transport review, which has taken place, will result in environmental improvements; they will be very substantial indeed. They will not be as large as they could have been if that transport had been kept on rail, Nevertheless, because of efficiency, there will be very big environmental improvements.
Lord Clarke of Hampstead: My Lords—
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords—
Noble Lords: This side!
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, does not the approach of Royal Mail involve the kind of gesture towards the declared policy of the Deputy Prime Minister—of moving traffic from road to rail—with which he himself has been identified in recent days? How can any government which made promises some six years ago to reduce the growth of road traffic stand at the Dispatch Box and say, "We are leaving it all to the market"?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, it has never been part of the Government's policy to require that commercial activities should take place on one kind of transport or another. The aim is to make it attractive for people to do so through grants and other means. However, the policy is not to direct companies to do something but to leave it to them to make their decision on the best possible information.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, is the situation not complicated by the fact that Royal Mail is VAT exempt and therefore cannot reclaim VAT on transport by rail? However, by using its own road transport, it does not incur VAT. That obviously gives an advantage of at least 17.5 per cent in favour of road transport.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I am not able to say what the exact position is because that affects the position with regard to the particular commercial decision. Again, one must say that it is for the parties involved to make their decision on the best basis. Changing the derogation, which I believe applies in this respect to the Post Office, or changing the VAT arrangement for rail transport are rather big decisions to take simply in relation to this issue.
Lord Clarke of Hampstead: My Lords, does my noble friend recall the time when he steered the Postal Services Act 2000 through this House? Was there any reference to the need for the Post Office to have regard to the environment? I cannot recall the Post Office ever being given that latitude. Could he also say whether the accounting that led to this situation of road versus rail is the same accounting that Postcomm applied when applying its charges for downstream access into the Royal Mail service, which, on recent figures, shows that the Post Office will be subsidising its competitors?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the two accounting systems are rather different in terms of what they are trying to achieve. In this particular context, again it is for the Post Office to decide what is the best kind of costing basis to use. The House should bear in mind that in the past it has been constant government intervention in decisions taken on a commercial basis by the Post Office which has done it so much harm. Now we have given it the responsibility to make these decisions on a commercial basis, we should stand behind it and let it get on with the job.

Mr Putin: United Kingdom Visit
3 p.m.
Lord Judd Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the principal issues for their discussions with President Putin during his visit to the United Kingdom.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, President Putin's principal substantive discussions will be with the Prime Minister. As the visit is still two weeks away, it is impossible to say exactly which areas will be covered. But we expect they will discuss a range of international issues, including Iraq, the Middle East, proliferation and terrorism. The visit will also include a United Kingdom/Russian energy summit and a visit to Edinburgh.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply; perhaps she will accept that many of us wish the visit all possible success. Clearly, we want to see Russia as a full partner in responding to the challenges in the century ahead.
Does my noble friend agree that in the context of the discussions on terrorism it will be important to make plain to the Russian Government that by the way in which they are responding to terrorism in the Chechen republic—and undoubtedly there is terrorism there—they are in fact recruiting for the extremists? The climate of impunity in which the Russian army operates, the failure to bring to justice those responsible in the army for alleged atrocities, and the human rights abuses are all grist to the mill of the extremists. If we are to win the battle of hearts and minds against terrorism, what is happening in Chechnya has a significance way beyond that republic itself. Will my noble friend assure us that these issues will be fully discussed with the Russian Government?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I hope they will. I am sure my noble friend Lord Judd will understand that I am in no position to commit my right honourable friend the Prime Minister to the exact nature of the discussion that will take place. As I was careful to say, the fact is that two weeks is a long time in international relations. I am sure that there will be many issues on a very crowded agenda, but I agree strongly with my noble friend that we all want the visit to be a success. Russia is not only a key ally but also a key player on the international scene. It was a member of the quartet that brought forward the road map which we wish to see flourish in the Middle East.
I am sure that any discussion around terrorism must at some point touch upon the issues raised by my noble friend. As he will know, the EU, while acknowledging that some were a little cynical about the recent referendum, cautiously welcomed its result in Chechnya and stressed that the Russians must now honour their commitments to improve the situation on the ground.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would he a good idea if the Prime Minister took
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the opportunity of his next meeting with Mr Putin to clear up the alarming misunderstanding which apparently arose at the G8 summit? The Prime Minister thought President Putin had agreed to suspend delivery of nuclear fuel to Iran. President Putin declared afterwards that he had said no such thing. Will the Government discuss with President Putin the IAEA's confidential report on Iran's ability to produce nuclear weapons and any actions it may recommend at its board of governors' meeting on June 15th?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as I indicated in my opening Answer, I am sure that the discussions will range around a number of international issues, including Iraq and proliferation.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, can the Minister confirm, despite the visit still being two weeks away, that in the course of their talks the Prime Minister and President Putin will discuss not only the threat in common they have from international terrorism, but also specifically Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, which seeks to distort the true meaning and teaching of the Islamic faith? Will they discuss how best our two countries can co-operate to tackle that threat?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am sure the issues around terrorism are ones that are bound to be discussed by my right honourable friend and Mr Putin. There are serious concerns about the clear links between some extremist groups operating in Chechnya and A1'Qaeda. Those groups have already been mentioned in your Lordships' House. I am sure that the wider reach of those operating in Chechnya and their linkages to other terrorist organisations will also be a matter of mutual concern.
Lord Blaker: My Lords, Russia clearly has influence with Iran. Would it not be useful if Mr Putin were to endeavour to persuade the Iranians not to proceed further with the development of nuclear weapons—the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury—hut also to discourage the Iranians from supporting the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was based in Tehran but is now based in Iraq and which is acting as a political party and threatening to boycott the interim government?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as I said in my very brief answer to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, the fact is that if my right honourable friend will be discussing Iraq and matters of nonproliferation, many of these tangential issues may well be raised. My difficulty arises because your Lordships are urging me to assure them that certain matters will be discussed. I am afraid that it is not in my gift to be able to say that I am absolutely certain that these specific points raised by your Lordships will indeed he matters of detailed discussion. I can tell your Lordships that they are all aiming in the right direction

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when they say that matters concerning Iraq and matters concerning the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are bound to be on the agenda.
Lord Russell-Johnston: My Lords, does the noble Baroness realise that the remarks by the Prime Minister appearing to give approbation to the referendum in Chechnya were deeply offensive to human rights workers? The referendum was conducted in circumstances in which no fair outcome could be assured. I hope that that will be recognised in the discussions.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I do understand, and I hope I made clear in my answer to the supplementary question from my noble friend Lord Judd that a number of people were unconvinced by the very high turnout in the Chechnyan referendum—some 80 per cent—and the massive majority for the "Yes" vote at some 96 per cent. Those are truly remarkable figures. Although there are some who believe that the referendum was manipulated, the Prime Minister is not alone in having given it a cautious welcome. The majority of European Union countries welcomed the result. They did so very cautiously. In so doing they stressed to the Russian Government that we now expect them to honour their commitments on the ground. That includes moving towards a presidential election in six months' time and parliamentary elections three months after that.

Iraq: Post-conflict Deployment of UK Armed Forces
3.8 p.m.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many Armed Forces personnel are planned to remain in post-conflict Iraq and over what period.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence has today published in another place a Written Statement which sets out in some detail our progress in tailoring the UK presence in Iraq to suit the emerging strategic environment. I have today answered a Written Question in this House to the same effect.
We shall continue to review our force levels to ensure that we maintain an appropriate presence for as long as necessary. The noble Lord will appreciate that at this early stage there is no way of telling accurately how long that might be.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. Inevitably, the detail is contained in places other than this Chamber. Therefore, it is a little difficult to ask an immediate supplementary question, but can the noble Lord add
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anything on the probabilities and the time dimension? Can he further indicate what role is envisaged for the Iraqi Army in post-conflict Iraq?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I can tell the noble Lord that we have so far brought home more than 25,000 UK servicemen and women, following the end of decisive combat operations in Iraq. They have been taking some well-earned leave, following which they will be available for further taskings. So we currently retain about 17,000 UK servicemen and women deployed in the Gulf region, in a continuing effort to fulfil our responsibilities towards the Iraqi people. We shall continue to withdraw assets and personnel from the region where possible; but, equally, we shall maintain an appropriate military presence for as long as possible.
As for training the Iraqi army, or a new army, Paul Bremmer, the United States civil administrator, last month set out his plans for the establishment of a new, non-political, Iraqi corps. The United Kingdom is supporting that process.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, has there been any difficulty in calling up further members of the Territorial Army? From talking to members of the Territorial Army, it appears that there is a fear that large numbers of them will be called to serve in the Gulf for an extended period. Are the Government undertaking any research into whether that will cause difficulties as regards obtaining those reserve forces? I know that he is not in his place at present, but perhaps I may welcome back to the House the noble Earl. Lord Attlee, whom, I believe, is at present on leave from the Gulf.
Lord Bach: My Lords, we certainly share with the noble Lord his welcome to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, to the House and thank him for what he has done as a reservist, as so many other reservists have done for their country.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Bach: My Lords, as for the noble Lord's question, two Written Statements have been made setting out the requirement for the call-out of about 2,700 additional reservists to support on-going operations in Iraq. We have demobilised more than 1,700 reservists who have returned from operations in Iraq. As for the new call out, 850 reservists have already been accepted into service. We know of no difficulty at this stage.
Lord Vivian: My Lords, can the Minister tell us how many multinational brigades will be deployed with 19 Mechanised Brigade as part of 3rd Division when it takes over from 1st Division in July? Which countries will provide the most forces to man those multinational brigades? Perhaps, before I sit down, the House would also accept my welcome for the return of my noble friend Lord Attlee.
Lord Bach: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, 19 Mechanised Brigade is to take over from forces

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previously involved in combat operations, starting its task in July but commencing preparations immediately. So far, we have received commitments from seven countries, representing a total multinational contribution to our area of operations of about 5,500 military personnel. It is too early to say what relationship they will have with 19 Mechanised Brigade. The countries involved are Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Romania. A Danish battalion, including a light mechanised platoon, has already arrived in Iraq and is making a valuable contribution.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the most urgent task is to train an effective Iraqi police force? Surely that should have priority over training any possible future Iraqi army.
Lord Bach: My Lords, we agree that training an Iraqi police force is critical. Indeed, what we have managed to do up to now in Basra represents a very good start. The noble Lord may have recently seen on television, as I did, a superintendent from the UK police, who is there to train and assist, being interviewed about that. In our area of operations, 5,500 police are already back at work.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, can we expect some contribution towards the maintenance and upkeep of a peace-keeping force from those countries that are likely to benefit commercially from the newfound peace in Iraq?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I fear that I cannot assist the noble Lord on that question. We take our obligations seriously. We are lucky enough to be a prosperous, peaceful country. We know that we have obligations to other parts of the world. not least Iraq.

Occupational Pensions
3.15 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham): 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 Work and Pensions. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a Statement on action that the Government propose to take on occupational pensions following the Green Paper.
"Our proposals build on the historic strength of the United Kingdom's voluntary system—the partnership between government, individuals and employers—which has seen pensioner incomes rise faster than average earnings during the past 20 years, but which now faces real challenges as people are living longer at a time when birth rates are falling. Although the UK is well placed, compared to other countries, to deal with that, more still needs to be done. People need to be able to plan for their
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retirement and make informed choices about how and when to save and for how long they work, so that they get the income in retirement that they expect.
"We will make further announcements in due course on: the suite of Sandler products; a better deal for those who take their state pension later; and the proposals outlined in the tax simplification review. But today I want to focus on occupational pensions. They are under pressure now and we need to take early action.
"So I am setting out a balanced package of reform that better focuses regulation on the things about which people are most worried, so that we can cut burdens on business and increase member confidence in pensions. We will strengthen the protection of pension rights that people have built up, to ensure that rights promised will be rights delivered. Getting that balance right means taking a tough look at areas where regulation has grown out of all proportion. It also means taking action to deal with the demands of an increasingly dynamic economy, in which companies are taken over and people move between jobs more frequently.
"In February we tackled the challenge of two-tier workforces, to extend protection of pension rights to new starts working in many previously public enterprises. But it must be wrong that solely because of a takeover, workers in any private company have their rights scrapped. That is why I can announce that we are extending that same TUPE protection of pensions to private sector transfers.
"We will insist that where pension rights have been established the new employer will need to match employee contributions, up to 6 per cent, into a stakeholder pension or offer an equivalent alternative. That is a fair adjustment. It builds confidence in pensions and reflects company best practice.
"I am clear that in a voluntary system such protection of rights must be balanced with measures that make it easier for companies to set up and run good schemes for their employees. As I have stressed before:
'Pensions simplification has to be at the heart of any strategy to encourage greater pension provision'.
In a voluntary system we must be mindful of the costs for providers. Over the years, regulation has built up, often for the best of intentions, into a layer cake of complexity. That cannot be right. If we are to make the voluntary system work more effectively, we need to ensure that regulation is well targeted and effective. That is why today I can confirm that we will be driving ahead with measures to cut regulations and costs on companies running schemes.
"We will replace the minimum funding requirement with scheme-specific funding arrangements. We will simplify and consolidate legislation in key areas to make it easier to administer pension schemes. Taking account of consultation responses, we will go further than we

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signalled in the Green Paper. We will radically reform Section 67 of the Pensions Act 1995 to give schemes more freedom to adapt to changing circumstances without closing or even having to wind up.
"I am also advancing a raft of specific simplification measures, such as streamlining the requirements on member-nominated trustees and improving dispute procedures, ending the requirement to offer AVCs, and less bureaucratic reporting arrangements.
"I have received submissions—from the Pickering review and from others—that we should abolish compulsory inflation indexation because the requirements are too onerous and expensive. While they make some important points about knock-on effects of costs putting schemes at risk, I do not believe that we should do away with indexation.
"However, guaranteed indexation of five per cent was proposed in 1995 when market long-term expectations of inflation were at five per cent. Today, because of the stable macro-economic framework the Government have put in place, inflation has been driven down to average just 2.4 per cent over the year since 1997. That means we are effectively forcing purchase of full inflation cover, something which may be disproportionately expensive. I therefore propose that the cap on mandatory indexation will now be set at 2.5 per cent, giving schemes and their members more flexibility to agree together on the form of pension that suits them best—and easing funding pressures.
"There will be no effect on the value of today's pensioners' rights. It is a measure for future accruals only, to give more freedom to design schemes in the most sensible way. We will keep survivors' benefits—to make any change there would have a bad effect on women's pension prospects in particular. But with increased flexibility we need to make sure that employees' rights are protected without employers winding up their schemes as a result. So I can announce today that we will set up a new, proactive pensions regulator to focus on tackling fraud, bad governance and poor administration. It will adopt a proportionate approach—making sure that members are protected, while reducing burdens on well-run schemes.
"Pensions are a voluntary partnership and it is for workers and employers to decide what type of scheme suits them best. We have seen welcome examples in recent months of employers and trade unions deciding together how best to ensure continuing high quality provision. We set out in the Green Paper a proposal to require employers to consult scheme members before making changes. I can now confirm that, working with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, I will be taking this into effect to strengthen partnership in pensions.
"But examples of good practice are too often overshadowed by cases where employers have gone back on promises, causing anxiety. People also
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worry about the get-out clause which lets solvent companies which could afford to keep their pension scheme running wind it up with inadequate compensation. In the cases where firms have done this it has inflicted damage on confidence in the whole system. People worry that other schemes will follow suit. We need to act to make sure that a pension promise made by employers is a pension promise honoured by employers.
"We will therefore strengthen member protection where solvent employers decide to wind up their pension scheme. I have placed in the House draft regulations to apply to schemes that are winding up from today. So, as from now trustees will have the power to make solvent employers who choose to wind up their schemes buy out members' accrued rights in full. This will greatly increase security for members of solvent schemes.
"But there is one further issue we must tackle. Sometimes, when firms go bust, the money is not there to meet pension commitments. Recent cases have shown the terrible injustice when this happens and I believe that the public are right to demand action. We should not accept that just because a firm goes out of business workers can find that a pension they have saved for all their working life is worth next to nothing. Our Green Paper set out options for sharing out assets more fairly. Today I can announce that we will change the priority order to give greater weight to those who have been in the scheme longest. We will lay draft regulations shortly. I hope that the honourable Members for Havant and Northavon will welcome the cross-party agreement on this point.
"But we need to go further. Ever since I started looking at this I have asked, if people expect their holiday or motor insurance to be covered if a firm goes bust, then why not cover for something as important as a pension? We are therefore going to legislate to set up a pensions protection fund. This fund will take over the schemes of insolvent companies to ensure not only that pensions in payment are protected but that those still working can be sure of getting 90 per cent of what they were promised. It will be paid for by a fixed-rate levy and an additional risk-related premium which, together with a salary cap, will minimise perverse incentives and moral hazard. The pension protection fund will be a non-government body. It will meet its obligations through the power to set and vary the level of charge without recourse to public funds. Taken with the other measures this is a big extension of pension security, for the first time guaranteeing protection if a company scheme goes bust.
"To conclude, I have always said that my aim is to build a wide and deep consensus in this country that embraces employers, employees and pensioners. This is a balanced package to reduce the costs and complexity of regulation, making it easier for employers to run schemes while in return making sure pensions promised are pensions delivered. Many of the proposals will require legislation which the Government will bring forward as soon as

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parliamentary time allows. These measures will protect the rights of millions of pensioners and employees across the country".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement. I commend it to the House
3.26 p.m.
Lord Higgins: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement made in another place.
The Statement is clearly important. The reality is that there is a crisis in pensions provision, both in the state and in the private sector. The Government have remained remarkably complacent on the issue. They have published their Green Paper, but not provided time, either in this House or another place, for it to be debated. The reality is this: having moved the pensions Minister into a Labour Party job, he has still not been replaced after two months. That reflects the general attitude of the Government to the importance of the issues. None the less the Statement is welcome in a number of respects, even though its central provision is, in a sense, a council of despair because it is insuring for failure.
The crisis is due to some extent to measures beyond the Government's control. However, the crisis is significantly due to measures that the Government have themselves taken—most notoriously the raid on the ACT pensions fund—which have generated a general crisis of confidence in pensions and savings. The savings ratio has halved since this Government came to office.
However, I begin by welcoming the proposal to change from the minimum funding requirement to a scheme-specific situation. I welcome the scheme for making it easier for companies to adapt to changed circumstances without closing or winding up a scheme—something which noble Lords on these Benches have been advocating. I add a particular welcome to the proposals not to force company schemes to introduce AVC arrangements. I have spent many hours trying to sort out problems relating to Equitable Life—many AVCs were in Equitable Life—and was unbelievably frustrated by the fact that trustees cannot give advice to those who were affected without incurring criminal charges.
We shall examine with care the proposal for a new pro-active pensions regulator. Regarding the proposals on winding up, I shall deal, first, with those on solvent companies where the Government are proposing that trustees will have powers to buy out accrued pension rights in full. Clearly, there has been abuse in this area. We shall need to examine the proposals in detail when the legislation is brought forward, but my initial feeling is that that is also welcome. Looking overall at the Statement's proposals, can the noble Baroness tell us whether she thinks that they will accelerate or slow down the closure of final salary schemes to new members?
Regarding the winding up of companies that have gone bust and the question of sharing the assets more fairly, I believe it is right that the question should be
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over how long a person has been in a scheme, rather than his age. When calculating how long a person has been in a scheme, will allowance be made for the fact that he may have been in another scheme which has been merged with his own? Will the whole of that period be taken into account? Moreover, if there has been a merger, will account be taken of the fact that the amount of surplus or deficit in the two merged funds may not be the same? How will that be dealt with fairly?
The central part of the Government's proposals has two sections. On the one hand, we have the proposal for an insurance scheme for occupational pensions, and, on the other, the proposal on inflation. The Government are seeking to ameliorate the crisis that has arisen, to a significant extent, as a result of their own policies.
It is proposed that there should he an insurance scheme, but one that will incur costs to pensioners. A number of important issues arise in that respect. First, there is the risk of moral hazard—the question of whether an insurance scheme exists. Trustees and companies will be rather more inclined to take risks than would otherwise be the case. Secondly, there is the question of whether costs will tend to fall on prudent and well-managed schemes to cover the failures of less well-managed schemes.
The proposal is strange in one respect. There is to be a levy at a fixed rate with a risk premium and a salary cap. I do not understand what is meant by those expressions. At all events, in plain, simple terms. it is the equivalent of a tax. But it will then go into a fund. The problem is that we cannot be assured—certainly, the American experience does not reassure us—that the scheme will remain solvent. The Government use the word "guarantee" although it is linked with insurance, but there can only be a guarantee if the Government stand behind the scheme at the end of the day. To the extent that the contributions are effectively a tax, I am not entirely clear why the scheme has been designed in such a way that it is effectively an independent, free-standing organisation without government backing. There are real problems with that side of the proposals. As I said, the Government are insuring for the fact that companies may fail against a background in which the situation has deteriorated so much in recent years that such a scheme is now felt to be necessary.
There is another side to the coin. In order to reduce the costs to companies providing this insurance, and bearing in mind the difficulties that I have already outlined, it is proposed to reduce the present inflation protection afforded to many people in company schemes. At present, it is either the rate of inflation or a maximum of 5 per cent, whichever is the lower. The Government propose to get rid of the 5 per cent limit on the extraordinary argument that we can be reassured that, as inflation is now down to 2.5 per cent, we need not worry about it going up to 5 per cent. That protection is being removed. If the Government were to guarantee that inflation will never go over 2.5 per cent, there would be no loss to individuals. I do not

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know, although perhaps the noble Baroness can enlighten us, whether the Government propose to say that inflation will not go over 2.5 per cent.
In order to balance the insurance scheme, the Government are reducing the benefits that many pensioners enjoy at present. That is unsatisfactory. Incidentally, the Statement is wrong when it says that at present companies are effectively forced to purchase a full inflation cover; that is not so. They are forced to cover it up to 5 per cent in making their calculations as to what the contribution should be.
In making his Statement in another place the Secretary of State said that he hoped we could move towards consensus. I have indicated that there are a number of areas that we can welcome, but there are others that will require extremely careful consideration. The noble Baroness and I, after three or four different pensions Bills of one sort or another, have always sought to improve them and reach consensus. If legislation is introduced in the autumn and appears first in the other place, I do not doubt that the Government will, again, have a heavy programme. They will not scrutinise it properly in the same way as happened with the previous pensions Bill, and we shall be left to clear up the mess.
None the less, these are important proposals. At least, finally, the Government have recognised that there is a crisis in pension provision. These measures deal only with the private rather than the public sector. Much more needs to be done about state pensions, as virtually every interest group in the country has said. This is an important issue. We look forward to debating it further with the Government.
3.25 p.m.
Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, I start with a welcome for five of the announcements we have just heard—extending TUPE protection to private sector transfers; replacing the MFR with scheme-specific arrangements; setting up a new, more active pensions regulator; restricting solvent employer windups; and, most important, changing the priority order to protect long-serving employees when a pension fund winds up. All those changes make good sense and show the value of cross-party agreement.
I focus today on the proposed new pensions protection fund and declare my interest as a pension fund investment manager since 1976. I regret to have to say that this do-it-yourself scheme is a cruel deception. As usual in the big questions in pensions policy, the Government are sticking thin plaster over a gaping wound. Pensioners in defaulting schemes will get not a penny from the Government, nor are the Government prepared to act as a guarantor of last resort as they do in the Pool Re scheme, which covers buildings against terrorist attack.
In the worst pensions funding crisis in British history, this scheme just reshuffles pension funds' existing resources and forces solvent funds of employers who have faced up to their responsibilities to bail out the laggards that companies have been
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unwilling or unable to support. It will drive another nail into the coffin of defined benefit schemes. It is one thing to ask responsible employers to make sacrifices and run risks to protect their own schemes; it is quite another to force them, if they maintain a scheme, to sign a blank cheque to fill black holes in their competitors' funds. In America, the model for the Government's plan—the Federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation—has enjoyed more than quarter of a century of mainly strong stock markets, but it is still more than 5 million US dollars in deficit. That is a stark warning that I do not have time to go into now. But take it from me—it is a warning of the dangers we now face. The corporation concludes that there is only a 30 per cent chance of its being in surplus in 10 years' time, and states that its,
"current challenges may require a policy response to rescue the financial strength of the pension insurance system".
Our Government have chosen to follow that crumbling American model, with one crucial difference. In America everyone knows that the government stand behind the FPBGC. It has the right to borrow from the Treasury. The chairman is the Secretary of Labor and the other two directors are the Secretaries of Commerce and the Treasury. The President of the United States appoints its advisory committee of nine members.
If the Government really mean business, why are Andrew Smith, Patricia Hewitt and Gordon Brown not prepared to be directors of a similar British fund? The pensions Minister could hardly be chairman. There would have been no board meeting for the past two months. New biographical details would have been sent out more often than annual reports.
The problem with the scheme is who decides which funds have to pay the risk-based extra premiums and how much. What will it cost? Who will insure the insurers? How will its funds be managed? The comparison that the Government make with holidays and car insurance is nonsensical. If a travel firm or a motor insurer goes bust, it is easy to assess the loss. One can buy one's holiday or insurance policy somewhere else next year. Pensions are an enormous, long-term commitment. Any insurance scheme must involve considerable systemic risks and a completely different scale of problem in fixing premiums.
From these Benches we respect the Government's good intentions, but they are no substitute for the big decisions and backing from the Treasury that are needed to make pension schemes safe.
I have a final question for the noble Baroness on another topic. Six months after the pensions Green Paper was published, the Government can say only,
"We will come forward with a further announcement in due course",
on the tax simplification proposals. When will they admit what everyone in British business and the pensions industry knows, and what must have been the overwhelming message of the responses to the Green Paper—that their proposed £1.4 million snapshot valuation of people's pension fund rights when they

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retire, with a 65 per cent tax rate above that cap, will hit hundreds of thousands of managers and professionals, not the 5,000 people claimed by the Treasury?
Will the Government also confirm, after their evasive answer to my written Question last week, that the £1.4 million ceiling for tax relief will apply equally to everyone in the public as well as the private sectors? The rules must be the same for all, no matter how mighty their office.
3.40 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am sure that it was disguised, but I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, welcomes this Statement, along with the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. I turn first to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. I cannot resist challenging one political point. As part of his opening peroration, he said that we were ensuring failure. No, we are ensuring confidence in saving for retirement so that people are willing to save more or work longer. Those are our objectives and, by any honest, honourable and objective test, this action plan will address those two objectives. That is what stands behind our concerns.
The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, made some specific points. He asked whether I believed that our proposals would accelerate or slow down the closure of DB schemes to new members. It is a difficult line to draw because, as he will respect, we are striking a balance because pension promise is voluntary. On the one hand, we want greater protection for members who have forgone their savings. On the other hand, given that the employer is required to stand behind the promise, we want to ensure that such burdens of regulation are not so onerous that we encourage employers to vote with their feet. That is a dilemma we all understand and share.
I hope that, especially with regard to points I shall go on to make, we have made it sufficiently attractive that nothing we are currently doing should encourage employers to close DB schemes. I hope that many more will continue to keep them open. However, if they offer defined contribution schemes to their members, that can be a satisfactory alternative if. and only if, the employer's contribution remains at roughly the same level as would have gone into DB schemes. The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, knows as well as I and other noble Lords that the problem is not so much the move from DB to DC schemes but that when it happens, employer's contributions halve from an average of 12 per cent to 6 per cent. That is why they have often proved to be a relatively poor deal for employees.
The noble Lord asked about the merger of two schemes, which he has also asked me about in a private context. My understanding is that the answer depends upon the terms of the arrangement of bringing the two schemes together operated by trustees, but I need to take further advice. If he would like to give me the details, I shall give him a more full reply and also place it in the Library. My understanding is that it depends on the terms and conditions of the trustees' arrangements when the two schemes came together.
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The noble Lords, Lord Higgins and Lord Oakeshott, then developed their arguments about insurance, the pension protection scheme, and questions of risk and moral hazard. As the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, identified, the pension protection fund will have two elements, basically a per capita element on schemes funded by employers and a risk levy associated with a degree of underfunding so that those companies most at risk of defaulting make a proportionately higher contribution to the pensions protection fund. That is right. At the end of the clay, insurance is inevitably pooled risk. We should all accept that when one chooses an insurance scheme, there will be occasions on which good funds are cross-subsidising poorer funds.
None the less, the experience in the United States is positive. Despite the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, it is not the case that the American Government stand behind the scheme in the sense of making good any funding deficit. The American scheme is 90 per cent funded and has approximately 25 billion dollars' worth of assets even after a fairly difficult stock market and recent experience of companies defaulting. That shows it is reasonably healthy.
The question behind the one asked, which, in all integrity, I put back to both noble Lords, is that if they are calling for the Government to underwrite the scheme, they are basically saying that taxpayers should underwrite pension promises that are a private arrangement between employers and employees. The implication of that is twofold. First, one would probably increase the risk of moral hazard because instead of pension schemes being policed by their peers, so to speak, they would know that a bad scheme winding up and possibly going into default was able to draw upon the Government. There is no government money apart from that provided by taxpayers, which brings me to the second implication of what the noble Lords are saying.
Taxpayers who may not be in occupational pension schemes—they may be self-employed and have access to no such scheme—would be asked to cross-subsidise those who are in schemes that, even after winding up, are relatively attractive to their own situation. I am not sure that, on reflection, that is a form of redistribution that noble Lords, especially on the Liberal Democrat Benches, really want to sign up to. I hope that that reflection occurs.
The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, pressed me about the limited RPI and price indexation. He is quite right. What we are doing is reducing our estimate of the inflation that companies need to make to provide against indexation from 5 per cent to 2.5 per cent. I am sure that he will know that, since 1997, the average rate of inflation has been about 2.4 per cent., below the 2.5 per cent we are talking about, and that all the Treasury and European forecasts suggest that it may fall even lower. Having said that, the noble Lord may be less aware of this statistic: our research suggests that the RPI alignment of 5 per cent is costing providers of DB schemes 23 per cent of their costs. By reducing, the figure to 2.5 per cent, we will reduce that 23 per cent by

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4 per cent. That is not such a significant change as he indicated, but it allows us to float the cost of the levy so that the overall package, as he will know from the brief statement at the end, will be broadly neutral.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, would be the first to complain if, as a result of the package that we are putting before your Lordships today, the cost to business grew exponentially. As a result, we believe that most people would be willing to trade a modest reduction in indexation against a huge leap forward in security, which is what I hope our propositions today, when delivered in legislation, will guarantee.
3.48 p.m.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, noble Lords on these Benches have a particular problem. We had no advance notice of any Statement. However, that is a problem that we should pursue through the usual channels, rather than now.
We are dealing with a major and complex issue, especially as regards the Government's Statement—which, if I may say so, was delivered at a pretty fast pace. In my view, it is impossible to treat it seriously and discuss it properly in as quick a time as this. I query the extent to which the Minister appeared not to be drawing the line on the key issue; namely, that pension schemes of the type that we are discussing belong to those who contribute to them, both employers and employees. They do not belong to successive governments.
Does the Minister agree that this particular pension problem is the result of a combination of factors over a long period of time that began to emerge under the previous government, who did nothing about the problem? Does the Minister further agree that the strength of pension funds does not depend upon the fluctuations in share prices when we start to talk about what has recently happened to the market; it is overwhelmingly dependent upon income stream? The present Government destroyed that stream when they decided to raid the funds to the tune of £5 billion a year, which presumably means to date about £30 billion in total. That turned yesterday's problem into today's crisis.
The one point I make—and I shall sit down after this, because it is not possible to reply to the Statement, as it was too difficult to absorb—is that it is crucial that governments, of both sides, do not walk away with the idea that they carry no blame whatsoever for the present situation, about which they had a great deal of warning.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, on the last point, I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, whose expertise on pensions I much respect, sees fit to revisit ACT issues. I would expect it from the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, but not from the Cross Benches. I am also intrigued that when talking about ACT and £5 billion the noble Lord never brigades this, as the critics never do, with the offset in
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corporation tax which occurred at the same time, such that as far as I am aware we have the most supportive corporation tax regime in the OECD, and certainly in Europe. It is never mentioned. Funny that.
The noble Lord made a point about my speed of delivery with regard to the Statement and particularly the action plan, for which I apologise. But the noble Lord will be aware that the Secretary of State delivered the Statement to the House of Commons at 12.30 p.m. today, over three hours ago, and from the time he rose to make it the action plan introduced in it was available to all Members of your Lordships' House in the Printed Paper Office. Three hours is not a bad run at it, although I accept that the matter is very complicated and will require the continuous and ongoing attention of your Lordships in the future.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that the Select Committee on Economic Affairs in this House is looking at the economic aspects of ageing. Her Secretary of State will give evidence in a few weeks' time. Therefore, I do not want to take up—indeed, one could not—the whole of such a major Statement as she has just made.
In answer to a question, my noble friend mentioned the serious point about giving confidence to employees to save for retirement. Does she accept that such confidence can be given in the long term only if there is all-party agreement on the kind of pensions system we are putting in place? I was sorry that both the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, who I never suspect of these things, and the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, tended to make one or two party political points, which are not appropriate on this occasion if we are to achieve that cross-party agreement.
My noble friend talked about the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, seeming to argue that the taxpayer would have to subsidise employees and employers in pension schemes. I am sure that that was not what he intended, and I see him shaking his head in agreement. But how does my noble friend think one can give a total guarantee to any pension scheme, in order to give confidence to employees, without at least a backstop of a government guarantee of some kind?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, at the core of this matter is the fact that pensions are a voluntary partnership between employers and employees. It is for the trustees of the companies concerned, operating in future under the broad-brush regime to be established by the new kind of regulator, with the professional advice of actuaries and so on, to introduce into their schemes arrangements for the levy on employers and employees which will make the schemes financially viable according to scheme-specific funding.
Over and beyond that, we have told employers "If, however, your company"—and we all know which company we are referring to—"is fully solvent and walks away, as from today you may not walk away without making your liabilities fully paid up". We are also saying to employees, who may be worried that the company's pension fund may become insolvent, that

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we have rearranged the order of wind-up priorities, and that we have also introduced, through the pension protection fund, a levy, policed by the industry and provided by the industry, which should meet its obligations. We have also done other things to encourage security, from TUPE arrangements to cash equivalent transfer values for people who have been in schemes for a very short period of time, and so on.
What we are telling employees is "Because this is a voluntary arrangement into which you have entered with your employer, we cannot protect you against depredations resulting from what may happen to the stock market". We all know that if the stock market index were at 6,000, or something like that, this dimension of the debate would lack much of its urgency.
What we can do, as the Government, is to try to get the balance right. On the one hand, we can try to ensure that employers continue to provide such schemes. Also, through the proposals that I have outlined—the new kind of regulators, the enhanced role and training for trustees, the pension protection fund. the full pay-out requirements for solvent companies and the like—we can say "We will give you best security, provided employer and employee meet their obligations". If an employer fails to do so, we have these insurance networks in place.
I was asked whether the Government would act as standby. I have already addressed that point, and we may simply have to disagree on it.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, the Statement was about a complex package of protections, insurance and guarantees. The sums involved in totality must be very large. What estimate have the Government made of the total cost impact of this package on industry—employers and employees? The noble Baroness the Minister surely cannot be saying that it is all covered by a relaxation of the indexation allowance.
If estimates have been made, will the Government publish them? These are very big costs which will fall on industry, and they will have an impact on industry's ability to fund pension schemes in the future.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, broadly, the answer is in the annex—"Summary of funding and administrative savings and costs"—to the document. We estimate that the scheme costs may go up by between £300 million and £500 million and the savings will be of the same order. It is cost-neutral, because we are not just talking about LPI, which is only a proportion of it. We are also talking about significant administrative savings in Section 67, the arrangement of AVCs and quite a lot of the other "techie" aspects of pension handling which produce such a high cost to employers. Our best estimate, in good faith, is that this will be broadly cost neutral to industry as a whole.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing the Statement. It should be warmly welcomed, because it
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shows that the Government are making a real attempt to deal with what a number of us regard as a crisis in pension provision.
There are a number of matters that we need to discuss in much greater detail when we have had the opportunity to look at what might be called the small print of what the Government now propose.
If I understood my noble friend correctly, she said that the intention was to offer full TUPE protection to pensions in the event of mergers and take-overs. If that is the case, it should be very much welcomed, because the unions have been asking for that for a considerable time.
As for the pension protection fund, we should like the opportunity to debate it in more detail, because a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, have raised some very pertinent points about it. When there was some discussion of the Green Paper among those of us who are interested in pensions, it was suggested that a scheme providing some sort of insurance or backup cover for final salary pensions in the event of insolvency was likely to get off the ground or be welcomed only if the Government stood behind it. This is a problem that we shall have to look at when we have the opportunity to discuss the matter in more detail.
My noble friend did not say much about stakeholder pension provision. Employers have only to offer access; they are not bound to make any contribution. Probably for that reason, the take-up of stakeholder pensions has been rather disappointing. Can my noble friend tell us a little more about that?
Generally speaking, this indicates that the Government are making an attempt to deal with what is a very real problem in pension provision. As my noble friend knows, I am a great supporter of final salary schemes, which were one of the great successes of the last century. Because of those schemes, many retirees today are enjoying far more comfortable retirements than they might otherwise have done. Indeed, perhaps their retirements are more comfortable than some people may have in the future. Everything possible should be done to encourage employers to maintain final salary schemes, and even to put them into operation where they do not have them. They provide a means of ensuring that people enjoy a more comfortable retirement.
However, compulsory payments into employer schemes, which were suggested in one of the papers we discussed recently, would not be welcomed by scheme members unless they were sure that the investment they were making was sufficiently secure. That is why I welcome the steps being taken by the Government in that direction, but we need to discuss them in much more detail. I hope that we shall have the opportunity to do so.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her comments. Speaking as a former member of the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority, she has great experience in this field, in particular its regulatory

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aspects. I thank her especially for her comments about TUPE. Along with other noble Lords, my noble friend has called for the Government to stand behind the pension protection fund. I continue to put it to noble Lords that, aside from all the issues regarding taxpayers' responsibility, that would seem to increase the risk of moral hazard rather than to reduce it.
Her substantive point concerned stakeholders. Of course she is right to say that although a substantial and valuable number of people have taken up stakeholder schemes—some 1.25 million or thereabouts—it is obvious that for many companies the schemes have not been delivered; that is, they have become shelved schemes. Although I do not know whether the statistics I received a few months ago are still up to date, they revealed the difficulty that, in a stakeholder scheme where the employer did not make a contribution, take-up stood at only around 13 per cent. Where the employer contributed to such a scheme, the take-up was in the order of 83 per cent. The moral here is that it is not the stakeholder framework that is at issue; rather it is ensuring that employers within a voluntary partnership scheme recognise what I believe to be their moral obligation to meet the future pension needs of their employees.
I think that those were the major issues raised by my noble friend, but I am sure that we shall continue the debate on these matters.
Baroness Barker: My Lords, in the short time available this afternoon I have been able to read through the report. I cannot help but reflect that it may be a new Labour attempt to avert a general strike such as those taking place across the rest of the continent. How times have changed.
Does the noble Baroness agree that the main driver for pension reform is informed individuals within schemes? While many proposals in the paper aim towards that end—increasing the power of individuals to change—has she noted that the complexity of contracting-out regulations was cited in the Green Paper as a major barrier to individuals' understanding of the workings of their pension schemes? Can she illustrate further than the points made in the report the steps the Government envisage taking to simplify the contracting-out regulations and when we are likely to see those changes come about?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. I cannot give her the information she has asked for because we have not yet worked through a timetable of the proposals or, indeed, their full content.
The noble Baroness was absolutely right to point out that pensions, in particular for women, are workplace-driven and therefore information-driven. I am sure that she will welcome many of the proposals set out in the Green Paper to ensure that employers will take a much more proactive view to ensure that people are made aware of the virtues of the schemes.
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I do not want to take up the time of noble Lords, but I shall make a brief point. I was shocked when I encountered a company running a scheme which required a 2.5 per cent contribution from the employee and 12.5 per cent from the employer, and only 47 per cent of the women employees belonged to it. That is foolish by anyone's standards. So much work has to be done in this area.
I return to the particular point raised by the noble Baroness on contracting-out arrangements. We shall come back to her when our own thinking is clear on this front.
Lord Brookman: My Lords, when I woke this morning, I was feeling pretty chuffed. I read the Western Mail, in which the headline told of success for Cardiff steelworkers and for the union I worked for in representing their interests. The article went on to state that there was an argument for "natural justice" for the Allied Steel and Wire workers. That statement came from a senior departmental source.
This is a practical situation. Here we have a works that closed down some 12 months ago. It has been purchased by a Spanish steel manufacturer and will reopen later in the year. Will TUPE regulations pertain there? My noble friend stated at the Dispatch Box that this is a forward programme, which implies that any law would not be retrospective for those workers who unfortunately and tragically have lost their rights and pension rights over a number of years. What is the position for the people at Allied Steel and Wire, a company that is to be taken over, but which will have had a gap of over 12 months since it was closed?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I wish that I could help my noble friend, but I am afraid that I cannot do so. TUPE does not pertain in that situation because, as my noble friend rightly anticipated, these proposals are not retrospective. Aside from all else, the pension protection fund does not yet exist. So I am very sorry, but I cannot give my noble friend the assurance that he would like.
Lord Hayhoe: My Lords, are any public service pension schemes to be affected in any way by what is being proposed? If not, does that mean that the existing inflation-proofing for public sector schemes will continue and that the 2.5 per cent limit announced will not apply? In other words, will the whole of the public service pension provision be insulated from what is being announced today? Does not that make public service employment extremely attractive for young people?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, that is such a broad-brush question, it is not answerable in the form put to me by the noble Lord. I say that in part because we are dealing with some pension schemes that are funded, some that are pay-as-you-go, some—as is the case for the Civil Service—that are non-contributory but are paid for through adjusted salary arrangements, some of which are contributory, some

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run by government, some by local authorities and some by other public service boards. Given all the variables, in almost each of those schemes different rules will apply.
Earl Russell: My Lords, rather than gilding my noble friend's lily, may I ask the Minister to take a more wide-angled view and consider the change in the ratio between people's earning lives and their pensionable lives? Fifty years ago, when the school leaving age was 14, it was possible to have a 50-year earning life and a five-year pension life; that is, 10 years' worth of earnings for each year of pension. Today, people often work between the ages of 30 to 50 years, resulting in less than one year's earnings for each year of pension. Does she agree that the solutions to that change go far beyond pensions policy alone? Will she also bear in mind, when considering the difficulties encountered by the young in entering the labour market, the cruel costs of extending higher education to 50 per cent of the age group and the cost of legislation on age discrimination?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, is absolutely right to say that pensions policies formulated when women derived their pensions from their husbands and those husbands could expect a working life of at least 40 years at 40 hours a week in a fairly stable company, or often in the public sector, are no longer valid because that period is over. That is due in part to the extended education age, but also in part to the very good reason that people are living longer.
There is a bundle of responses for the noble Lord. In a more limited sense, our action plan addresses ways in which to encourage people through our age-positive programmes and the like to continue working after the age of 65—indeed, to remain in the labour market from 55 years old onwards. We are not saying that we want to raise the age at which the state pension is paid, but we are saying that one of the biggest problems is not that people are not working beyond the age of 65, but that those aged between 55 and 65 who could and should be in the labour market because they have something to offer and they want to work are too often dropping out. We are finding throughout Europe that people are dropping out of the labour market at a younger age while living longer. It is a longevity issue that we have to address.
In our proposals we are encouraging people very positively to work not only to the age of 65, but beyond, if they wish and need to. We are making generous increments in terms of the deferred state pension so that they can work. People will be able to run their occupational pensions alongside part-time working. A substantive point is that more generally we have a transitional generation. I accept that in future in a family there will be not just the expectation that two will depend on the pension of one, but crucially that we have to encourage all people, women as well as men, to carry their own pension into retirement. If they do so, as I hope they will, as a result we shall have pension prosperity for them as a family and also for
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them as individuals. Individuals and not families will have to carry pension responsibility over the longer term if we are going to achieve the prosperity that we want everyone to enjoy. I am sure that we all share the noble Lord's perception.

Business
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, perhaps I may remind your Lordships that speakers who are unable to stay to the end of the debate in four hours' time should remove their names from the list of speakers. I also point out to your Lordships that if every speaker continued for 60 seconds after "six" had registered on the clock, the Minister would have minus time in which to reply; he would be totally unable to reply to the debate within the four hours. I am sure that all speakers would wish to hear the Minister's reply.

Countryside
4.11 p.m.
Lord Palmerrose to call attention to the situation in the British countryside; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am most grateful to my fellow Cross-Bench Peers and especially 1.o my noble friend Lord Tenby for persuading them to allow me this Wednesday slot to call attention to the state of the British countryside. I know how much we are all looking forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend the Earl Marshal and looking at the list of speakers I feel certain that we are going to have a full and wide-ranging debate on all aspects of the British countryside.
I have to declare an interest as a farmer with a small acreage of forestry. I also open my home and gardens to the public which in turn generates a small amount of income into a very sparsely populated corner of the United Kingdom. I also remind your Lordships I hat I am president of the British Association of Biofuels and Oils.
In September last year over 407,000 people, at great inconvenience and cost to themselves, joined the countryside march through the streets of London to try to persuade the Government to listen to their worries and concerns about rural Britain. It was the biggest civil liberties protest in British history and the vast majority of those taking part were non-political. When non-political people feel that those ruling them are out of touch, that is when politicians have to start worrying. To quote the Sun on September 23rd:
'The countryside marchers were not `toffs'—they were real people, hard-working people, genuine people".
The powerhouse of the countryside has to be a healthy, sustainable and profitable agricultural industry. This is why root and branch reform of the CAP is so urgently needed and why the current MTR review must deliver, as it is a constant worry to all of us engaged in agriculture. What one must not forget is that farmers are a complete hostage to so many factors

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outside their control. They are out in all weathers and they cannot farm from nine-to-five, whether they are arable, livestock or dairy farmers. The right weather at the right time is all-important to yields and to quality.
It is impossible to prepare accurate budgets for agricultural products without knowing what costs are to grow, harvest, dry and, more importantly, what at the end of the day they will be worth. No other business has to operate under such uncertain conditions. It discourages investment, especially bearing in mind the long turn-around period between investment and yield in the farming world. To change or expand an agricultural enterprise takes careful long-term planning. When I used to make biscuits, we could produce a new product and market it within weeks. In farming, new products can take years to introduce.
I quote some statistics which I hope will emphasise the real and perilous plight of the farming community. In 1982 I received £114 per tonne for my wheat; last year, 20 years later, the gross figure I received was £62—a drop of 52 per cent. The farm gate price of malting barley has dropped 38 per cent and yet the price of a nip has increased by 116 per cent in the past 15 years. Wages in the agricultural sector have risen by 179 per cent while the basic hours worked have decreased by 3 per cent.
I am aware of the introduction of the IACS payments, but in reality they fall very far short of giving farmers a decent return. Pre-IACS, my cereal income 20 years ago was £314,000 and last year my cereal income along with my IACS payment was £176,000, which is a drop in income of £182 per acre. Milk is perhaps the only bright star on the horizon. The price paid to the producer has increased by 2.6 per cent over the past 20 years. Yet most producers are losing two pence per litre. To think that bottled water is more expensive than milk is a classic example of the mess, muddle and confusion that we are in.
I turn to potatoes. Last year the current producer's price of top quality white potatoes was £60 per tonne. That is £13 per tonne less than it was two years ago. And how much does that tonne cost to produce? £73 per tonne. Yet those same potatoes were retailing at just under £1,000 per tonne. Farmers cannot and will not be allowed by the banks to struggle on in such a crazy financial climate. Borrowings by the agriculture industry currently stand at £3 billion, compared with £600 million 30 years ago.
GM crops offer enormous advantages but there are still serious public concerns about their safety. The Government are facing a major challenge over the public debate. I believe that the Government must ensure we have a system in place whereby the location of GM crops is strictly registered, interested parties are notified well in advance of planting and the media and public have full access to information. This would allay many of the concerns felt about GM crops and lead to a more rational debate about their potential benefits, which could be considerable.
There is, however, good news. One solution to many of the problems faced in the British countryside would be overcome by the implementation of EC Directive
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1003/30/EC. This requires member states to set targets for biofuel use. The guideline is 2 per cent by December 2005; 5.75 per cent by 2010. If those targets were met in the UK, it would give a powerful boost to the rural economy. It would also help the Government meet their own targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases and cutting local air pollution. Two per cent of UK road fuel usage is about 750,000 tonnes. This could easily come from 400,000 to 500,000 hectares, a figure not dissimilar to the amount of land lying idle in the UK under set aside.
Since ARBRE has gone into liquidation, the Government must accept biomass is neither a financially nor environmentally viable alternative. However, unless the Chancellor changes his present stance there is no chance whatever of that target being achieved. Again I ask: why does all my oilseed rape go from Scotland to Austria and Germany and get turned into biodiesel? This country is being left behind—a tragic wasted opportunity.
I turn now to forestry. Britain uses about 50 million cubic metres of timber, paper, boards and other wood products each year. Around 85 per cent of this has to be imported at a cost of about £8 billion, our fourth largest single import commodity. In 1992 the total returns of forestry producers were somewhere in the region of 4.4 per cent; by 1996 it had dropped into the red at minus 3 per cent; and in the last year for which statistics were available that minus figure had almost doubled. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide encouragement for all commercial forestry producers.
Many countryside dwellers have been encouraged to diversify into tourism. Hard-working farmers' wives offer bed and breakfast the length and breadth of Britain. However, for many it is not a viable alternative and their plight was highlighted during the foot and mouth crisis. So often these tiny businesses are strangled in their infancy by red tape bureaucracy and curious tax anomalies. For instance, income from holiday cottages is taxed separately— as are the profits—while the farmer, however, is facing huge losses on his mainline farming business. Not only does this fly in the face of government pleas for farm diversification; it is simply unjust. The Government must encourage small rural businesses to do all they can, not stifle them in infancy.
In 2002 tourism in the United Kingdom was worth £76 billion and employed 7 per cent of the working population. It is a growing industry which is good for Britain, its people and the countryside. Tourism needs every possible encouragement to continue playing a growing role in our national prosperity. Yesterday's royal visits to the four corners of the United Kingdom to promote tourism were extremely well received, as widely reported in the press today.
I turn to crime, which appears to be the one area flourishing in the countryside. Some of your Lordships may have seen an article which my brother recently wrote in the Spectator. It was entitled, "We do not do burglary". His motor-bike was stolen. A passer-by had seen it being stolen and went immediately to the

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nearest police station where he discovered from the officer on duty that they were not interested. I fear that this scenario is repeated throughout the countryside. In remote rural valleys a policeman is seen only once every six months; perhaps three miles away they are busy stopping people for speeding. In rural areas a driving licence is a vital ingredient to everyday life. I feel I must ask whether police rural priorities are correctly focused.
Many of us living in the countryside are concerned about transport. While my local authority subsidises the local bus company, it is disheartening that almost every time I see a bus it is empty Would not a subsidised taxi service based on the successful Swedish model be worth considering? It would be particularly welcomed by the elderly and would be far more cost effective, particularly where visits to hospitals, the doctor or dentist are involved.
There have been 194 closures of rural post offices in the past year alone. To many this is the loss of a vital lifeline, a factor I hope the Government will take on board.
Whether you own a postage stamp size area of ground or 50,000 acres, in a just society the principle of ownership should he the same. Our rural estates underpin the rural economy and preserve the landscape of our countryside. They are not the preserve of a vested elite but provide a framework for rural diversity in terms of services and jobs. We often read in the press of some of the great estates having to sell pictures or other assets to keep the infrastructure of their estates intact. Many of us believe that this infrastructure is vitally important to British rural life.
People are the countryside's most vital ingredient. I took on 17 people when I started farming 25 years ago; I am now farming a bigger acreage with only four. Our family has always paid the council tax for our workers and it is interesting to note that 15 years ago 50 tonnes of barley covered the bill. Today it takes 107 tonnes.
In 1984 there were nearly 7 million hectares under the plough. Last year that figure was well below 6 million. I am aware of the constant need for housing, particularly in the South East, and I hope that the Government will do all they can to encourage further development on brownfield sites. No two areas of the United Kingdom are the same, as revealed in a recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report. It found that alongside Westminster and Islington, North Devon and Purbeck were among the least affordable areas in England. Knowing what people are able to charge for rented accommodation in the south makes me green with envy. I am lucky to get £45 a week for a two-bedroom cottage.
If a ban on hunting with hounds becomes law, three things will happen. First, the life of not one single fox will be preserved—the situation in Scotland is proof of that. It must not be forgotten that foxes are vermin and have to be controlled. Secondly, many thousands of rural jobs will he lost. Thirdly, the rural environment, the countryside that so many love, will not be conserved in the way it is today. Surely the Government have more important matters on which
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to legislate or, indeed, to afford parliamentary time. After the countryside march the Daily Star editorial stated,
"Let's have a bill to ban banning".
The noble Lord, Lord Haskins, has proposed a reorganisation of "delivery" agencies in the countryside distinguishing between programme planning, policy and delivery. That could be a massive change for existing agencies such as Defra. English Nature and the Countryside Agency. The challenge for the Government is to demonstrate how the environment will retain its importance at a local level.
The implementation of the water framework directive will also be a challenge to the Government. If we are to implement the requirements of the WFD we will have to reform the way we use the land. Equally, this will have an influence on agricultural planning and transport policy. How do the Government intend to implement this?
I have not time to mention so many other important aspects of the countryside such as schools, hospitals, churches and broadband. The British countryside is in dire straits. It needs help and encouragement now before it is too late.
We must develop a long-term strategy—not one that will simply paper over the cracks. It must involve landowners, farmers, growers, the entire food industry, all government agencies and the Government so that British agriculture and the British countryside can flourish once again. Our great nation surely deserves nothing less.
The Prime Minister has said that he wants to govern for the whole nation. I believe him and I hope that the Minister will give us that reassurance today. I beg to move for Papers.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Clark of Windermere: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for choosing this debate and for introducing it in the way that he did. I suspect that all noble Lords in the Chamber have one thing in common; namely, our love and appreciation of, and concern for, the British countryside.
I was born, brought up, studied, worked and now live in the countryside. I declare an interest as chair of the Forestry Commission. That allows me the opportunity to travel the length and breadth of Great Britain talking to people and discussing the undoubted problems of the countryside.
In debating the countryside, my greatest concern relates to those who seek to distinguish and divide the town from the country. In a small island we are very much interdependent on each other. In my native Cumbria, I am conscious that when we are sick we may go to Carlisle or to Kendal, but if we are very sick we are taken to Newcastle or Manchester. The visitor who walks around hills one day may well be the theatre nurse at Christie Hospital the next day. We should never forget our interdependence on each other.
The same problems affect the citizens whether they live in the town or the country; they are simply of a different dimension. If you are sick, you are sick in the

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country as well as the town. If you are unemployed you have the same problems, but of a different dimension, whether in a city or a rural area. If we become too divisive, we do not serve the purpose that we seek: to ensure that our countryside is vibrant; that it has economic confidence; and that we can see a way forward in the future.
The noble Lord stated this point clearly. We all agree that agriculture is in a state of deep turmoil. He quoted the figures. I know that they are the right figures. We pour £3 billion into British agriculture every year. Yet we have farmers living on a knife edge who have meagre returns. The figure I have used was that under the CAP only £1 in £3 got through to farmers. The rest was used in export restitution and support for middle men. Little money got through to the producers of our food, or the people who look after our countryside. I hope that through the mid-term review, to which the noble Lord referred, we shall have a fundamental change.
We should not short-sell those who live in the countryside. The educational standards of our young people in rural areas are higher than in urban areas. Equally, economic activity in the rural areas, difficult though it may seem to be, is higher than in the urban areas and is increasing at a faster rate.
If we are seeing a reorganisation of agriculture—as, clearly, we are—we need another driver for the rural economy. In many areas that may well be IT. But, as the noble Lord suggested, it is certainly tourism. I commend his activity in this field. Perhaps I may give a couple of examples from my sphere of forestry. We seek to apply lateral thinking in the countryside which will provide an economic opportunity for regeneration. The noble Lord made the point that timber prices in Britain are at their lowest ever in real terms. It is hardly worth while chopping down trees. That applies to state forestry as well as to private forestry. We have sought to look at other ways of utilising estate. Clearly, forestry is about more than trees: it is also about the spaces between the trees. We need to think laterally.
I cite the classic example. With a stroke of luck and some good planning, we have ospreys in my native county of Cumbria. We put flat tops on trees. The ospreys came back. Last year, 110,000 people came to see the ospreys. We estimate that with capital spending that brought £2 million into the local economy. Very little went to the Forestry Commission because all we charge for is the odd car. But all the rest of the money has gone into the local economy. Equally, in north Wales, at Coed y Brenin, we spent about £100,000 putting in cycle paths. Two years later, the consultants estimated that that had brought £4 million into the local economy.
We must start thinking laterally. If we do, we can start another way of economically regenerating the countryside.
4.36 p.m.
Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for initiating the debate and for putting the case so brilliantly for the countryside. I, too, declare an interest as a farmer and a member of numerous organisations connected with the countryside.
It is a coincidence that this debate occurs while on the Continent the mid-term review of the CAP is being discussed. I am filled with concern that inevitably farming, which is already depressed, will be worse off after those deliberations than it is now. With the notable exception of our noble friend Lord Whitty who is always present and in good humour, Ministers disappoint me by showing so little enthusiasm for farming and rural life. They seem to wish that problems would go away. I fear that they will get worse and worse.
I followed yesterday's debate with increasing worry about the future. Cannot everyone involved see that the retention of the beauty of our landscape, the habitat, wildlife and food production depends on profitable farming? Without that, we shall have run-down buildings, derelict land and abandoned rural communities. I have seen all that in the US. But we, too, are on the same slope. We see abandoned rural schools, abandoned churches, many abandoned post offices and shops, and communities following suit.
Council tax in rural areas is bearing highly and heavily on the population. In Scotland, those who follow the Scottish press will know that the water industry is out of control. Water charges have increased between 25 per cent and 500 per cent. Much of that bears heavily on the farming industry and rural industries. It is all desperately serious. But at the same time the Government are supporting policies which will reduce farm income. Decoupling and cross-compliance will have that effect. Can anyone present who has studied the mid-term CAP and read the report of the noble Lord, Lord Selborne, explain how incomes will be retained if grants are taken from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2? Any major reform of the CAP will mean less income for agriculture.
How can the average farmer, who is playing his part in enhancing the environment, obtain a reasonable income from the CAP proposals. Modulation is already biting, but where is the money taken from farmers going into the environment? I have yet to see it. Most importantly, it is essential that grants and agricultural support are attached to the land in future, and not to the farmers; otherwise we shall have immense problems in buying and selling land.
It is interesting that while we say that we must do all this because of the enlargement of the Community and the World Trade Organisation, the US, which is vociferous about world trade, has given huge new grants to farming in America.
Who is really looking after the countryside in the United Kingdom? I hoped that the Countryside Agency would take a much more prominent position on behalf of the agricultural industry. It must give much more leadership. It seems far too tied up with

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rights of way and the right to roam and its budget has been swallowed up arranging maps and answering complaints and appeals. The Minister must free the agency from being a government department and allow it to be the agency it was set up to be.
It is disappointing that in The State of the Countryside 2020, published not long ago, there was no word about the value of country sports to the countryside and to tourism. Will the Minister affirm to the House what the Prime Minister has said elsewhere—that shooting and fishing have nothing to worry about from a Labour government in future?
I am concerned about planning, as wind farms go up everywhere and there are radio masts on the top of every hill. The Government seem to be turning over every appeal and giving approval for these unsightly monstrosities.
As the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, so rightly said, the Minister should give us some long-term ideas for the future. At the moment, we are sunk in jargon from the market such as modulation, de-coupling, cost compliance and degressivity. That is double Dutch to the average farmer. It is high time the Government brought together all the reports done by distinguished people in the past year or two. A long-term view should be drawn from those reports of where we ought to go in practical terms. That is what farmers want to know.
4.42 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for introducing the subject. I shall refer to other subjects that affect the rural community.
Will the Minister give us some assurance that the vast sums of money being spent and, I believe, partly wasted on the mainline railway are not at the expense of the peripheral railway? I hope that we shall not see the lines that are less used being sacrificed for the sake of the West Coast Main Line.
Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, I do see people on rural buses. The cost inflation indicators for the bus industry are quite different from those for ordinary cost inflation. Costs are going up very quickly—wage and insurance costs particularly—as the no-win-no-fee culture takes hold. The effect of the working time directive on the bus industry will be huge. Should not subsidies be tied to some new inflation indicator? Oxfordshire, my own county, is offering something over 1 per cent when inflation is running at something like 10 per cent in the industry. In addition, the rural bus grant has been woefully misdirected; it is being spent on what I would call "no hope" services, when the true marginal services are dropping out of the net for lack of support.
I turn to housing. Although it may be possible to rent a house for £45 a week in the area where the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, lives, that would be a laughable figure in Oxfordshire. A special effort is needed to house the indigenous population of rural areas. Parish councils should be allowed to specially designate areas for housing for indigenous people, and those houses should be protected from the right-to-buy legislation.
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In that way, permanent housing in the countryside would remain available for countryside people, not retired or even practising accountants.
The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, also referred to the issue of law and order. I have two issues to put to the Minister. First, hare coursing is a particularly troublesome issue—a very rural issue—as are unlicensed raves. Could the law be updated so that, instead of seizing equipment and dogs, the police are empowered to seize the vehicles of people who care nothing for the law and take up very large amounts of police time, which is then unfortunately not spent on catching motorists? Those people believe themselves to be above the law.
Secondly, the issue of access is important. I refer not to the access talked about under the right to roam but access to national trails and bridleways, which are consistently being ruined in many parts of rural England by the activities of people using quad bikes, motorcycles and four-wheel-drive vehicles. As with heavy lorries using country roads, it is not good enough to rely on the effectiveness of traffic orders. They are expensive for county councils to promote and are thoroughly ineffective and slow, they require huge police resources in order to prosecute and the fines are derisory. We need a proper prohibition of certain types of vehicles in certain places, and the presence of such a vehicle, once noted, should be sufficient ground for proper prosecution.
Lastly, I refer to road safety. My noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market referred to this matter in Committee on the Railways and Transport Safety Bill last week. About half the casualties on our roads happen in rural areas; excessive speed in rural areas is no doubt a large factor, coupled with the fact that the roads are not very well maintained. Will the Minister say something about the review of the road hierarchy that is being undertaken, and when we can expect to see some results?
4.48 p.m.
The Duke of Norfolk: My Lords, I must start by saying how honoured and humbled I am to be making my maiden speech. I admit to a touch of nervousness, but I cannot tell your Lordships what a relief it is to enter this House today walking forwards not backwards.
I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lord Palmer for introducing this important subject. I must declare an interest, as I farm in West Sussex and own moorland in North Yorkshire.
In the Countryside Agency's latest annual report, a recent survey shows that over 90 per cent of people living in England consider it important to keep the English countryside the way it is now. For those of us who love and cherish our British countryside, that is heartening news indeed. The problem is that beneath the surface the countryside is suffering, and farming in particular is in real crisis.
Farming is no longer the largest industry in the countryside, as it contributes only £7 billion to the national economy as against rural tourism, which

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contributes at least £12 billion. Farmers manage over 75 per cent of the land area of the UK, and they are the linchpin of the tourist industry. Last year, the average UK farmer earned just £11,000 for a 50-hour week; that figure has been in decline for the past six years. In 2002, another 18,000 farmers and farmworkers lost their jobs, bringing total job losses since 1996 to more than 65,000. Many UK farmers are now among the poorest in Europe, and they need our continued assistance to survive.
The majority of farmers accept that global restructuring is taking place in their industry and that they must embrace change. They are willing to diversify whenever possible and, increasingly, they are entering into agri-environment schemes. They acknowledge their role as managers of the countryside, but at the same time they must be able to make a living out of food production if they are to have a future in the long term.
One of the main problems facing the farming industry is over-regulation, and every farmer I speak to believes that we are now more regulated in this country than anywhere else in Europe. Bureaucrats in Brussels dream up new regulations and then hand them down to our civil servants in Whitehall, who are expert at re-drafting them, and often adding to them, so that they are as water-tight as possible for the UK. There is a commendable quality in the British nature that then makes us abide by new regulation to the letter, in a way that does not seem to happen in the rest of Europe.
Our dairy farmers, for instance, have complied with the milk quota regulations from the moment they were introduced in 1984. In Italy, they are still arguing about what the base year level should be 19 years on, and in practice they have avoided milk quotas.
In this country the IACS form which our arable farmers have to fill in runs to 13 pages. In Ireland, it runs to two. In the livestock sector our regulatory controls are now so severe that it is estimated that compliance costs our farmers 30 per cent more than in other parts of the world. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that our home market is flooded with beef from South America and Ireland, and with lamb from New Zealand.
A recent example of even more red tape from Brussels is the Animal By-Products Regulation, which, from 1st May, requires all farmers to dispose of their dead animals by taking them to a licensed incinerator or rendering plant. For a sheep farmer in the Yorkshire Dales who loses some of his stock on the open moorland, very often half a mile or more from the nearest road, that is going to be extremely difficult to comply with. Is the scientific evidence behind this latest regulation really robust? Would it not have been just as beneficial simply to regulate that all carcasses buried on a farm must not pollute a water course? Has anyone done an estimate of the extra pollution to the environment of all these farm animal carcass movements and the effects of incinerating them? What about the dead carcasses on our roads? Are councils going to pick them up? What about dead pets?
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If farming in this country is to have a future, we must reduce unnecessary red tape instead of constantly adding to it. We must remove regulation where the benefit is disproportionate to the costs of implementing it. We must get away from the current system of central government trying to micro-manage the farming industry from Whitehall, gold-plating everything that comes out of Brussels. We must find new ways of letting the farming industry regulate itself through farmer assurance schemes, allowing it to produce good-quality food safely, to comply with the high standards demanded by supermarkets and other retail outlets. Somehow we must give the farming industry back to itself and get central government out of it.
There are many examples in the world where deregulation in an industry has been made to work very successfully. In New Zealand, in 1984, the government decided to deregulate the trucking, shipping and airline industries, with remarkable results. They moved the bias of their transport safety regulations from one of operator compliance to operator accountability. Instead of central government writing the safety rules, and then ensuring that they were being complied with, they made the industry accountable for safety outcomes. The result was that the number of Ministry of Transport regulators in New Zealand was reduced from 4,500 employees to just 57. Safety in the transport industry improved across the board, and prices either stabilised or fell as the industry discovered innovation.
Deregulating the UK farming industry will not be easy, and it will take time; but somehow we must start this process. The British countryside is one of our national treasures, and farming is its backbone. I believe that Her Majesty's Government must ensure that farming has a future in this country.
4.54 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, it is a great privilege and pleasure to congratulate the noble Duke the Earl Marshal on his excellent maiden speech. It was a valuable, expert, well-directed and robust contribution to this important debate.
Your Lordships will all have reasons to remember with great gratitude the immense contribution to this House and to the nation made by the noble Duke's father. It is good to be able to welcome the noble Duke as an active Member of this House. We look forward with enthusiasm to his future contributions to our debates. On a personal note, perhaps I may say what happy childhood memories I have of visits to Arundel—to that wonderful cricket ground and that beautiful part of West Sussex farmed by the noble Duke.
I, too, must declare an interest as bishop of the most rural diocese in England. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for securing this debate, for enabling us to range over the enormous canvas of rural life in Britain, and for his outstanding speech in introducing the debate.

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I have been asked to speak specifically about the role of the Church in rural areas. I gladly do so-based on more than 30 years of hands-on rural experience. But, first, perhaps I may make three brief points about farming.
Our thoughts and prayers are with those negotiating on our behalf in Luxembourg—today, tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night, or however long it may take—to sort out the outstanding current issues of CAP reform. I hope that they will support Commissioner Fischler with real determination—that they will achieve far-reaching reform; full decoupling; a much strengthened second pillar; and well-directed environmental and rural infrastructure proposals that will create a proper living for farmers. That modulation money must come back into farmers' pockets.
I want to refer, secondly, to the recommendation by the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, for a significant transfer of rural funding to rural development agencies. I hope that the Minister will think long and hard about that. We do not need further upheaval and change. We need the continuing reform and improvement of Defra and of the Countryside Agency. Many people in rural England doubt whether RDAs are the right bodies to be making decisions about financial support.
Thirdly. and rather more cheerfully, I want to offer a warm welcome to the recommendations of the Tenancy Reform Industry Group. They will bring real hope and help to beleaguered tenant farmers. The Minister has said that he believes that they are in the right ballpark. I hope that the Government will implement them swiftly.
I turn to the role of the Church. The parish church has been at the heart of rural communities for 1,000 years—for longer in many cases. Huge social change, social mobility and social fragmentation have radically altered the character of rural community life. But it remains true to say that the Church has a central role in rural communities—ranging in population from hamlets of less than 100 people who still have their own parish church to market towns of several thousand.
Last Sunday, I had two wonderfully encouraging experiences which proved how true it is that the Church is at the heart of community. The first was in a small market town. The church was full—there were 500 people of all ages from all walks of life—for a civic service to welcome the new mayor and to set the tone to his mayoral year. There were children, young people, representatives of business, fanning, the professions and the arts, music of various kinds and morris dancers. There was participation by Christians of five different traditions. There was an air of unity, purpose and commitment which was inspiring. On the same day, in the evening, I was in a very remote church where we celebrated the centenary of the church's rebuilding. The population of that hamlet is 70. There were 65 people in church—not all of them, I have to admit, from the hamlet itself, but wanting to come
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together to give thanks, to re-commit themselves, with God's help, to being a good, outward-looking, mutually supportive community.
Mutual support is critical. The foot and mouth outbreak showed what a vital role the Church had in supporting farmers and their families under very great stress. It was extremely well done and greatly valued. But many deep anxieties remain in rural life. The critical level of product prices for farmers has been pointed out. How will decoupling affect farmers in unsupported areas of agriculture?
Farm borrowing is at record levels. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, referred to a figure £3 billion. The Bank of England figures I have indicate that it is £7.9 billion—6 per cent up on last year. Social exclusion is a real problem in the deep country where struggling family farmers often resent the arrival next door of a well-heeled hobby farmer who brings city money and a very different lifestyle. The Church has a vital role in pastoral care for everyone, and in encouraging mutual understanding.
I am not simply talking about the Church of England. In many rural areas, the Anglican parish church may be the only building but its congregation will include Roman Catholics and Free Church people who are more than welcome, and many rural churches incorporate in their worship elements from traditions other than the Church of England.
However, we need—we desperately need—more realistic help from society at large towards the maintenance of our historic built heritage. The Church of England is the least well-supported Church in Europe from that point of view. Our congregations have gladly maintained their historic buildings for many centuries but the strain is acute and radical change is needed. Communities are much more important than buildings but the buildings matter and are a precious inheritance and a national treasure. More public recognition and financial help are essential if the Church's contribution to rural life is to continue to be strengthened and to grow, freed from what can be a preoccupying concern with maintenance. We would rather be in the business of mission and community building.
5 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, along with every other noble Lord who is taking part in this debate. Without entering upon the slippery slope of everyone congratulating the maiden speaker—that is much deplored in your Lordships' House—I must say how much I welcome the arrival in the House of another Baron Beaumont. In my rather prejudiced view, we cannot have too many Baron Beaumonts in this House. The arrival of the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, as Baron Beaumont is more than welcome.
Any serious discussion of the countryside is about agriculture. We have now had the opportunity to talk about it on two separate days in the past three days. I take it that few of us want to see a countryside of theme parks and second homes.

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The Green Party is not a party of yokels, in spite of its name. Indeed, one of my problems as its spokesman for agriculture is finding enough people with agricultural knowledge. However, we care passionately about the countryside. Today, I received an e-mail from a very rural part of Derbyshire—from a Conservative constituency—where a rather distinguished gentleman wishes to start a branch of the Green Party, having discovered that most of the people in his village voted Labour in the past but no longer wish to do so.
The real bugbear to the whole question of agriculture is free trade. Free trade is a con trick imposed by politicians who want to buy urban votes for cheap food at the expense of agricultural incomes and the environment. It has succeeded as a con trick. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, said on Tuesday, perhaps food is so cheap now that we cannot be bothered to think about the problems it causes. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, said in the same debate that the objectives of the CAP are to provide a decent living for those in the country and food security but it fails to do either.
We appear to have abandoned the idea of food security. That is a grave error. Many noble Lords, like me, remember when that mattered. Looking around the world today, I am far from betting heavily on its not being needed again. If we have protection for agriculture, we could have a decent, populous, environmentally secure countryside. We would also have, I admit, more expensive food, but that expense would have preserved the British countryside. Against that, we will be told that we would be harming the poor. Governments always use the fact that they refuse to introduce policies to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor to avoid doing other desirable things. They go on to say that what I am suggesting would hurt the third world. I categorically deny that. It is not true; if I had sufficient time, which I have not, I could prove that.
Meanwhile, once again, I urge a real determination to tackle the World Trade Organisation. Until then, I look forward with gloom to the continuing decline of the countryside because I do not believe that the suggestions that will be and have been made in your Lordships' House today will really do much good at all. We need a revival of agriculture. The suggestions being made about the improvement of the countryside do not go far enough to do anything serious about that.
5.5 p.m.
Lord Haskins: My Lords, I must declare an interest as the son of a farmer, as a retired farmer and as the father of two farmers: one in Yorkshire and one in County Wicklow. Both of them, I am rather hesitant to say, are making a profit, and both of them are rather keen to expand their businesses.
I have spent much of the past two years wandering around the British and European countryside, examining how we recovered from foot and mouth
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disease, how European farming can deal with CAP reform and how that great department, DEFRA, supplies its customers. My reflection is that, generally, the countryside is adapting much better than it thinks to rapid changes in farming, to the growing environmental agenda and to the overall challenges of a dynamic modern society.
The British countryside is much more economically diverse and successful than it is prepared to admit. Most farms—more than half—now benefit substantially from non-farming income. Wives and children, better educated than their parents, find alternative jobs in nearby towns. Many of today's liberated farmers' wives prefer to do another job, rather than be stuck alongside their husbands at the back end of a cow for all their lives.
Rural tourism is booming. The "half-term, four-day break" phenomenon is doing wonders for tourism in the countryside. Farm buildings are being increasingly adapted for other business purposes, despite the planners. The Yorkshire farmer's wife who has built a big business flogging knickers on the Internet is not on her own. All of those initiatives are welcome and need to be encouraged. The planners and romantic dinosaurs must not unnecessarily resist progress.
Farming itself is now recovering well after several difficult years. The doomsters who forecast that foot and mouth disease would be a death blow have been proven totally wrong. The massive—probably excessive—compensation that was handed out by the Government clearly helped, as did the strength of livestock prices, which was a consequence of the disease.
Farm prices have recovered substantially in most sections, thanks to the weaker pound against the euro and stronger global prices, although the strong euro against the dollar is creating problems. The dairy industry is also experiencing its own problems. Lower interest rates have helped a heavily borrowed industry. British farming has greatly improved its competitiveness. At last, British farmers are learning to co-operate with each other. They are joining together to strengthen their buying power and making much better use of their assets through sharing and contracting. They are also managing their businesses better. There is more intelligent and more sparing use of chemicals and pesticides. They are concentrating on profit rather than yield; learning that good animal welfare is also good business; and managing bigger herds and more hectares in a responsible way.
When British wheat—Yorkshire wheat—is exported to New York and New South Wales, as happened last winter, one realises how much more competitive many British farmers have now become. Labour shortage is one of the greatest problems facing the industry if one is a dairy person, or growing fruit and vegetables, or trying to pick flowers. Finally, land prices remain strong, enabling those farmers who want to retire in comfort, to make selective disposals for development and to borrow with confidence. However, that does not of course apply to tenant farmers.

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British farmers, however, like the rest of British industry, will benefit from the stability of participation in the European single currency. I believe that the Chancellor's positive Statement on that matter in another place on Monday will take us some way closer to that aspiration.
I have one final farming point. The capacity to grow niche markets, such as organic and local food markets, is limited. When, as in the case of organic milk, supply runs ahead of demand, the consequences are disastrous for those involved.
The non-farming rural society continues to thrive. There are rising numbers of urban commuters, who admittedly create problems for others. There has been the remarkable expansion of rural small businesses benefiting from better access to markets through the Web and also from the increasing number of visitors to the countryside.
Rural public services are in my view also exaggerated. Why are the rural buses so empty? It is because over 90 per cent of the rural population owns cars and most of the rest have obliging car-owning neighbours. Why are rural shops closing down? That is because people in the countryside will not use them. They rather like the once-weekly visit to the nearby town and the supermarket. Why are local pubs in decline? The reason is that drink/drive laws rightly stop people in an inebriated state from driving to and from them.
My impression is that there are three real problems in the countryside: the lack of affordable housing for young people, which is also an urban problem; the lack of access to entertainment for rural teenagers; and people in remote areas—in what the French call "rural rural areas"—continue to experience problems of social and economic isolation as in the past.
The Countryside Alliance is, I am afraid, something of a myth. The countryside is as divided as the towns are about hunting; environmentalists clash with farmers; pragmatic environmentalists argue with the evangelists; organic and conventional farmers have their differences; competitive and hobby farmers are at odds with each other; and small farmers resent their larger neighbours. Cowboys and farmers—since the days of Oklahoma—have never got on. There is endless tension between the full-time countryside folk and the commuters and second-homers.
I say a final word about the Defra review. The Government have created a new department with a radically different and much more complicated remit. It has to apply an agricultural policy in which it itself does not believe; to cope with an avalanche of controversial environmental regulations; to anticipate radical changes in agro-environmental policies; and to handle a remit for rural affairs without really defining what "rural" means.
My priorities in this review are: first, to improve accountability; to draw clear lines between policy making and delivery. Secondly, as much as possible to devolve delivery to the regions; to get away from top down. Thirdly, to get ready for a huge increase in the
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environmental agenda. Finally, to provide a better service to the countryside and better value to the taxpayers.
5.12 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, as a farmer I take a somewhat dispassionate view of the countryside. In my boyhood agriculture was recovering from the deep depression of the 1920s and the 1930s. In those days there was a great deal of derelict land. It may not have looked very beautiful but the birds, the bees and the butterflies were having a wonderful time. Today, we are again—despite the noble Lord, Lord Haskins—seeing a period with agriculture descending into depression.
Set-aside is planned dereliction. I am bound to say that, by observation, rotational set-aside at any rate is not as green as derelict land. In my youth, when I was studying agriculture, the Rothamstead Research Station—I am not sure whether that has survived all the changes in agricultural research and education in the intervening 50 years—used to have a plot of land which it had deliberately neglected for more than 100 years. It finished up as oak forest. If allowed, nature will take care of itself without too much help from us.
During the in-between period, for the first 30 years when policy was dominated by the need for the security of food supply and for the past 20 years, through advances in communications, we have seen the need for the drive of government policy. As an agricultural industry, we now find ourselves in the position perhaps of a drug addict: we wish we could work without the support of government. The Government are addicted to the same problem and wish they could stop supporting the agricultural industry.
We have a community of interest but, in a world where support for the agricultural community is general and the environment is so artificial, in fact we cannot escape from it and have to work within those dreadful parameters.
Agriculture and the countryside are indistinguishable. Strictly, we should not confine our remarks to agriculture today. The problem, however, is the same as that which we faced in the 1930s. That is, there is now insufficient income in the agricultural community to support the countryside in the way we wish to see it kept—in the rather beautiful state in which it is.
Of course the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, has a point when he talks about the countryside and includes within it all the small rural communities, which are, generally speaking, quite dynamic and include a great deal of small business and so on. However, during the foot and mouth outbreak we saw how quickly they can become damaged when agriculture goes into crisis. That outbreak damaged hugely the agricultural industry, but it damaged quite remarkably the economy of the whole country because of the damage done to all the peripheral industries to which our countryside relates.

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The real question we need to ask ourselves today is: if we cannot rely on agriculture as we know it at present to maintain the country, can we find additional income streams to the rural environment? Tourism is all very well, but there is a limit to the number of bed and breakfasts one can put in the countryside. Letting surplus agricultural cottages is all very well, but one cannot get permission to build any more. So that is also limited.
The fact is that while tourism brings a great deal of income into the rural community, it does not actually benefit agriculture on which it depends. I am bound to say that the tourist industry would be very reluctant to start to take responsibility for maintenance of the countryside.
The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, has always been a strong and powerful advocate of biofuels, and particularly bio-diesel. He is right in principle but I have always argued that he is wrong in detail. The brutal fact is that plants are very inefficient converters of the sun's energy. If we are serious about producing green energy from the countryside—and I think we should be, in view of all the concern about global warming—then why not opt for photo-electrics? From the same area of ground we could produce at least 10, possibly 15, times as much energy. With current technical developments one could probably further increase that figure. That green energy would come from nothing.
However, for that to happen one would need a very different approach to the planning regime because one would effectively be putting land to industrial use. That is one method. Unlike my noble friend Lord Monro of Langholm, I do not think that wind farms are impossible. This is another possible source of income that could be brought to rural areas. I have to inform my noble friend that there is a wind farm within 50 miles of my home that is a tourist attraction. Certainly, the large wind farms that exist in parts of mainland Europe are not that unattractive.
We have to look for these additional ways to make use of the countryside. If that means a change in the planning regime and a changed psychological approach to the way we view the countryside, so be it; but society is moving on and the countryside must move on with it.
5.18 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, has done well in introducing the debate. He has also done well in the assembling of an enormous number of facts and figures, which must have been a most laborious process—one that I hate but one which he must obviously love.
I want only to make one point. In introducing it, I must say that the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, is right about what is happening in the countryside. He was perhaps a little too enthusiastic in support of the Government, but, nevertheless, what he said was true: great efforts are going on; new marketing
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organisations are being set up; new plants are being developed; new machinery is being used; and great efficiency is being shown in many cases.
It is true that, given a reasonable level of support, farming can advance and thrive, but there are all sorts of snags. The primary producer needs some help because, where free trade has run riot, enormous misery has resulted in the farming population of the central American prairies and of this country. So we have a chance to move on, but the common agricultural policy is all-important.
More than 25 years ago, I was rapporteur of an agriculture committee considering the problem of olive oil. It was obvious that an enormous amount of money was being wasted and acquired corruptly—especially in Italy. In fact, we worked out that, given that it was made for home consumption as well, every Italian was consuming about a quart of olive oil every day. So a great deal can be accomplished with the CAP.
Decoupling payment from production is without doubt the answer. That is the only simple solution. Does that decoupling apply to the farmer or the land? There seems to be some doubt. If it applies only to the farmer and is not tied to the land, that is absolute nonsense. I trust and hope that the Minister will assure us that that is not so; and that if it is, he will go to Brussels to try to get that put right.
There is some hope if we sweep away all those regulations and really decouple to a single payment. On the olive oil, people said, "Ah, but if you pay farmers simply by the tree, they won't pick the olives". As there was a great surplus, I said that that would solve the problem. It will also solve the problem in farming if people receive a single payment. They will look for a simpler, easier way in which to farm, or develop a highly technical advance.
So I urge the Minister, as soon as we release him from the House, to proceed to Brussels to do his best to get the policy of decoupling pushed through.
5.23 p.m.
Lord Rogan: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, on introducing the debate. Issues relating to the countryside are often not addressed in sufficient depth, and I hope that the debate will highlight some of the serious issues presently affecting the rural community. I cannot declare an interest in farming, but I have an interest in farming. Perhaps I may especially draw attention to what is happening in rural Northern Ireland and, in doing so, make a number of points.
The past few years have been a time of transition in the rural community, with many factors contributing to changing circumstances. Perhaps the most prominent catalyst behind rural change has been the decline of farming throughout the Kingdom. That is nowhere more apparent than in Northern Ireland, because of the Province's traditional and heavy reliance on agriculture and the fact that farms in the Province are on average much smaller than in mainland Britain.

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Despite the decline in the farming industry, it is still the largest single contributor to Northern Ireland's gross domestic product. Nevertheless, some of our problems are similar to those in other parts of the United Kingdom and thus the same solutions can and should be applied. However, on many occasions the problems are different and require local answers in conjunction with communities.
It is also true that even in Northern Ireland, which is a relatively small region, there is not one type of rural area. There are different areas with different problems requiring different solutions and responses. One suggestion that I very much support is that of a rural White Paper. England had such a paper some years back and I have heard various organisations, such as the Countryside Alliance, calling for the Government again to set the wheels in motion. Any rural White Paper would need to be as inclusive as possible and bring together a wide range of governmental and nongovernmental organisations.
There are many difficulties in rural Northern Ireland similar to those alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer: problems with crime in the countryside; the closure of rural post offices; the pressure on rural schools to close; and accessibility of cash machines. That is to name but a few of the issues and factors that collectively put the sustainability of rural communities in grave doubt.
With the decline in agricultural employment, new initiatives to encourage new business and enterprises have never been more important. Increasingly, Internet access through broadband is becoming an issue that needs serious attention in rural areas of Northern Ireland. The absence of broadband prevents the progress and development of many rural businesses. More government assistance is needed, both practically and financially.
For instance, I note that earlier this year, Lincolnshire County Council received a grant from the European Union to subsidise broadband services for 3,000 rural businesses in the county. Without such assistance, companies will be understandably both reluctant and financially unable to invest further. Opportunities to create wealth and employment will thus inevitably be lost in rural communities.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentioned many transportation matters. In Northern Ireland, there is a growing trend for young people to live in urban areas, while the rural areas become more middle-aged. One factor influencing that is access to transport. Still, today, significant numbers of rural dwellers have no access to private transport, despite the fact that the availability of alternative public transport is limited.
Organisations such as the Countryside Alliance are playing an increasingly important role in lobbying politicians at the heart of government on issues affecting those who live or work in the countryside, or who enjoy what it has to offer us all. The Rural Development Council will soon be launching its 2003 rural baseline document in Westminster. No doubt it will reveal issues that the Government need to take into account.
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I shall finish with a simple point. Rural people have as much right to equitable access to services as those who live in urban areas. The Government throughout the United Kingdom must continually remind themselves of that, and aim to deliver. The best way to assess the present condition of the countryside is for the Government to produce a White Paper. From knowing exactly how deep are the problems. we can develop and set in place solutions effectively to deal with the wide range of problems.
There needs to be joined-up government. At present, there is a rural gap between government departments in their work together. A rural White Paper would help government departments to cooperate more effectively and bring rural groups into the equation. I hope that the Government will recognise the existing need and that, as pressure grows for such a government process, they will initiate its development.
5.29 p.m.
Baroness Mallalieu: My Lords, I must declare an interest, first as president of the Countryside Alliance and, secondly, as what is sometimes pejoratively referred to as a hobby farmer. I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for his superb introduction to the debate. I also much enjoyed listening to my noble friend Lord Haskins.
The picture that he painted of a land of milk and honey has some resonance with my own experiences. His description of increasing co-operation of people using innovation, particularly in agriculture, and of a growing diversification of non-agricultural jobs in the countryside, is a pattern that I can see.
However, what was missing from his speech—and I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I take a moment to say a little about it—was the sense of deep unease, which was fundamentally what brought people in such huge numbers on to the streets of London last year. Most of us recognise that the countryside is undergoing enormous and rapid change. Our concern is that a great national asset will be lost in our generation. There are bound to be changes, but we want to see the retention of things that are precious.
The countryside is two things. First, it is landscape. Very little of our countryside is true wilderness. The majority of it is managed landscape, which means that its pattern, which most people want to see retained. is dictated by our farming patterns. If our agriculture fails, if it dwindles and dies, that pattern changes and the countryside as we know it goes. So the crisis in agriculture to which many others have referred and which I shall not go into in depth, is far more of a threat to many of us who have no income and no job dependent on agriculture. That affects the essence of the countryside that we care about.
Beyond that, perhaps even more, the countryside is about people. It is about communities throughout the country and a way of life which, in 2003, is still different, quite separate and distinct from that in the towns. There is a sense of belonging, a sense of having

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roots, of stability, of continuity, a responsibility for the place in which one lives. They are essentially law-abiding communities that like to work at a different pace and enjoy being part of a community in which people care about their surroundings and their neighbours and look after them when they are needed. In all the changes, that continues to exist in many places—some of them unexpected.
In the past 20 years one and a half million people have moved into the countryside. Over the same period there has been a rapid decline in rural amenities and services. The family farms of our nation have for generations been the cornerstones of those rural communities. There is no question that their decline is causing a crumbling effect. We have seen the loss of council housing and tied cottages. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, that the top priority if we are to retain those communities is to tackle local and affordable housing. I have seen the decline in the area where I grew up in Buckinghamshire, and am seeing that now in even more remote places such as Exmoor, where I live part of the time.
More and more people cannot afford to live in those areas, particularly the young, who move out because the only places they can afford to buy are in the town. Those families that dominated the villages for generations have gone within the space of the past five to 10 years. The small family farms are sold. The houses go to people from outside who can afford to pay the prices, and the agriculture units become larger. Planning regulations can and must be altered to allow for more affordable housing where it will improve the sustainability of those rural communities and benefit those areas. Powerful incentives or legislation to that effect should he at the top of Defra's agenda, as should the removal of restrictions that inhibit the creation of small jobs and enterprises, many of them nonagricultural.
I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. If rural areas are left behind in the provision of broadband radio, that will be a blight from which those areas will never recover. The Government have the power to ensure that the telecommunications industry makes proper provision. Do the Government have the will to do so or are they going to wash their hands of it?
Finally, there is limited legislative time for any government department—and that applies to Defra. Many of us were pleased when that new government department was created and we had high hopes. The department has used its government legislative time so far to bring in an Animal Health Bill, which many of us thought was profoundly insulting, adding insult to injury for many farmers who had suffered during the course of foot and mouth. In another place the Hunting Bill is a travesty of the promise of fair legislation based on evidence and principle. We have seen animal by-products regulations that are impossible for people to abide by. While Ministers are urging an end to hunts, out in the sticks their officials are urging the hunts to keep going, because there are
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377 outlets for fallen stock, of which 295 are hunt kennels. The officials are saying "we cannot do without you".
I beg that in the forthcoming months and years Defra will use its legislative opportunities not to impose more restrictions and regulations on the countryside, but to do things for the countryside that give people from the towns and the country an opportunity to continue to enjoy what is, and we hope will continue to be, a jewel in our nation.
5.36 p.m.
Earl Peel: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for introducing the debate, I join with others in welcoming and congratulating the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, on his maiden speech. Having had the pleasure of knowing him for a long time and being a neighbour of his in Yorkshire—here I declare an interest as an owner of land—it came as no surprise that his first contribution in your Lordships' House was impressive and erudite.
Agriculture and rural Britain are undergoing a revolution. The high profile disasters of BSE and foot and mouth may have disappeared from our television screens, but profound and long-term changes are taking place and there are huge uncertainties and much hardship. Equally, there is much debate over what the Government could and should be doing to ease the crisis. There is no easy solution. I welcome the report of Sir Don Curry, which has made a considerable contribution to the debate. I also acknowledge that there is a plethora of schemes and initiatives flowing from all the different agencies that exist. However, most lack direction and co-ordination and end up leaving most rural dwellers confused, with a sense that large sums of public money are being wasted. Indeed, many of us are unsure of the direction of DEFRA.
I was surprised the other day when I saw a letter from Alun Michael describing himself as the Minister for Rural Affairs and Urban Quality of Life. Perhaps, the noble Lord, the Minister, can tell us whether he is responsible for the urban quality of life in this House. So it is not surprising that I welcome the review that has been awarded to the noble Lord, Lord Haskins. He has an interesting job to do.
However, my real concern is that there appears to be a growing tendency to assume that farming is likely to become an irrelevance to the countryside as it will in time be substituted by other means of employment. That is a highly dangerous notion. Of course there will be fewer farmers, but I cannot accept that in this country we are not capable of producing the majority of food for our own population at a good quality and a fair price, from an agricultural sector charged with the responsibility of developing and maintaining an environment of which we can be proud. I accept that the latter part will continue to require some form of public support.

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However, only farmers can deliver those goals, through working the land, as farming is the bedrock of the rural economy and the vital link between food, the environment and tourism. As my noble friend Lord Monro rightly said, farming has to be profitable.
So what can the Government do towards ensuring that that objective is met? First, I believe that there is a misconception in some quarters that the majority of consumers would automatically support home-produced products out of loyalty. The truth is that the larger retailers will continue to source their food from the cheapest suppliers, often from abroad. It therefore seems farcical that our farmers are being subjected to a range of rigorous animal welfare and environmental regulations, admirable though those may be, only to see imports flooding into this country which are not subjected to the same conditions as those placed on our producers, who are then being undercut. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that the Government should seek at the very least to ensure that no new legislation on production standards is introduced unless it is implemented throughout the whole of the European Union.
So, accepting that profound changes are taking place, clearly there is a need to create alternative jobs. That must remain an essential part of any change. It is to that end that I was immensely impressed when I was recently introduced to the Rural Revival Initiative. Conceived by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and implemented by his Prince's Trust, there are three strands to the scheme. The one I looked at is called Dale and is supported largely by the Countryside Agency and Yorkshire Forward, which is our local regional development agency. It is designed to create employment in the Yorkshire Dales region. Managed by the admirable Jill Robinson and started in 1999, it has created 70 new businesses. It is, I believe, a model of what can be achieved given the right structure, advice and, above all, motivation. However, I was particularly struck by one thing: despite an 87 per cent success rate, the local banks had shown a hugely disappointing reluctance to participate through the provision of loans or borrowing facilities.
That unhappy state of affairs is heard of far too often as the traditional role of a local bank manager—and his close personal link with his clientele—diminishes to a point where in many cases he no longer appears to have even a name. As banks close, the vital link between the customer and local financial services becomes ever weaker. Rigid systems governed by electronic programmes appear to make no allowance for personal circumstances and the banks are now seen by many as more interested in selling pensions and life assurance schemes than in producing the vital services that have served local communities so admirably in the past. I believe that it is incumbent on the banking sector as well as the public sector to take forward this entrepreneurial spirit and to play their part once again in rural Britain.
5.42 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Palmer for giving your Lordships
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the opportunity to speak on some of the vital issues surrounding the countryside. My noble friend has spoken with passion. I hope that the Minister will be able to give some hope on matters that must have an answer. I must declare an interest. I live in the countryside. I was brought up in the countryside. I have a farm with sheep and ponies and a small riding centre.
I revert to the debate on horse passports which we had on Monday 2nd June, when the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said that there may be a particular problem with elderly horses. Does he agree that it is possible that some people might turn old horses out and leave them on common ground rather than get a passport? Would it not be possible to exempt old horses above, say, 20 years if the owners signed a declaration stating that they were not being moved from home? If the horses were sold, they would then require a passport.
Will the Minister also give an answer about fallen stock? Some hunt kennels will not collect. Others do not take sheep because hounds could get a taste for it. So, with no disposal unit or collection service in the vicinity, what are we to do in the rural areas? I agreed to support a scheme but have heard nothing to date. Will the Minister extend on-farm burial until at least September? Something workable might be in place by then—otherwise what is going to happen? What is to happen to dogs and cats? Until now we have buried them in a woodland garden that is nowhere near water. There has been a dog cemetery there for years. What is to happen to deer, foxes and badgers and the endless rabbits which die of myxomatosis by the hundreds?
A few weeks ago I had a debate on human tuberculosis. There is a global partnership to battle against the growing, deadly international public health threat of multi-drug resistant TB. The Farmers Guardian of 6th June stated:
"The Government must bite the bullet and get on with the job of fighting TB in Britain to protect the welfare of cattle and badgers".
May I ask the Minister what is the progress of the bovine TB vaccine? If dead badgers are found and cannot be buried, they could be dumped on other farms, with the risk of spreading TB.
It is true that the perception and fear of crime in rural areas is very real and is growing. There has been much concern about the lack of visibility of the police and a feeling of remoteness from police services as traditional stations have been closed. The police station at Masham, where I live, is going to be taken over by local veterinarians. A few weeks ago, 19 saddles were stolen from the riding centre on my farm. The tack room was doubled-locked and alarmed. It happened at lunchtime in the middle of the day. Several other people's tack was stolen around the same time. The crimes never seem to be solved and the tack is not found. The thieves are very skilful and quick and know just what they want. Small rural riding schools really do have their problems—if it is not crime, it is the cost exacerbated by rates, which livery stables do not have to pay. I wonder whether the Minister can explain that inequality.

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Over the years I have heard of several people living in the country who have become disabled and have not been able to get planning permission to build housing suitable for their disability. The headlines in this week's Darlington & Stockton Times have highlighted the difficulties of a lady with multiple sclerosis who tried to get planning permission for a bungalow on the edge of Gunnerside in the Yorkshire Dales. Disability can strike at any time in many different ways. It is very difficult if country people and their families cannot remain in their home villages because there is no suitable housing. Special consideration should be given to disabled people as long as their new home fits into local surroundings.
In Yorkshire many people feel that the administrative burden of government regulations on farmers and the low returns that farming is generating are driving away the next generation of farmers needed to maintain viable and environmentally important areas which are best managed by individuals rather than by government bodies. Therefore, government should aim to reduce those burdens and increase incentives.
5.48 p.m.
Lord Chorley: My Lords, I, too, add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Palmer for initiating this debate so knowledgeably and comprehensively. The long speakers' list is testimony to its importance.
I should like to make two rather different points, the first of which has to do with the rate at which we are using up our countryside by building on it. The second concerns our upland areas which lie on the margin of cultivation, but which have recreational and nature conservation importance.
My starting point is the recent Countryside Agency's report, The State of the Countryside 2020 and its remarks that
"at least 4.2 million new homes will be needed in England over the next two decades—equivalent to building a city the size of greater London".
The report asks:
"Where will these houses be built, and how many will be in the countryside?".
It refers to Government policy to encourage 60 per cent of new build to be on brownfield sites. My noble friend Lord Palmer referred to that. So far the Government have managed to achieve that figure—indeed, to exceed it. That is good, but 60 per cent is not enough. We cannot go on using up our incomparable countryside in this profligate way. Surely we should set the target at least at 75 per cent. That is particularly relevant in the South-East.
It puzzles me that in England and Wales we have one of the highest population densities in Europe. Yet, we have the lowest housing densities. I do not know why this should be, but if we cannot cure ourselves we will eventually turn the South-East into a vast housing estate. Do I exaggerate? No. One need only look at a map of the south-east of England 100 years ago to see what an awful mess we have made.
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The future of our countryside must in the first instance lie in the renaissance of our cities. We need policies that mean that people will want to live in our cities. We have been shown the way forward. I refer, of course, to the 1998 report of the Rogers Committee, which showed us with real expertise and authority the way forward. The question is whether we are doing enough to carry forward his vision.
I turn now to my second theme—from suburban England to our wild uplands. My remarks are in some measure derived from a seminar organised by the Royal Geographical Society on "Sustainable Futures for the British Uplands". The key theme is the interdependence of upland agriculture, tourism and landscape conservation—a point that has already been made. The okay phrase is, I understand, "multifunctional landscapes".
That inter-dependence was starkly emphasised by the FMD disaster, which for a period of months brought tourism in the Lake District to its knees. In short, the wider economies of those uplands—tourism employs far more people than farming—depend on the well-being of farming. As is well known, upland farming is barely economic and it is widely accepted that the production-based subsidy systems were seriously damaging our landscapes through overstocking. Other support systems were required.
Some years ago the National Trust, whose chairman I then was, started experimenting in north Wales with whole farm management plans. Subsequently the Curry report and one by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution set out the ingredients for this sort of environmental farm management.
More recently the trust gave evidence to the European Sub-Committee of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, as did others, on that approach. So it is gratifying to read of their enthusiastic endorsement, and to see that in a wider sense a new approach is bit by bit getting under way in the CAP reforms—although I keep my fingers crossed. In that Connection, I listened with interest to the debate yesterday.
We have come quite a long way in the past 10 years. But we still have a long way to go. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, in that connection was very interesting. My information from the Lake District bears out much of what he says. We have to think on a wider canvass than just agriculture. The excellent Curry report showed us the way forward.
I shall end by mentioning briefly some practical examples from the Lake District. First, I refer to the promotion of Herdwick wool—the traditional background to Lake District farming. In recent years farmers have been burning the fleeces because it is more costly to transport the fleece to the Wool Board than the price they receive. By attacking the wool supply chain the trust's project office is now able to get a price of 50p a kilo—still less than the shearing cost —for the members of the Herdwick farmers' cooperative. That added value has different sources, including a local Kendal firm that makes Herdwick carpets. We have one in our flat, and it is very hard-wearing.

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Another project is the development of high quality Herdwick meat products. Again, these are projects to diversify from tourism and agriculture by converting redundant farm buildings into light industrial or service uses. I could go on, but, as my time is up, I shall stop at this point.
5.55 p.m.
Lord Joffe: My Lords, I, too, express my appreciation to my noble friend Lord Palmer on his impressive and knowledgeable introduction to this important debate.
I am fortunate to live just one mile away from the Ridgeway national trail. I wish to draw the attention of the House to recent and disturbing developments on this ancient path. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has already touched on the protection of nature trails. I support what he said, but wish to expand on it.
As your Lordships may he aware, the Ridgeway is regarded as the oldest path in Britain, with a history of use by man going book more than 6,000 years. This makes it older than any building in this country—indeed much older than the Pyramids. It links numerous sites, such as a fine series of iron age hill forts, the great stone circles of Avebury, the oldest white horse in the country at Uffington and the huge and mysterious Silbury Hill. It crosses some of the best scenery in the south of England. It is rich in flora and fauna, and it should provide a wonderful and easily accessible leisure amenity for millions of people. It is one of only 12 national trails in Britain, and it runs through two areas of outstanding natural beauty.
However, the Ridgeway is currently facing the biggest threat in its long history. The threat comes from the rapidly increasing number of 4x4 motor vehicles and off-road motor bikes that are using it as a playground. They are disturbing the quiet enjoyment of the countryside for the walkers, cyclists and horse riders who make up 95 per cent of the users of the Ridgeway. They are destroying the surface of this ancient path, turning it into a deep and unpleasant sea of mud in wet weather. In the summer this sets into a series of ankle-twisting ruts, which are dangerous to anyone on foot, pedal cycle or horse. They create pollution and are driving away the local wildlife for what should be a precious bio-diversity reservoir in this intensely farmed part of the country.
If this threat continues, there will not be a Ridgeway for future generations of country lovers to enjoy. Your Lordships may ask why motor vehicles are allowed on this national trail. The reason is that until recently our law provided that if it could be proved that horse-drawn traffic once used a particular route, it could now be used by motor vehicles. Until about 20 years ago, this did not matter too much as few motor vehicles ever used it. However, with the recent explosion in the numbers of off-road vehicles, there is now an enthusiastic sport of "green laning"—driving such vehicles down the ancient green lanes of Britain. At a time when we are quite rightly to curb motor vehicles in our major urban areas, we appear to be encouraging them to drive deeper and deeper into our countryside.
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The problem is not confined to the Ridgeway. It is manifesting itself all over the country, with areas of the Lake District, Peak District and the Yorkshire Dales being badly affected. We live in a small island and it is vital that we take steps to protect our countryside from the ravages of the internal combustion engine before it is too late.
It is ironic that the websites of 4x4 clubs in mainland Europe are exhorting their members to come and drive the Ridgeway and other British green lanes—something that they are not allowed to do in their own countries.
A good parallel might be the action that has been taken to protect the centres of some of our ancient towns and cities from the ravages of motor traffic. For example, the rights of drivers to use roads near York Minster have been removed to preserve and protect that magnificent building for the benefit of future generations. What is the difference in the case of the Ridgeway, which is an even older part of our heritage?
The Government are to be congratulated on passing the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. The Act introduces the new category of a restricted byway, which is not accessible to motor vehicles. When the final parts of that Act come into effect, it is hoped later this year, some parts of the Ridgeway will become restricted byways.
I hope that the Minister will not mind if I ask him three questions on this single issue. Can he confirm that from that date motor vehicles will be banned from those sections of the Ridgeway? Will the Minister consider urging local authorities to use their new powers under the Act to ban motor vehicles from the whole of the Ridgeway on the grounds of conserving natural beauty and protecting the geological features of the trail? Will he consider using his powers under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 to ban motor vehicles from the Ridgeway?
It is clear that the legal means are in place to protect the Ridgeway and other precious green lanes in our country from this increasing threat. We need to act quickly and I urge the Minister to take the lead before it is too late.
6 p.m.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, as on previous occasions when the countryside has been debated in your Lordships' House, it is right that I declare an interest as chairman of a number of family companies concerned with land ownership, forestry, farming, construction, mineral extraction, tourism and National Hunt racing. I have a personal stake in these enterprises whose assets for the most part are in Cumbria. Like other noble Lords who have spoken. I, too, express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for his elegant and informed introduction to this debate.
Some months ago at a public hearing in a committee room upstairs, I asked the Europe Minister, Mr Denis

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MacShane, whether we could look to the Government for a more robust approach to CAP reform. In his reply, Mr MacShane said,
"I was very interested in the Countryside Alliance march which was an extraordinary manifestation on the streets of London and one of the very clear demands, it seemed to me, was for more agricultural support in a bigger CAP rather than a smaller one".
It had crossed my mind to taunt the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, with his colleague's gross misinterpretation of the countryside march. I decided against it, having chanced to hear him wind up for the Government in yesterday's debate introduced by my noble friend Lord Selborne on the mid-term review. The Minister in his speech, as I remember it, said that nearly everyone now, including leaders of farming organisations, understood the compelling need for change. Indeed, I felt that the Minister, without underestimating the problems, conveyed an unambiguous commitment to support the proposed fiscal reforms. If I have understood him correctly, I warmly congratulate him; and if I have misunderstood him, I congratulate him on having so comprehensively fooled me.
Hugely important as agriculture is, I shall concentrate today on the non-agricultural aspect of the countryside. The twin obstacles to growth and investment in Britain's countryside are taxation and regulation. In their different ways, both of them bear down disproportionately in rural areas. Council taxes are high as a direct result, we are told, of the Government's nakedly political decision to boost rate support in urban areas at the expense of the shire counties. In Cumbria, our latest rise is 13.5 per cent. Fuel tax is, for obvious reasons, disproportionately high in the countryside and the latest hike in national insurance is, of course, simply a tax on jobs.
On regulation, I do not give up on the Better Regulation Task Force. It appears to be approaching its job with some vigour. However, the sheer scale of its task is awesome. One worries also that the minute such beasts become effective to the point of discomforting the Government, devices are found to bring them to heel. I wish that task force well.
The trouble with regulation is that there appears to be a built-in increment: the old problem of enforcers needing to justify their existence. I want to illustrate my position based on my own experience. I employ 250 people, rising to almost one third again in the summer. In this financial year and last, we spent £30,000 in bringing up to date systems to comply with human resources and health and safety statutory requirements and best practice. The annual cost, I estimate at today's prices, will be between £15,000 and £20,000. In the past two years, production managers have had to devote on average 12 per cent of their time to handling new regulation, which is a damaging distraction from their productive time. Reflecting the abject condition of public services, I have concluded that the people I employ need health protection that the state should offer but manifestly fails to provide. Accordingly, at our own cost, we have felt compelled to buy in medical advice and back-up.
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If I try to measure improvements in our duty of care to our workforce since the arrival of this avalanche of regulation, I would be bound to admit some gains. It would be extraordinary if there were not. Such gains, I have to say, could have been achieved at a fraction of the cost. And there are losses. In the slate quarries that we run, it is my judgment that the HSE requirements have a tendency to impose huge costs and actually reduce levels of safety. This is partly because safety inspectors cannot possibly be expected to understand the geological complexities of something unusual like a slate quarry, especially as no two are remotely alike. Furthermore, the hugely bureaucratic nature of the new world of health and safety has gone a long way to destroy the safety culture which has traditionally been such a feature among workforces operating in naturally hazardous environments.
The remedy, it seems to me, is that I, the employer, should take greater responsibility for the people I employ. I should submit safety cases for the inspector's approval and then be held to account for their delivery. How can the agencies of the state pretend to understand how to make a quarry safe? The trouble with my solution is, of course, that armies of inspectors would find themselves without a job. The way we are going is ever more safety regulation and an ever diminishing culture of common-sense safety in the workplace. And it is that common-sense element, I contend, which to a large extent prevents accidents at work and, in turn, saves lives.
In the past few weeks, my companies have marketed, organised and run six days of events in Cumbria which have attracted some 80,000 visitors. They come from town and country and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, that it is dangerous to distinguish between the two. Trade stands took business—much of it local—I am told into the many hundreds of thousands of pounds and the economic activity generated runs into millions.
Although these are high-risk, weather-dependent activities, I do not pretend to be doing this for the public good. My trustees, however, have increasing grounds for saying that that is exactly what we are doing—and here is the rub. We are currently having to review what amounts locally to substantial capital projects, and if we feel compelled to cancel or defer investments it will be because, and only because, margins are continuously eroded and risks increased through this Government's attrition of tax and regulation.
6.7 p.m.
The Earl of Liverpool: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for initiating this timely debate on the British countryside. I want also to say how much I enjoyed the speech of the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk. I agreed wholeheartedly with everything he had to say. I know that I speak for the whole House in saying how much we look forward to hearing from him on many future occasions.
The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, covered many important topics in his opening speech. This is proving to be a wide-ranging debate. One of the subjects he

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raised was biofuels. In the time available to me, I want to concentrate on that subject and speak briefly about sustainable development. As the noble Lord reminded us, he is president of British Biofuels and Oils, so I hope that he will approve.
The world's resources of fossil fuels are fast depleting. Oil reserves will have been largely exhausted within a generation. Quite apart from anything else, this makes us too dependent on other parts of the world and potentially a hostage to fortune. I am not saying that the whole answer to this lies in biofuels, but surely part of it does. Obvious benefits could accrue from such fuels. They could reinvigorate the farming industry and, importantly, the farming communities. They would be a sustainable crop and there is an almost infinite continuum of resources from which biofuels can be generated.
For example, if 1 million-odd acres of set-aside land was planted with Miscanthus Sacchariflorus, and assuming that produced a median-dry matter production of six tonnes per acre per year, that could be converted to approximately 3 million tonnes of oil equivalent biofuel. That is equivalent to nearly 4 per cent of UK annual oil demand. As set-aside land represents only 3 per cent of this country's land within agricultural holdings, we begin to see what an enormous contribution biofuels could make. Another enormous advantage of these fuels is that, unlike fossil fuels, they have a negligible effect on climate change.
Therefore, there are any number of good reasons for increasing research funding in this area. But, sadly, investment by the Government is at a very low ebb. Research funded by Defra has yet again been cut. I should like to quote briefly from the introduction of the Institute of Biology's paper of January this year entitled Fuelling the future 3, in which Jonathan Cowie, head of science policy, stated:
"if the Government has a policy to develop greenhouse friendly energy resources as well as a policy to develop alternative crops to food crops to invigorate the rural economy, then R&D investment for such policy-driven research is required. Furthermore cuts to DEFRA R&D undermine recent increases in investment in BHSRC research."
There is an urgent need to set in place demonstration projects which show that the use of existing technology can forge a market in which potential users are assured of a reliable and timely supply of bioenergy. I hope that the Minister can give the House some encouragement that things are about to change for the better.
Sustainable development can apply as much in the country as in the towns. What I mean by sustainable development is looking at ways of making the buildings we put up as independent of conventional resources as possible. Solar power can now be retrieved from special slates which to all intents and purposes look almost indistinguishable from Welsh slates. The capture of grey water is easily achieved, and there are companies now making systems to hold this water from road surfaces.
Wind power is a controversial subject, because of the size and scale of wind turbines seen on hills in various parts of the country, but much smaller and
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more discreet—in both size and noise—wind generators, some with contra-rotating blades, can be used to good effect by individual households.
I hope that the Government can assure me that they are seized of the importance of these and other technologies, and that they can give encouragement to developers to adopt as many eco-friendly systems as possible. This would greatly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels over time. Not only would that help with our commitment under the Kyoto summit agreement, but, with luck, it should reduce the need to build more nuclear power stations, which, because of their build and running costs and the nuclear waste problems they create, will for ever be dangerous white elephants.
6.12 p.m.
The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, I must apologise, but because of the Statement I have had to scrub my speech. It would have endorsed and expanded upon the excellent maiden speech of the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk.
6.13 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for the opportunity to debate these issues this evening. We were all very impressed by his introduction to the debate.
I should declare an interest. I live in the countryside, in the Lake District National Park. I am a vice-president of the Council of National Parks, and 1 am a member of the North-West Regional Committee of the National Trust.
In his introduction, the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, dwelt mainly on agriculture, as have other noble Lords. If we are concerned with agriculture, what is happening in Brussels at the moment is of crucial significance. We have heard in the debate that the majority of people in Britain want to see the countryside preserved. Farmers and fanning are central to the preservation of the countryside. If the countryside is to be preserved, there has to be an income for the farmers, as has been made very clear in the debate. Part of that income, I have become convinced, will come from giving farmers a distinguished and important role in managing the environment. That should receive positive and practical support from what comes out of Brussels in the next few days.
My noble friend Lord Clark of Windermere spoke of the interdependence of urban and rural communities. I totally endorse what he said. I would only add to his illustrations the very basic reality that the urban communities want the recreation of the countryside, but those in the countryside want the wealth produced in urban areas to sustain that countryside. That is a very basic economic interdependence.
I was worried two years ago when it seemed to me that we were drifting into a dangerous and stupid confrontation between urban and countryside communities. That must be resisted at all costs.

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The Countryside Agency is to be commended on some useful analysis which it has put at our disposal in recent times. Let us just look at some of the facts of which it has reminded us.
First, 28.5 per cent of the population live in England's rural districts. Between 1981 and 2000 there was a 12 per cent growth in that population, compared with only a 2 per cent growth in urban areas.
Next, if we look at the quality of life, we see that 46 per cent of the population in rural areas are involved in local organisations, compared with only 32 per cent in urban areas. Forty two per cent of people living in the countryside are highly interactive with their neighbours, compared with only 28 per cent in urban society.
The health record of the rural communities is better than that of urban communities. The educational achievements of children in education in rural areas are significantly better than those of children in urban areas taken as a whole.
Whatever the difficulties—and I was very sorry to hear about them—encountered by the brother of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, in retrieving his motor cycle with the assistance of the police, it must be recognised that for those living in the countryside there is an approximately 50 per cent smaller likelihood of burglary or violent crime than for those living in urban areas.
But there are, of course, big challenges. We have heard again in this debate about the need for affordable housing, the high cost of housing, the impact of all this on the young and the less well-off. I have seen in the valley in which I live, the Lorton valley in North Cumbria, some very imaginative work by a housing association. Far from damaging the environment, the building of a small number of affordable houses enhanced the environment, because it was done in keeping with the whole style and atmosphere of the valley.
There is a need for support for rural businesses and greater access to information technology and broadband. If my noble friend Lord Haskins will forgive me, I wish that in his lively journeys through Britain and Europe he had been able to spend more time with the elderly and infirm, because one of the big challenges in the rural areas is the disappearance of post offices, banks, cashpoints, transport and other services for the elderly, infirm and vulnerable. Of course, that is not an issue limited to the countryside; it exists in urban areas too. But we should face the fact that it is an issue in the countryside.
I commend my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport, because he has asked us very bluntly whether we want to disappear under a sea of asphalt or whether we want to have a quality of life which resists the advance of asphalt. In the rural areas, as much as in urban areas, we have to look at road pricing. Already in the national parks we see in the targeted road programme that the Department for Transport has produced road schemes which strike at the very purposes of the national parks. I should like
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to be reassured by my noble friend the Minister this evening that there is greater liaison between Defra and the Department for Transport on the issue of the national parks and the countryside in general with regard to road building and its adverse effects.
My noble friend Lord Haskins referred to "romantic dinosaurs". I urge my noble friend, who is also a personal friend and for whom I have great regard, to be a little careful with his language in this respect.
I ask this: where would civilisation have been without imaginative romanticism? It is the ability to think, to imagine and to have vision that carries society forward. As we come up to the review of national parks, let us not tinker in management terms with it. Let us use our vision to ask: what do we want our children to inherit? Do we want them to be able to enjoy open spaces, to see the Milky Way by curbing the intrusion of light pollution? Or do we want to surrender ourselves to the mercenary, materialist advance of a rather dull suburbia across the whole land?
Let us bring back some vision, commitment and passion to our fight for the kind of decent, balanced, British society we want to see. In that, the countryside will have an absolutely invaluable and irreplaceable place.
6.21 p.m.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, although what I am about to say bears some similarity to the maiden speech of the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk—perhaps I may say that it was an excellent speech—I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I do not scrub my remarks. I wish to continue with my few words because I return to the subject of agriculture, but particularly and specifically agriculture in the West Country.
The countryside is so many things to so many people and used in a myriad of different ways, all of which ought to exist in harmony. But in spite of what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, and my noble friend Lord Cavendish of Furness, there seems to be a division between people who make their living from farming and animals and those who do not. So many new houses in villages are suburban in type and their owners have little connection with the working countryside around them. They work mostly in towns and are better off than their farming neighbours. But those who work with animals, whether farm animals or horses, are on the receiving end of an increasing amount of hostility, both in terms of general tolerance and new legislation. They are not alone in facing an extraordinary raft of petty bureaucracy and obstructive legislation and, given their low incomes and attacks on traditional pursuits, it is not surprising that some believe that society is out to get them.
I intend to concentrate on farming in the South West, from whence I come, where my wife is the farmer and, indeed, where the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford married us. The farmers there are

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pulling their industry up by their bootstraps, thanks to a combination of the weakening of the pound against the euro and their own resilience and initiative.
Farm incomes have improved, albeit from the disastrous to the merely diabolical, and confidence has been seeping hack. But that confidence is fragile and springs from the strong support which the farming community has received from consumers in the region, manifested in the remarkable growth in demand for high quality local food rather than from any perceived change in the Government's policy for, or attitude towards, the countryside.
The recovery, modest as it is, is being taken forward despite the perceived role of the Government, not because of it. That may seem a harsh thing to say in the light of the sustainable farming and food strategy, born of Sir Donald Curry's report, which contains many good things. Nevertheless, I am afraid to say that it is true. The level not merely of confidence in this Government among the farming community, but also that of trust, remains at rock bottom.
For that, Ministers have only themselves to blame. This all goes back to the formation of Defra two years ago. The omission of any reference to agriculture in the name of the department came across to the farming community as a calculated snub, and everything that has happened subsequently has served to confirm that initial impression.
Other than the usual cheap shots at the common agricultural policy, Ministers never talk about agriculture if they can possibly avoid it. They will talk about diversification, or local food, or access, or the environment or farm tourism until the cows come home. But never, never do you hear them even acknowledging, let alone championing, the core function of agriculture, which is to produce over two-thirds of the nation's food. It is almost as if they are ashamed of being responsible for food production, that they would rather that we allowed our food markets to be captured by imports so that the countryside could be spared the dirty business of growing food and turned over entirely to butterflies, birds, tourists and urban refugees.
That may be an unfair characterisation of ministerial attitudes, but I can assure noble Lords that that is how it comes across to the farmers in my part of north Devon, who feel themselves and the food which they produce regarded as a rather inconvenient by-product of countryside management programmes.
Far too much of the funds desperately needed for the revitalisation of the rural economy is instead being wasted in what I am told is the tortuous and infinitely frustrating process of applying for grants of one kind or another. Even ventures that are launched with the full blessing of Defra and the RDA, such as our regional food industry development agency, South West Food and Drink, are having to devote weeks of time and thousands of pounds to jumping through bureaucratic hoops and being bounced from one government agency to another like a ball-bearing in a pinball machine.
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If the Government really want to facilitate and encourage the development of the rural economy—and I have no reason to suppose that they do not—then they need to smooth the way for industry-led projects which can contribute to that process rather than putting endless bureaucratic obstacles in its path. If Ministers want to encourage the recovery in farming, they could do no better than to start at least to recognise the importance and value of food production, both in its own right as a vital economic activity and in the way it underpins so much else of the rural economy, rural society and the rural environment.
6.26 p.m.
Lord Moran: I thank my noble friend Lord Palmer for introducing this debate and for his admirable speech. I want to say a brief word, not about farming, but about the look of the countryside. Thirty years ago, one of our leading poets wrote:
"I thought it would last my time—
The sense that, beyond the town,
There would always be fields and farms …
For the first time I feel somehow
That it isn't going to last,
That before I snuff it, the whole
Boiling will be bricked in …
And that will be England gone".
Is the outlook today still as sombre as it then appeared to Philip Larkin and if so, is there anything we can do about it?
We all know that large tracts of the country have been obliterated by expanding towns, motorways, factories and the cutting down of woodlands in both world wars. We see the inexorable spread of housing, driven by the exceptional density of our population and our record number of divorces, each of which usually results in two households in the place of one. But it is sad to see the Government bullying reluctant local authorities to build hundreds of thousands of houses in unspoilt country.
Amazingly, a fair amount of unspoilt country survives. If you look down from an aircraft, it is surprising how much is still green and yet to be built over. In a small, overcrowded island like ours, we ought to try to pass on at least some of it unspoilt for future generations.
In three or four minutes I can make only a few specific suggestions. Could we not levy a tax on housing built on green fields and offer tax advantages to those who build factories and houses on brownfield sites in cities and towns? Could we press on with research to discover truly cost-effective white street and road lights, and then replace all the glaring yellow sodium lights? Even if it is impracticable to do much about high-voltage lines, could we not bury intermediate voltage and telephone lines, especially in areas of high landscape value?
Could we bring an end to the siting of heavily subsidised wind turbines standing up to 400 feet high in unspoilt hill areas where they can be seen for miles, destroying the sense of remoteness and giving an industrial aspect to parts of the country where it has no

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place? We already have over 1,000 turbines, one third of them in Wales, but the amount of electricity they produce is insignificant and their output is unreliable and unpredictable. Should we not face the fact that wind power is neither economic nor effective and abandon it?
Can we press the Government and local authorities to get rid of excessive road signs, advertisements and telecommunications masts; the rural clutter, described by the CPRE as the,
"often ugly and sometimes unnecessary paraphernalia of an apparently uncaring modern society"?
Lastly, could we persuade local authorities to clear roadside trees of the ivy that now smothers so many of them?
Too many of us take for granted the incomparable beauty of our countryside—or what remains of it. We forget just how fragile it is. It has been the inspiration of Shakespeare and Hardy, Constable and Turner. A passionate feeling about the countryside is not confined to a few middle-class enthusiasts. The large numbers who volunteer to do back-breaking physical work on bird reserves, canals or woodlands show how strong this feeling is among the young. Polls have shown that a large majority of our people believe that the countryside is in danger and are dissatisfied with the Government's efforts to protect it.
What then can we do to preserve what is left? Much has been achieved by voluntary bodies—the National Trust, which saved the Lake District and much of our coasts; the CPRE and CPRW, although, sadly, the RSPB takes little interest in landscape. But only the Government can take really effective action on a national scale. To do this they must give the preservation of our countryside a higher priority. This area of policy has been downgraded. There used to be a Secretary of State for the Environment—and only the environment—sitting in the Cabinet, but no longer. Mr Meacher does his utmost, but he is not a Cabinet Minister. The Government pay lip service to environmental objectives, but in practice do not give them much weight. Great care needs to be taken to ensure that essential development does not damage or destroy too much of our uniquely beautiful countryside and the old cities, towns and villages that have come down to us. This House should use its influence to persuade the Government to do much more to preserve our heritage.
6.31 p.m.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, in these farming debates we now rightly recognise the diversity of the countryside and the urgency of finding alternative sources of income. We acknowledge the growing importance of tourism and attractions which add value. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, has generously allowed me to put in a word for gardens, both public gardens and those open to the public. I declare an interest, since my wife and I are responsible for a garden open to the public in West Dorset. Apart from
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managing this garden and a lot else, my wife was until recently gardens and parks chairman of the Historic Houses Association.
Heritage and tourism are high on the Government's agenda, and various grants through English Heritage and local RDAs are now available to attractions in private ownership provided they meet the criteria for public access. Defra's successful Countryside Stewardship Scheme now extends to historic parks and designed landscape of historic properties, thus enhancing the quality of these attractions.
However, such grants are not directly available to gardens. Gardens are Cinderellas as regards public funding, perhaps because of their dynamic and changing character. Yet every year an estimated 13 million people visit houses and gardens in private ownership nationwide, of whom the number of garden visitors is on the increase, with all the maintenance and wear and tear that such numbers involve.
The Government might like to consider one or two of the problems facing the owners of these historic gardens. One is that when matching grants are made available, it is the built heritage to which the owners have to give priority. Roofs must come before summer houses or garden features. Whenever capital has to be spent on a leaking roof, the last thing to be repaired will be outdoor paving, stone steps, walls, fountains or grottoes. Yet visitors enjoy these features and soon notice any decay. They are increasingly conscious of standards, thanks in part to the higher levels of maintenance in National Trust gardens.
According to English Heritage,
"what makes a site of interest is the survival, quality and interest of its historic structure".
Yet grants even for gardens on the English Heritage register are hard to come by, and unless some way can be found to protect them, dilapidation is inevitable.
There is a further problem for owners of gardens, like many other attractions, and that is the securing of alternative sources of revenue, such as a gift shop, plant sales or a café besides admissions. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, touched on that. If a private owner derives any benefit which, according to rating law need not be financial benefit, the income from these sources is liable for non-domestic rate assessment even if there are trading losses on the combined hereditament, as there invariably are because of steep maintenance costs. If an owner appeals, quite apart from legal costs there may be an accumulated deficit over a period of months, even years, until the appeal is determined. To my knowledge, there is no redress through local government or the various countryside agencies. In this situation, government, far from supporting gardens and tourist attractions, is effectively penalising them. I sympathise with much that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish.
There can be very few private owners of gardens open to the public who can sustain this level without selling their own assets unless they enjoy very substantial private incomes. It may be fairly argued that some derive some personal benefit; but for many owners these gardens are not private at all. They may

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be extensive, far from the house, covering many acres; they may be steep and difficult to manage; and they may demand a high level of public service rather than private profit. Very few gardens indeed make a profit.
As regards maintenance, there is another difference. While major capital repairs come, say, every 10 years, gardens require the same level of expenditure year in and year out. Higher salaries, better equipment and new investment in planting all add to increased running costs and may require additional capital.
At this time of year there is nothing more breathtaking than the beauty and colour of our English gardens. We take a lot of pride in them, and the gardening industry itself is flourishing. Yet the HHA has warned that without proper support, many future owners of these gardens may allow them to revert to wilderness. The HHA says that that,
"would be a loss to the heritage of historic gardens, to the community and to tourism in the area, with all the spin-off benefits, not forgetting that it is the accumulation of specific attractions, many of which are loss-making, which draw visitors".
I know that the Government are well aware of the importance of gardens—I include municipal gardens—and their place in the rural economy; yet not a lot is known about their contribution. Perhaps more could be done through the HHA and other bodies to carry out the necessary research. Meanwhile, I urge the Government to give more consideration to this vital sector of our valuable countryside.
6.37 p.m.
Lord Hoyle: My Lords, perhaps I may also join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for introducing this debate. It has been invaluable to all of us. It is important for me to say when I speak in this House that I have always lived in the countryside. Perhaps I may be slightly critical of your Lordships: it always appears to me that when we have a debate on the countryside all the emphasis is put on agriculture. The noble Baroness shakes her head. A lot of the emphasis is placed on agriculture.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I was shaking my head because the contributions made today have not concentrated solely on agriculture, which I find very helpful.
Lord Hoyle: My Lords, one might say that they have not concentrated as much on agriculture. It is important to the countryside, but there are many other jobs and occupations there. Many people who live in the countryside travel to nearby towns to work.
The total spent on agriculture of £3.2 billion by the Government is far more than is spent on the whole of manufacturing industry. That is an important point to make. That is not to say that agriculture does not deserve our support. I believe that it needs our help in standing up to the power and actions of the supermarkets. They could buy more British produce and label it far better because it is still very difficult in most supermarkets to find food which has been grown in this country. When he replies to the debate, I should like to hear my noble friend the Minister say that
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government departments now buy British produce for their canteens and restaurants. The Armed Forces, in particular, should do the same. While the Armed Forces buy quite a lot of beef, what are they doing about buying British lamb, for instance? A good deal more could be done in that direction.
It is true that most villages need help in relation to post offices, which are still closing. We need to find other ways of attracting people into village post offices. I know that the Government have given this issue a great deal of consideration. Perhaps my noble friend can tell the House what is the current situation. I know from personal experience the difficulty of persuading national banks to remain in villages. Despite making a profit, they seem to ignore the needs of the elderly, the disabled and those who do not have cars. Even though they are making a profit, as I said, they continue to close.
As to shops and pubs, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, that in many cases closures are the fault of the people who live in the villages because, first, they do not use the pubs as much as they did in the past and do not make them the centre of the village; and, secondly, they generally do their shopping in supermarkets. The shops need more help from the villagers themselves if they are to be kept from closing.
We must put pressure on the telecommunication companies to ensure that they take broadband to rural areas as well as to urban areas. In the discussions I have had with them, the emphasis has always been on urban areas—the easy target—rather than on rural areas.
Affordable housing is essential for people who live in villages. I should like to see more done in that regard. I hope that my noble friend is able to update the House on the Government's plans on that issue.
Tourism is one of the growth areas in the countryside. In my area, the Commonwealth Games helped to make a wider audience aware of the lovely countryside that surrounds us. The cycling events took place in the Bolton and Chorley rural areas and drew attention to Rivington and other places. This has enabled us to attract many more tourists.
On the down side, however, many people who come to walk there find that their cars, having been left unattended, are broken into. There is a need to consider the issue of law and order and the policing of rural areas, which in itself is very important.
The countryside is a haven to both country and town dwellers alike. For all of us—country and town—it is a cause worth preserving
6.43 p.m.
Lord Mancroft: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for introducing the debate. I echo the closing words of the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle: the countryside is important and we all need to work together to preserve it. It has been an excellent debate so far and will continue to be so as there is a long list of speakers.

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I wish to focus on two points. The crisis in the countryside, about which we have heard a great deal, exists and is important. To a certain extent it is a hidden crisis. The countryside is full of new businesses and has a vibrant housing market and a great deal of new wealth is coming into it. The new businesses and the new wealth are marvellous, but beneath that a crisis exists in local communities which is sometimes unseen. They have problems with housing, as the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, said, they have severe employment problems and they worry immensely about poor public services.
Of course the world moves on—we cannot stop that, nor should we try to—and the countryside cannot expect to remain in aspic. In his excellent maiden speech, the noble Duke drew attention to the survey which found that 90 per cent of the British people wanted to keep the countryside as it is. That may be a slightly romantic view but it is, nevertheless, what most people in this country want. We therefore must strive for progress and, at the same time, preserve the best of the past. That is the difficulty we face.
Agriculture is important. This is not specifically an agricultural debate—perhaps we talk about it rather too much in rural debates, as the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, said—but we need to understand that agriculture is the canvas on which every other activity in the countryside is painted. If we do not look after the canvas it will be impossible to paint on it.
The Government are quite rightly keen to promote diversity for farmers and others. Tourism is probably the most important area of diversity. It takes many forms but is probably centred—again as the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, said—around the beauty of the natural countryside, which is of course preserved by farmers. The fells, the dales, Exmoor, Dartmoor, the Cotswolds, the Norfolk Broads, stately homes—every part of the country has its beauty spots. Indeed, I suspect that the Government's right-to-roam Bill was a rather clumsy attempt to encourage people to enjoy these areas rather more.
That is all right up to a point, but we must not fall into the trap that London fell into in the 1970s when over-exposure led to a fall in quality and almost killed the goose that laid the golden egg. We need sympathetic management, not too much of it.
One of the reasons for the success of rural tourism is the natural beauty of the countryside and its wildlife. The noble Lord, Lord Clark, referred to the marvellous reintroduction of ospreys. That is a great example of the kind of work that can be done in the countryside to encourage people to come and see its wildlife.
But the countryside—both its habitats and the wildlife that lives within it—needs to be conserved. That requires skill and knowledge. Those skills and that knowledge reside mainly within the traditional rural communities—and those communities are in crisis. While the customers must be given what they want, they must not be given it at the risk of destroying that which the customer has come to enjoy. The
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moorland is a favourite destination of walkers, particularly managed moorland. Such moorland is managed by land owners and keepers for sports. If those land owners cannot manage their moors. the moors will deteriorate, there will be no wildlife and no one will want to visit them.
The recent report by the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent on habitat conservation in lowland agricultural England made clear that most existing conservation work in lowland areas will vanish without the incentives of field sports, and that those cannot be replaced by subsidies.
In the recent dry spell at Easter, a number of land owners wanted to close their moorland, as they have a right to do under the access rules. But they needed the permission of the Peak District National Park Authority and the authority refused to close the moors. Two moors were substantially burnt as a result of the hot, dry weather. Who is going to visit a burnt moor?
The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, referred to wildlife. Unfortunately, not so many people in England understand that wildlife cannot be left alone; it must be managed very carefully. Many people from the towns and country want to see wildlife but they will not want to go on seeing it if it is not managed properly.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will be delighted to hear that I do not want to rehearse the hunting debate today, but there are some examples worth considering. Where deerhunting has been stopped on National Trust land, more deer have to be shot. The concentrations of deer are heavier; there are more injured deer; and, because of shooting, they are less visible and the tourists cannot see them. That is to no one's advantage.
At the other end of the moor, I understand that in the sanctuaries of the League Against Cruel Sports deer have died of tuberculosis. The animals in the red deer herd have been over-concentrated for their welfare, but it has severely affected their management. We must avoid doing that. It is incredibly important that we remind ourselves and the Government that conservation must be the governing factor. If we have to manage populations—and we shall have to do so—we should look after their welfare in the most humane way possible; otherwise there will be nothing left to conserve and look after.
6.50 p.m.
Lord Walpole: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Palmer for initiating the debate although I am not sure that the subject he has asked me to speak on is quite the one I enjoy. I congratulate the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, on his maiden speech. It is a pity that his country house in Norfolk belongs to Norwich Union pension fund. His city house in Norwich is a car park but I have an over-mantel from that house which I use as a bedhead.
I like the British countryside, but I am biased. I have lived in it for most of my life and for the past 40 years have endeavoured to make my little bit more beautiful

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and environmentally friendly. However, I have noticed that not only in Britain but in large parts of continental Europe the state of the countryside is deteriorating and in many areas has become very scruffy. I think that that is partly due to the lower income in the agricultural and allied sector which has led to less painting and tidying up of premises and less time and labour to keep the countryside clear of rubbish. Fly-tipping is a major problem.
Motor tyres are a special problem. Under the landfill directive it is no longer possible to put motor tyres, (even, I believe, shredded), into landfill and there are millions of used tyres to dispose of each year. If they are dumped on the roadside verges, it is the responsibility of the local authority to remove them. If they are dumped on private land, it is the responsibility of the landowner to remove them. They cannot be burnt and reputable contractors are very expensive. At Sculthorpe in Norfolk, where thousands of tyres were illegally dumped on an industrial estate, at last the authorities decided that they were not only illegal but also dangerous—a fire hazard. Steps were taken to remove some and divide them into smaller heaps to lessen the serious fire risk. A special grab was brought in to deal with the problem. The first night someone broke into the site to try to steal the grab. However, it was too secure so they set fire to it. Luckily, the tyres did not go up as well.
We all know about the refrigerator problem, which is now gradually being dealt with. But that does not stop the odd old refrigerator being dumped around the countryside. There is about to be a problem with small electrical and electronic equipment, which under the WEEE Directive will have to be disposed of in a special way. I hope that the Government will foresee the problem before old irons and computers join the fridges in our woods.
Motor cars, both whole and burnt out, are again a major problem in certain areas. The vehicle end of life directive will cause more problems unless we are fully prepared to deal with those vehicles before they are dumped.
Then there is a whole range of small garden, domestic and builders' rubbish which appears overnight. If it appears on the verge, it is for the local authority to deal with. Bottles are a particular problem if thrown into a crop of grass or peas. If at harvest time a bottle is smashed by a flail harvester or pea viner, the whole load will have to be discarded. Several tonnes of peas with one smashed bottle in them are themselves a disposal problem—what on earth do you do with them? —and, of course, a financial loss.
I should like to draw to your Lordships' attention two other small problems. The first is road management, widening and providing passing spaces. The noble Lord, Lord Moran, does not want us to put notices on parking spaces. However, by far the greatest mileage of roads in this country were designed for the horse and cart or for driving cattle along. If you live in the West Country, it is not quite so much of a problem as you cannot drive your car into a hedge because the hedges are full of stones; it is a foolish thing to do.
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However, in the eastern counties, driving into hedges merely brings the verge down and ultimately the hedge on to the road. Great lengths of road are "widened" by large vehicles, agricultural tractors and articulated lorries, and are bare, scarred and ugly when dry and muddy and stony when wet. Can the road authorities look carefully at providing proper passing places with no parking notices?
The second problem is vandalism. By that I mean particularly the removal of tiles, stones, bricks, slates and coping stones from walls. I believe that in one national park one whole building disappeared—presumably to make rockeries somewhere.
In conclusion, I ask the Government to encourage the local authorities to be even more vigilant in their responsibilities, to consider some form of help to landowners—private, public, National Trust or Forestry Commission—in clearing away fly-tipping on their land; and to try to pre-judge correctly the effects of the various rubbish-related directives coming out of Brussels. In that way, perhaps we could have a tidier and more acceptable British countryside.
6.56 p.m.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Palmer for initiating this debate. By rural standards, we are almost near neighbours. I commend his opening speech which seemed to me to bring knowledge, understanding of the issues, and a commitment to face them positively. It is also a pleasure to take part in a debate with a fine maiden speech that opens up further dimensions of the issue.
I take two starting points for my few remarks, both, surprisingly perhaps, press announcements from the DTI. On 22nd May there was an announcement of government commitment to provide broadband access for remote areas of the UK. On 6th June a further press release marked a meeting or conference bringing together three agencies, including the DTI, with the aim of promoting support for small businesses in rural areas. I pause at this point. Noble Lords may wonder who this strange man is who reads from any DTI press releases. I have to confess I ask the question occasionally myself.
The two press releases incorporate some fine language and rhetoric. Indeed, I spotted what I believe to be now a fairly rare sighting of what was once a commonplace of government press releases—the phrase "joined-up Government". I also spotted an ever rarer event: an example of inter-departmental coupling that justifies the use of that expression. There was, commendably, reference to an interaction between DTI and Defra over the issue of helping small business in rural areas. I commend the Government and the relevant departments for that. I hope that the progeny of that coupling will be liberating rather than regulatory.
In the press release of 22nd May there was reference to the government commitment, which I commend to your Lordships, to bring broadband access to every school by 2006. That will include rural schools. Let us give credit where credit is due. As I suggested, there is

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In those press releases some fine words. Equally, in the rural areas there are also fairly harsh realities against which fine words will be tested.
I make two points. First, others have spoken of the need for infrastructure in terms of transport, postal services, banking support, and so on. I wish to focus my remarks specifically on telecommunications. I was pleased to hear the word "diversity" used well and properly in the debate. Two other words not used which I commend to noble Lords—they underlie almost everything that my noble friend Lord Palmer, said—are "development" and "adaption". As my noble friend's speech indicated, in our rural communities, in particular among those who farm in those communities, there is huge evidence of the capacity of the farming community to develop and adapt to new circumstances about which we should be very pleased indeed. There is a balance to be made.
If the farming community is to continue to adapt and develop, it will need adequate telecommunications infrastructure. Any business today requires that, including the business of farming. I sometimes buy supplies of fresh fish and meat on the Internet. If the capacity to provide such a service is not in our rural communities, a sale has gone. Equally, we have heard mention of the importance of tourism. Again, many of us book holidays, flights, hotels and guesthouses through the Internet. If that capacity is not there, the infrastructure cannot cope with the demands that modern users of the facilities will make and, again, business will be lost.
Alongside the word "diversify", I put the words "development" and "adaption". However, the reality is that the quality of current telecommunication provision in some rural areas is appalling. As many noble Lords do, I move between rural areas and London, and have noticed the difference in quality of service that a single telephone link gives us in this city compared to the quality in the rural areas where some of your Lordships live. Certainly, when a train passes my home a mile away, I lose my Internet connection, if I have it, or the conversation goes. That is not the noise of the train, it is the electronic noise created by the lack of suppressers on the line. If one talks to the telecommunications provider, it is the fault of the railways, and vice versa.
The point that I am making is that there has already been a lack of attention to telecommunications. We hear fine words about providing broadband. I know that that will introduce a new technology, but the standard attitudes to which reference has already been made will still apply. For example, there is the attitude that rural communities are not a mass market. The risk is that that one comes at the end of the queue and the previous queue and the one before that has not been cleared, let alone the queue for broadband access.
I commend the Government's commitment to supply broadband access to all schools by 2006, including rural schools. I ask the Minister for a comparable commitment to the homes to which the
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children return each afternoon, in which their parents may be struggling to diversify without adequate telecommunications infrastructure.
7.2 p.m.
Lord Hardy of Wath: My Lords, I join in the commendation of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for his initiative in securing the debate and maintaining his substantial record in this area. Many noble Lords have expressed anxiety about agriculture. They clearly feel that the echoes of policy documents, such as the one on food from our own resources, should not ebb away entirely or speedily. There is clearly anxiety that agriculture might revert to a museum activity. I do not share that view. Therefore, I listened with interest to the ebullient and optimistic contribution of my noble friend Lord Haskins. My one reservation is to share the anxiety of my noble friend Lord Judd about the difficulty of enjoying the night sky because of excessive illumination. That has certainly happened in my experience over the past four or five years as houses and jobs have proliferated in the Dearne Valley.
There is an increasing awareness inside and outside agriculture of the importance of maintaining an agriculture that marries and matches the need to preserve the natural environment and protect our natural heritage. That is commendable. I know a number of farmers who are as committed as anyone to that cause.
The Government are committed, too, but they do not seem to get much credit for the good things that they do. I accept that there are areas in which Government support could be more accurately directed. Grants should he directed to the land rather than the individual, for example. That argument is as strong as the argument that support should be based on acreage rather than headage, which some of us were arguing 20 years ago.
The Government have often been unfairly criticised: they were not responsible for BSE or foot and mouth. They inherited BSE, and foot and mouth started as a result of foul and grossly unacceptable farming malpractice and spread because of rapid transportation of wildlife that bore no relation to legislation or humane practice. One hopes that the legislation since that horrible event and the experience that beset our farming communities in many parts of the island does not happen again.
However, there will be crime. My noble friend Lord Judd suggested that crime was worse in urban areas, but it is serious in rural areas. I echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Walpole, about the criminal tipping of waste material in rural areas. I remind the House that my noble friend Lord Whitty, with general approval, suggested that the courts should take a much more serious view of these offences. The fine should be such as to prove a proper deterrent.
One of my concerns is that, despite good television programmes and good coverage of conservation matters in our newspapers, there is a widespread and lamentable ignorance in this country on those matters. I live in the South Yorkshire forest area, and I doubt

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whether more than a tiny proportion of our population fully understand or know much about that commendable development—which is commendable in the way that other community forests are.
In a case that I heard about the other day, the first thing that a resident who had moved in from an urban area to live in the greenbelt did was to buy his young son an airgun, give him some pellets and send him down to the local lake where people enjoy watching the wildlife. He did not go far in that direction. I think, too, of a case of a farmer whom I know very well, who said only a few weeks ago that he would have to stop cultivating a field not far from my home because every time his tractor appeared, children were throwing stones at it. Parents should be reminded more often of their responsibilities. Perhaps the increased resources given to the police will assist with the prosecution and discouragement of crime in our rural areas, because that is needed.
I share the view that something has to be done about the housing problem in rural areas. There must be proper planning control to ensure that local people can remain. If they do, they may be more likely to use the rural post offices. We must give a much higher priority to brownfield development. I do not believe that enough attention has been given to that, but in some parts of the country a real achievement can be perceived.
1 moved to such an area—it was my constituency. It had been devastated by the closure of 10 collieries in a very short time, with unemployment and the rest of it developing. A very fine example of brownfield development has led to an absolute transformation and the regeneration of the economy and of hope. That would serve very well. We are right on the edge of the greenbelt, and I would rather build away from the greenbelt and achieve that sort of thing than see more houses built—especially houses that cost a lot of money and occupy a great deal of land. Such building disfigures the rural area, injures the landscape and dashes the hopes of those who live in rural England.
7.8 p.m.
Lord Tanlaw: My Lords, I start by declaring an interest in a hill farm in Dumfriesshire and owning a heavy electrical engineering group. I thank my noble friend Lord Palmer for instigating the debate, which has attracted a great number of excellent speakers. That is about the only advantage of coming in as tail-end Charlie—one is able to listen to those speakers and find that there is not much to say oneself. The debate has attracted a great maiden speech from my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal.
Many speeches seem to be based on the sense of belonging to an historic, local or village community, which the Government have somehow to preserve economically and protect from the baser aspects of modern urban life, of which we have heard. That is a fundamental misconception. Many rural communities, almost without exception, are no longer purely agrarian based. Most rural communities are divided between those who live there all week, mainly
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because of their historic landed interest, and those who work in city offices some distance away. The latter seem to be mainly weekenders, who may have no family roots in the local area. This difference in occupations, incomes and means of transport often proves to be a divisive social factor because of the differing attitudes and needs in housing, education and other pursuits within a small community. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford covered this aspect very well. I believe that the social and political implications of these divisions require a separate debate on how the Government have to face up to these important clashes of lifestyle and objectives.
The second area of disagreement extends to the Government and the Countryside Alliance because of the low priority that they have given to broadband, which, as many speakers have emphasised, is important for access to communications in rural areas. The main point of my remarks is to try to underline the importance of broadband communications, as other noble Lords have done. This is based on my experience of declared interests. There is no such thing as the countryside in electronic communications. Therefore, should we not recognise that we are now part of one huge global electronic village—a village that makes no distinction between town dweller and country dweller? Those who choose not to subscribe, or are unable to do so, to the broadband IT network will be excluded in future from a full education and an opportunity for economic and social advancement.
It is necessary in farming—for example, in stock monitoring and marketing from conception to the point of sale. It is what the market requires, and it will require broadband masts and dishes for stock tracking and for the control and prevention of outbreaks of disease among farm animals—which cannot properly be controlled and monitored without broadband and the electronic tagging of stock. It has to come, but I have heard very little about this from the Government.
What happens if a farmer wants to diversify? I refer to farm shops and to the sporting and holiday letting of cottages. Such activities will require broadband promotion if they are to be successful. Investment in derelict farm buildings, if they are to be turned into rural offices or factories, will require planning permission and broadband access for new tenants.
I speak as an engineering manufacturer. When I put inward investment into a country I cannot do it without broadband access. No company will come to the countryside without such access. The investment that we saw in Eskdalemuir in the 1960s came about through the forestry people. That transformed the area and saved the whole community. But it was based on an entirely wrong misconception—which was why I planted my trees in the 1960s; namely, that forest industries would be established with the forests so that, when it came to cutting, forest industries would he chopping the wood into small pieces and putting it on the road as finished products. At present, huge lumps of trees are being moved on articulated lorries with 20-tonne axles which are destroying the road system and affecting bridges. That is because the factories were not located in the forests. Any further forestry

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investment by the Forestry Commission should be dependent on the industry being located in the rural communities.
The farmer who wants to diversify needs broadband. The local post office needs to update: it needs a postmaster who is computer literate. Unless the local schools have broadband access, the children in those areas will not be able to catch up and have the same education as those in urban areas. The year 2006 is cited as the year when broadband will be available to the whole nation. Let us hope that it comes to Eskdalemuir. I want to see it there—like everyone who is concerned with the local community. It is said that rural police are non-existent or that there is difficulty in getting to see them. With broadband a household would be able to access and talk about its problem to a major police station, with top policemen. The same is true of hospitals. Local doctors would be able to gain access to homes in outlying areas. The problem could actually be filmed, and a doctor would be able to give medical advice and deal with the situation on the spot.
It would not cost much for the Government to help and to subsidise people to gain access to broadband, but they have not done so. The communications companies have used the commercial argument that in areas of low population there is no commerciality in setting up masts and dishes. Please will the Government look into this? I cannot understand why the Government are spending money on mapping. I find it extraordinary. If ramblers are unable to find their way to the countryside, they have no business being ramblers.
In a debate on ADSL, I once quoted an ode from Horace with which I shall not bore the House. Horace complained that when he was in the country he missed the pleasures of Rome, and when in Rome he missed the pleasures of the countryside. With broadband, you are able, to a certain degree, to enjoy both.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, on his introductory speech. It was a tour de force in terms of facts and figures and experience.
It was right that we should touch on agriculture. The noble Duke gave an admirable maiden speech on the subject. We have also touched on a wide variety of other themes. I noted in particular gardens, fly-tipping, sodium lighting, broadband and the role of churches among the matters on which I shall not have time to expand. As regards agriculture, I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply to the question from my noble friend Lord Mackie of Benshie about decoupling.
I should like to dwell for a moment on the issues raised by the noble Lords, Lord Clark and Lord Mancroft, in regard to wildlife and species management. The noble Lord, Lord Clark, explained
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particularly well the benefits that having exciting species can bring to tourism. We ought also to worry about the species themselves.
In replying, will the Minister comment on how he feels the biodiversity action plan—as set out in the Government's document, Working with the Grain of Nature—is going? Defra states that its biodiversity policy relies heavily on the partnership with the private and voluntary sectors. That is quite right. But Defra now needs to build on the success of the countryside stewardship scheme, which has always been hampered by lack of funds. Nevertheless, between landowners, the voluntary sector and now Defra, it has achieved some critical changes. Examples are: bigger grass margins round fields, which are good for nesting birds, insects and the food chain; retaining weedy winter stubble for feeding birds; and encouraging the renovation or creation of ponds—which encourage a wide range of wildlife.
The RSPB and Defra are to be congratulated on the work of Operation Lapwing, about which I learnt much more when I went recently to the Parrett festival in Somerset. Operation Lapwing is based on work taking place on the River Parrett. Talking with some of the farmers and the RSPB, I was struck by the sheer amount of volunteer time it takes for those involved in trying to reintroduce a reasonable number of lapwings onto their land. It involves matters as basic as marking the birds' nests with poles. I did not realise that the eggs can then be moved to the edge of the field, any necessary cultivation can be done, and the eggs can then be moved back. That is acceptable. I learnt that the chicks can run as soon as they are born, which I did not know previously. As your Lordships can tell, it was a very informative session.
The Minister will remember that some time ago he told the House about some of the headline species that have been chosen by the Government. The skylark was one. But what about barn owls, whose numbers are dropping? I could quote a number of other species to illustrate the point.
The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, raised an extremely important issue regarding deer. The Hunting Bill will come before this House. Your Lordships have been very restrained; but with that Bill facing us, the issue of species management is crucial. Whatever the outcome of the Bill, hunting is not the only area that the Government will need to dwell on. The issue of deer and traffic accidents is very serious. The number of deer across the country is growing rapidly. Some worthwhile schemes are being developed through the deer initiative but there is further work to be done.
Badgers are protected but are being experimented on through the Krebs trials. We may have to address difficult issues involving badgers; for example, the fact that they undermine foundations of houses. We had to move many badgers from my home town of Yeovil, where they were undermining the foundations of almost a whole street.
Noble Lords frequently ask questions about invasive species such as knotweed and Himalayan balsam but I want to discuss biodiversity as a whole.

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We have not yet got cane toads from Australia but species have become a global issue to the extent that what could be called non-indigenous species create problems.
I enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, and I look forward to the recommendations of his review. However, some of his optimism was misplaced. He pointed out that small shops were closing because people did not want to use them, but I take issue with that. Small shops were also threatened by supermarkets that laid on free buses to rural areas, which people found to be more convenient because it also gave them access to the town. Supermarkets did not do that from the good of their heart; they did so because they felt that people would then shop with them, and they were quite right. They also benefit hugely in small market towns because they have free car parking, which local authorities do not usually offer to other shops, which suffer as a result. I hope that the Minister will comment on those issues.
The review of the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, provoked much discussion in my neck of the woods, mainly about the streamlining of grants. I did not agree with much of what the noble Earl, Lord Arran, said, but I agreed with his comments on grants. I declare an interest as a Somerset county councillor. The council often acts as a facilitator in that process. The current system is appalling. There are now full-time jobs as grant bidders but—worse—I discovered that new jobs as advisers to grant bidders are also springing up in the private sector. Basically, there are too many bodies that must be bid to, and they all have different criteria.
Partnership is good but it now means that even small projects must assemble a vast range of partners. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford was absolutely right when he mentioned the inappropriateness of rural development agencies in that context. Their top-down approach in some of their policies in rural areas is completely inappropriate.
The Government had a good idea involving community interest companies. However, I do not believe that it has been rural-proofed, which I thought was now supposed to happen with all government policies. I give the Minister an example. Rural schools could be a centre of many things and, in some instances, could be a community interest company. However, schools are excluded from that. In a village, a school is often the only centre that is likely to fall into that category.
I also welcome some of the Countryside Agency's current work. I expect that other noble Lords also received through the post today the new questionnaire about the countryside code. I am pleased to say that we on these Benches persuaded the Government to introduce that into the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. We look forward to filling in the questionnaire and sending it back. That code should be highly promoted and used as one of the tools that the Government use to draw together what should happen when people visit the countryside.
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I also praise the Government for what they have called MAGIC. The Minister will be aware of it. It is a land-based mapping system, and very exciting it is, too. I was introduced to it on the Defra stand at the Royal Bath and West Show. It is an excellent innovation and I recommend it to noble Lords.
I turn to the excellent points made by the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool, on which I should like to expand. He discussed renewable energy and biomass and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, discussed biofuels. I regret the fact that the Government have allowed the biomass plant known as Arbre, which the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, mentioned, to flounder. I realise that it is a private sector initiative. The Government found it in their heart to bale out British Energy time and again to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. Apparently, according to one farmer among 35 who were supplying Miscanthus or willow to the plant, there has not been a single contact from the DTI about the closure of the plant so soon in its operations. The farmer felt that the DTI could have helped the farmers to look for new markets and to consider co-firing biomass with coal. That is extremely regrettable and leads me to wonder about the Government's commitment to renewables.
Finally, I want to mention two other issues. The first, that of branch lines, was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. If the Government want to introduce congestion charging more widely in other cities, they must consider the position of rural railways that serve the towns. I shall give two examples: the Barnstaple to Exeter line, which is very rural and very good at serving Exeter, and the Weymouth to Bath and Bristol line, which serves dozens of small market towns and goes straight to the heart of Bath and Bristol. Secondly, I turn to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, about national parks. We can expect a review of national parks to be published soon, and I hope that we will debate it in your Lordships' House. National parks should be the test-bed for sustainable development; they can be the test-bed for exciting ideas. We must debate the progress that the parks have made and the role that they should serve in future. I refer in particular to introducing children from urban communities into the most beautiful and inspiring areas of our countryside.
Finally, I again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, on a truly inspiring debate.
7.28 p.m.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I begin by welcoming the noble Duke the Earl Marshal to the House and congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech. It gives me double pleasure because he welcomed me three years ago, I believe, to his farm in West Sussex. We had a long discussion about the crisis facing agriculture. I am very grateful to him. We look forward to hearing from him many times in the future.
I remind the House of my family's farming interests. We have an arable farm outside Lavenham in Suffolk and released land for affordable housing. Many noble Lords have touched on that. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for giving us this opportunity once again

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to go through many of the arguments and challenges that are faced by those who live and work in the countryside and those who come to enjoy it.
The noble Lord gave some fairly stark figures on incomes and crops and described how many tonnes he had to produce to get the money required at the end of the day. We all know that he is a great champion of the biofuel industry. He also touched on the closure of Arbre, which the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, mentioned. We view it as a great sadness. He proposed the new idea of a subsidised taxi service. So often we are told by the Government, "All you do is complain; you never come up with good ideas". That is a good idea, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it.
This debate very sensibly was chosen to look at the whole of the countryside and not just at farming per se. We have touched on affordable housing, broadband, landscape, churches, communities and the support they give to each other, crime and on the whole question of the CAP reform and of the need for it to be attached to the land rather than to go with the person who farms the land. We have talked about wildlife. But most of all we have talked of—and I return to it because it underlines the whole issue—the need to have profitable and sustainable farming. Whether or not we want to talk about farming all day—and many of us in this House would be very happy to—the one thing on which we would all agree is that if we do not have a profitable farming community then the very things we want to protect, encourage and have other people enjoy will not be available because one cannot continue to sustain farming if one does not make a profit.
I agree with other noble Lords who said there should not be a divide between town and country. Whenever I speak, I try to bring the two together because we all eat food. The question is: what food do we eat? I hope it says on my back, "From UK agriculture every day if I can", because I am very anxious that we should promote our own agriculture here and not, as we heard in our debate yesterday—I have to say it was discrimination—that of the less developed countries. We have a role to play there.
Agriculture and horticulture are at the heart of what happens in the countryside. Whether we live and work there or are visitors, we love the countryside. The countryside is as it is because it is worked and farmed. It is man-made and maintained. That is something that we should never forget.
On many occasions we have talked about people moving from urban areas and going to live in villages. Some of them are perhaps a little disappointed when they arrive. Aspects they have taken for granted in towns are not accessible in villages. It is a long drive to work, to school or to visit old friends. There is often no shop within five miles. The nearest post office may be two miles away; and 194 of those closed last year. There may be only one doctor's surgery, which might be in the next village.
Sometimes children and fathers of those families complain bitterly at the loss of broadband access to the Internet. The nearest play area that allows ball games
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may be a mile and a quarter away and down a narrow winding lane, which is used from morning until night by large lorries trying to make up lost time. Indeed, I was grateful for the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, who reminded us that half of all accidents occur on rural roads, and that it is a really large problem.
So, all is not as easy as it might be. Not all those who move to the countryside leave, but some stay, settle in and support what happens in their villages. However, as other noble Lords have said, broadband is one of the issues that the Government need to address. Only 1 per cent of houses in remote locations and only 7 per cent of village homes have access to broadband, compared with 95 per cent in towns. I hope the Minister received those figures because they speak for themselves. In addition, young adults or widowed pensioners wishing to remain find that there is a shortage of affordable properties to buy. There is also a lack of homes to rent at rates they can afford—a matter which has been touched on around the House.
Transport is a problem. Again we have touched on that issue. A sizeable proportion of rural dwellers are not car- owners. There may be a car in the family, but usually the wage earner takes it with him and the other person is left without adequate transport. Sometimes it is not possible to take a bus to visit a doctor, to go to the dentist or to visit a hospital because the return journey begins too soon or too late. As we have said in previous discussions, magistrates' courts have closed down in many rural areas, making it difficult for people to attend when necessary.
Many noble Lords have spoken about urban crime. It is reducing because of the installation of CCTV and the targeting of police methods. The smarter of the criminal fraternity are therefore moving to the countryside.
Fly-tipping, as we have heard—we had a debate on it last week—is on the increase, as public tips enforce charging for large quantities of waste. The beauty of rural walks is increasingly being marred by heaps of stinking household rubbish, mounds of builders' rubble and the dangerous and unsightly carcasses of burnt-out cars. In many cases the local authority moves them when that occurs on the roadside, but when it occurs on someone's private property it is the landowner's responsibility to do so at his expense.
Those who have lived and worked in the countryside for generations—and I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, for her very specific contribution today—know how it is and how it is kept. They have done so at their own expense and using their own experience, but they are being overwhelmed by costly rules and regulations.
Farmers are faced with steadily increasing costs, particularly as a result of European legislation, such as the ear-tagging of sheep and the non-burial of fallen stock. That has not only affected the disposal of animals that die on the farm; it is a great blow to our abattoirs, which now have to look at different ways of disposing of blood. So, there is an impact on small and medium-sized abattoirs.

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Agriculture, tourism and rural diversification are beset by multiple incentive schemes, many of which require bids which either will not succeed or will do so after the available money is exhausted. My noble friend Lord Arran spoke about that. I give one example. The Countryside Agency runs a "vital villages" scheme, which has been hugely successful. Unfortunately, the scheme has been stopped because it has run out of money. That is not really very helpful when one is trying to plan for the future.
Perhaps I may touch on tourism. Ten members of the Royal Family, as has already been said, devoted yesterday to promoting tourist attractions throughout the UK. The main aim was to persuade our own people to spend some holiday time in our countryside rather than going abroad. I place my thanks on the record for the action they took because it really has highlighted the attractions we have within our own country, which so often we fail to realise.
Rural people are working hard to learn the modern skills of marketing, Internet selling and product development. All is not doom and gloom out there. There are many good examples of new people coming into business who actually do not look back over their shoulders but who are looking at ways to take business into the 21st century. All around the country, pubs and cafes are using locally-sourced foods. Guides and cookbooks promote county specialities. Farmers sell their produce at the farm gate and in their shops. There are box schemes for fresh produce, farmers' markets, visitor attraction centres and craft centres which incorporate wonderful home-cooked food in their restaurants. So there are good things happening out there.
However. I should like to touch briefly on the CAP reform. It should assist those who have maintained the countryside as a by-product of farming as an end in itself. However, as we have heard, large numbers are leaving the land. If CAP reform means that the amount of money able to be claimed by a farmer goes away from the land, I think it will raise great problems. What will happen, for example, when the person has moved away and a new entrant comes on to the land with no support by way of subsidies? How can he compete against another farmer who still has subsidies? That is an issue that perhaps the Government have not fully taken on board. Have they realised the environmental implications? Obviously, the new entrant will be very keen to farm in the most aggressive way he can to get the best return for his money. That will have a huge environmental impact.
Also, the Rural Payments Agency is still six months late with its payments on suckler cow premiums. What is being done about that? As a result of bovine TB, some 23,000 cows were killed last year. What are the Government going to do about that, because it is getting out of hand?
My last two points concern rights of way and the mapping exercise. First, the mapping exercise has been hugely costly. What is the cost? Secondly, what of the question of private land and gardens being included in
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some of the mapping exercises and the arbitrary reclassification of some private paths as public footpaths? Those are hugely important issues.
I end by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for introducing this excellent debate, and I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.
7.41 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty): My Lords. I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for initiating this wide-ranging debate—probably even more wide-ranging than he thought it would be—and in extending my thanks and congratulations to the noble Duke, the Earl Marshal, in his informative maiden speech.
I am not sure that I can reply to all the points that have been made; with some, I shall not try. Your Lordships will be glad to hear that I shall not respond to any points relating to hunting—I suspect that the House will have plenty of time to discuss those later—save to say that the references to hare coursing made by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, may also be dealt with in that context.
Nor, with apologies to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, shall I go into great detail about negotiations on CAP reform, partly because we had a detailed debate yesterday and partly because the negotiations started at 3 o'clock this afternoon, and the whole situation may have changed by now. I would not want to undermine my right honourable friend Margaret Beckett in her negotiations by saying anything about the likely outcome at this stage. We are all clear about the general direction in which Commissioner Fischler wants to go, much of which fits in with the Government's view.
I shall make two points to begin with. First, I echo the point made by several of my noble friends and others, that we must not allow ourselves to consider the countryside as being significantly different in its concerns, anxieties and prospects from the rest of the community. Of course, there are differences between rural and urban society, but the latest Countryside Agency survey highlights the key fact that, although there are significant problems in the countryside, the pattern of distribution of income, the problem of access to services and the general level of prosperity are, if anything, better in the countryside than in the town.
My noble friend Lord Judd pointed out that education, health and the prosperity of new businesses are, in general, better in rural areas than in towns. That does not mean that there are not pockets of serious disadvantage in remoter parts of the countryside or serious economic problems in parts of the agricultural sector. But it is important to say that many problems are the same, and therefore need to be addressed by general rather than specific policies—while not in any sense reneging on the Government's commitment to ensure that those general policies are positively and clearly rural-proofed. Where there are differences in both delivery and problems, we must address them.

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The other point is that it is wrong to say, as, I fear, the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, said, that the countryside is in dire straits. There is significant prosperity in the countryside. My view is closer to that of my noble friend Lord Haskins than to some of the remarks that have been made in the debate. There is much vibrancy and change, new enterprise and business in the countryside; people are moving in and out of the countryside; and that of itself causes some tension and problems, which we must address. But to say that the countryside is in a state of depression is, with a few isolated exceptions, wrong.
Of course, I do not entirely go along with my noble friend Lord Haskins in his dismissal of romantics, or even of dinosaurs. As my noble friend Lord Judd said, we need a special approach and vision for the countryside—especially for the national parks and more attractive areas of our landscape. But, in general, prosperity is reasonably spread.
As ever—and, I suppose, rightly so—the debate has concentrated on agriculture although not, today, disproportionately, compared with earlier debates in which I have participated in the House. Nevertheless, that industry has been most focused on, albeit that it is no longer the biggest industry in our rural areas. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, himself emphasised the problems of agriculture. I agree with his analysis of some of them. As the noble Earl, Lord Peel, and others said, we must approach them broadly through the strategy laid down by the Curry commission, which is a strategy for the whole food chain.
Some of the economic problems of farming can be addressed not by changing the subsidy system so much as by changing the relationship between farmers and the rest of the food chain—in particular, the supermarkets and large processors—whereby farmers get back more of the value added in the food chain and of the price that consumers pay in the shops. But some of that relates to the effects of the CAP and how subsidies have distorted what farming is done, so that, as I said yesterday, farmers have been chasing subsidies, rather than the market.
The whole point about profitability in farming—which, I agree, is part of the sustainability of agriculture and the countryside as a whole—is that if farmers are freed from the burden of chasing subsidy, they will chase the market. The way to get prosperity in farming enterprises, as in any other enterprise, is to anticipate and meet the market. Yes, there is a public interest in supporting farming in general land management, because we want the country landscape as a background for other economic and social activities in the countryside—tourism and others. That is the way in which we hope that the CAP is moving, but it is also important to recognise that the way to get money back into farming is by making it more market-oriented than some sectors have been—largely, although not entirely, as a result of the CAP.
Many references were made to the problems of regulation in farming. The noble Lord, Lord Monro, the noble Duke, the Earl Marshal, the noble Earl,
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Lord Peel, the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, and others emphasised the problems that farmers face through regulation. I shall say only two things about that. First, it would be wrong for me to give the impression that regulation will go away. Society demands more from economic activities of all sorts, and farming has been exempt from some regulation that is now hitting it—relating to waste, water pollution, and so forth—which has hitherto been faced by other parts of industry. That is not to say that it is easy for farming to meet those regulatory requirements, but it is equitable to ask it to do so.
Also, it is true that regulation in this country is largely driven by Europe. I accept that, sometimes, European regulation can be disproportionate, clumsy or too prescriptive. The Government are trying to ensure that the European approach to regulation moves more to outcome-related regulation from prescribing exactly what farmers and other businesses do. But it is important that we have Europe-wide regulation. The single market, which exists in agriculture as in other sectors, should be subject to common rules.
It is therefore important, on the one hand, that we fulfil the Prime Minister's obligation to agriculture—that in future we do not gold-plate European legislation—but also that we recognise that European legislation sets the standards for our farming, and, frankly, stop knocking other European Union countries. Frequently, when we investigate the individual allegations about their rather lighter touch of regulation, if anything, the opposite turns out to be the case. Certainly, if we compare ourselves with France, the level of regulation and number of inspectors and checkers of the food chain and farming in France tends to be somewhat higher than ours. Therefore regulation at European level is inevitably part of agriculture.
We need to ensure that regulation is delivered in an entirely different way. Instead of forcing farmers to deal with 17 different regulators and umpteen different sets of regulation, we approach it as a total production. The whole-farm approach should apply to regulation as it should to planning and to the delivery of assurance schemes. If we can achieve the benign cycle where regulation operates on a whole-farm basis, delivers a whole farm plan and delivers the quality of goods that is appropriate for whole-farm assurance schemes, then we are out of the rut of dealing with bureaucracy on the one hand, from the subsidies on the other, from regulation and from the assurance schemes themselves. We are driving towards that end with the whole-farm strategies as laid out by the Curry commission. It will take us a little time to arrive there, but it is a top priority for Defra and its agencies.
Before moving on I shall say two things about agriculture. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, asked about the fallen stock regulation. I agree that there is some concern about whether that is appropriate, but the regulation is an important protection of our environment arising largely from the BSE experience, and it is a European obligation. I regret that the farming organisations did not consult and deal with us

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to set up a national disposal scheme earlier in the game. When we reached agreement with the farming organisations a few weeks ago for a viable national disposal scheme to which we would make a significant government contribution—but expected a levy from farmers—they then contacted their members and have been vigorously trying to make their members sign up. Regrettably, we are not yet at the point where we could deliver the level of participation where a national disposal scheme can operate. I wish we were. A national disposal scheme was the best solution, and could still be, but unless we receive a greater response from farmers we will not be at that point.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, does that mean the Minister will extend the scheme to bury on farms until something is in operation?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, no I cannot say that. We are already obliged under European law to prohibit disposal on farms. My colleague Elliot Morley has said that in the initial months as people become used to the rules, there will be a relatively light-touch enforcement. That does not mean that the legal obligation is in any way suspended. We do need the participation and the commitment of farmers to deliver a national disposal scheme. The noble Baroness asked about TB. There are substantial efforts to eradicate TB but it is a serious programme, particularly in some parts of the country. It is our highest priority for animal health at the moment.
An aspect of agriculture that is dear to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Palmer—and was also focused on by others, including the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool—is biofuels. We have not yet put our act fully together on biofuels but there is a strong commitment from the Government to do so, both on converting crops into liquid biofuels and on biomass. I do not believe that the noble Lord was right to say that the choice is one or the other, or that one is better than the other. We need to develop on both fronts and through caps in the fiscal regime and other support for biofuels we want to ensure that we can deliver on both the liquid fuel side and the biomass side.
I agree with those, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Miller and Lady Byford, who referred to the Arbre project. That was an unfortunate situation. It does not indicate any lack of enthusiasm from the Government. As we said in the energy White Paper, we wish to deliver 10 per cent of energy by renewables, of which biomass will be a significant part. I am glad that the liquidators have now reached an agreement for the sale of the Arbre plant to a new owner and I am hopeful that that can be brought back into commercial operation with the farmers who were supplying the plant under its previous owner. The DTI may well be at arm's length from the project, but officials from my department have certainly been in constant contact with both the farmers and the Arbre project throughout this difficult period.
I shall move on briefly from agriculture to another element of land use in the countryside—forestry. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, referred to that, and my
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noble friend Lord Clark of Windermere explained how forestry can be used not only for its own benefits and despite the economic difficulties of the forestry sector, but to deliver wider economic, social and environmental benefits to the countryside by delivering both ospreys and tourists into that area of Cumbria. Forestry must be an important part of the future of our landscape.
The other problems of the countryside upon which most of the debate focused are important—particularly the delivery of services to people who live there. The Government's rural White Paper published two years ago is being reviewed, as the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, requested, and we are taking stock of how far we have delivered on the strategy. A number of major government commitments have taken place in relation to support for rural transport. £239 million has been allocated over the current three-year period. There has been support for rural schools, with the creation of a formal presumption against closure. We have provided £450 million of support to at least slow down the process of closure of rural post offices, and we have supported rural businesses—particularly rural pubs, garages and shops. That is a significant and relatively new effort by the Government to deliver and retain a degree of economic activity within villages. That also needs to be put into the context of our general policy on vital villages and market towns, aimed at revitalising economic activity within those villages.
While it may be true that those who live in villages, whether incomers or ancient inhabitants, are attracted away from the village to the supermarkets and the town from time to time, it is important that that is not their only economic activity and that some of the money that is coming into those villages is spent in the villages and market towns. Our policy is directed at that.
The housing market in rural areas is the largest problem of service delivery in total. It is also the most difficult problem for our rural areas—or at least some of them. In a sense, it is a symptom of their success in that far from being depopulated, which used to be the problem, far too many people are wanting to live in the villages and small towns of our countryside and are bringing in substantial amounts of money to purchase and develop properties in a way which takes them out of the range of local people. A large number of speakers focused on that, including the noble Lords, Lord Palmer and Lord Haskins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu. Throughout the debate reference was repeatedly made to affordable housing and the housing market within rural areas.
That is an important and difficult problem. The Government are looking at various moves in that respect—for example, at least to reduce the attraction of some second homes by allowing local authorities to reduce the council tax discount on second homes from 50 per cent to 10 per cent. More positively, we are delivering through the Housing Corporation affordable homes for approval in rural areas. The £250 million starter home initiative is also being designed to help rural areas where house price

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affordability is a serious problem both for retention of populations and for the retention and attraction of key workers.
We recognise that more needs to be done in this area by combinations of public and private sector activity and by new initiatives such as the designation of areas for affordable housing, perhaps along the lines referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. We certainly need new initiatives within rural housing. Some of that is the Government's responsibility, but some must be done in partnership with local authorities, building societies and building developers.
There is a bit of a contradiction in some of the comments made in this debate and elsewhere. If we are to cope with incomers who bring prosperity to villages and also keep people in villages with affordable housing, there will have to be new developments in countryside villages and in towns. We cannot say, "This is a closed area." As has been said, we cannot set the countryside in aspic. There will need to be more housing in country areas. They will not have to be huge developments or huge hacienda-type low-density housing, but there will have to be affordable housing in rural areas to keep local people in the area.
Transport is another serious issue. As I said, we have spent substantial sums on it. However, we also recognise that more needs to be done. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, and other noble Lords referred to taxis and more flexible forms of transport. Some rural bus services have certainly been a success, and we have certainly spent a lot of money on them. However, we need to look at more flexible bus, quasi-bus and quasi-taxi services that will meet the needs particularly of those who do not have access, or rarely have access, to a car.
Law and order is another problem to which noble Lords have alluded. It is true that crime is at a much lower level in rural areas than in the rest of the country. However, it is a growing problem in rural areas, and there is a growing fear of crime particularly in isolated areas. Noble Lords both mentioned that and cited specifics of new types of rural crime and rural vandalism. Fly-tipping is hardly new, but it has increased in frequency—an issue which we discussed in the House not long ago. The Government have taken and are contemplating taking further measures in relation to fly-tipping of all sorts. As my noble friend Lord Hardy reminded me, I was slightly critical of the courts as regards the level of sanction that should be applied to serious environmental crimes involving people tipping huge amounts of building rubbish on to prime land.
So I think that more needs to be done in rural areas. However, we have also provided significant funds for rural policing and innovative forms of support for rural crime detection.
I should say a few words about another service that many—perhaps more than expected—noble Lords mentioned: broadband. If the rural population is to participate fully in business and educational activities and developments, then broadband will need to be
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extended. Our aim is that every community in the UK regardless of location should have the opportunity to gain access to affordable broadband from a competitive market. We have allocated £30 million to the RDAs in England to take forward innovative schemes so that they can meet local broadband requirements.
I turn very briefly to what I have already referred to as the background to all of this—the landscape and accompanying wildlife and biodiversity to which we are all devoted and which we all recognise is the major attraction of the English rural scene. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, asked about the biodiversity action programmes. We have made considerable progress in that respect. However, it is true that we have stabilised or improved just under half of the action programmes which we have undertaken and vigorously pursued, whereas just over half have not yet turned the corner. That includes some of the farmland birds to which she referred. The level of farmland birds is a PSA objective for Defra. Although that does not necessarily give it priority over everything else, it symbolises the importance that my department attaches to the restoration of wildlife in determining its objectives.
It is clearly important that any change in the CAP and in other support measures for farming and land management is directed at ensuring that the landscape provides a backdrop that is attractive to those who live in the countryside and particularly to tourists of all sorts who come into the countryside. Again, that does not mean maintaining the landscape in aspic. However much people may think to the contrary, the fact is that the farmed landscape does not look the same as it did 50 years ago. It will not look the same 50 years from now. Farming patterns and land ownership patterns will change. We want to ensure that, within that process, the landscape does not deteriorate into scrub and that the wildlife and positive features of our landscape are not destroyed.
Consequently, I believe that the single payment under the proposed changes in the CAP, the detail of which is still to be worked out, will help to deliver by ensuring that farmers and other land managers meet their obligations and receive support from the rest of the community via what has hitherto been called the common agricultural policy, but which should really be a policy for the delivery of our rural landscape.
I should like to mention just one other matter—the few sideswipes taken at Defra. I am not going to be exceptionally sensitive about those. The noble Earl, Lord Arran, was probably the most extreme, but there were others. I believe that we have turned the corner in our relationship with the farming community, although there is a long way to go. I also think that Defra's new initiatives in delivering this wide range of benefits to the countryside and in influencing the rural policy of other government departments are an important change in the past two to three years. However, that needs to go further. I shall be receiving the advice of my noble friend Lord Haskins on how better to deliver that programme.

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I believe that we have made a good start. I think that the methods of delivery could be better, and they will be better. As a result of that commitment I believe that we will have a better countryside, a better landscape—indeed a better agricultural sector—and a closer partnership between government and those who live and work in the countryside.
8.6 p.m.
Lord Palmer: My Lords, I do hope that the noble Baroness is impressed at how we have all heeded her very strict warning at the beginning of this debate, very nearly four hours ago.
I, too, should like to add my congratulations to my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk on a truly remarkable maiden speech. I am particularly pleased for once how many Back-Bench Labour Peers were able to take part today. It is interesting that among the list of speakers there were in fact 11 elected hereditary Peers. I know how disappointed some noble Lords were not to be able to take part, most especially the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lords, Lord Plumb, Lord Vinson, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate and Lord Carter.
I am glad that I did not succumb to the pressure to change the wording of the Motion from "British" to "English", as we have had powerful contributions from noble Lords from all over the United Kingdom.
The Minister as usual did an outstanding job in trying to reply to such a varied number of contributions. Many of us will be delighted about the whole farm plan, and it will be widely welcomed throughout the agricultural community. I was also heartened by his encouraging words about biofuels. I hope that he will forgive me for banging on about them yet again. I was also encouraged by his words about affordable rural housing and the fact that he acknowledges that this is a major problem.
I thank him for the courteous way in which he has wound up the debate, and I thank all noble Lords for their valuable contribution this afternoon. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Drugs
8.9 p.m.
Lord Cobboldrose to call attention to the long-term effectiveness of current national and international policies on drugs; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I raise this subject with some trepidation. It is an emotive issue on which almost everyone has strong opinions. Personally, I have little experience of either the use of drugs or of dealing with the consequence of drug use in others. I have in the past occasionally encountered cannabis, both wittingly and unwittingly, but that is all. I am fortunate in that all my four children have eschewed the drug habit. But I have close friends who have lost
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a much-loved child from drugs, so I understand full well the horrors and the misery that drug use can cause. I do not smoke, but I would be very reluctant to do without my wine and my whisky.
I do not in any sense belittle the danger and damage caused by drugs. My reason for raising the subject is that our present policies on drugs seem to be in conflict with common sense. The Home Office's Updated Drug Strategy 2002 states on page 40:
"Society as a whole pays a high price for drug misuse. The total economic cost each year, including the cost to the health service, courts, prisons and other parts of the criminal justice system, and the benefits system is estimated at between £2.9 billion and £5.3 billion. When social costs such as the costs to crime victims are added, the total rises to between £10.1 billion and £17.4 billion".
That is a cost of nearly £18 billion per annum.
That contrasts with excise revenues from tobacco and alcohol, which provide the Government with an income of £14 billion per annum—a revenue stream that is admittedly offset by the costs of alcohol misuse and smoking related healthcare provision. But the revenue is also available to finance advertising and educational campaigns warning of the dangers of smoking and alcoholism. The campaign against smoking has been particularly effective in recent times.
We are also told that we have the highest rate of drug usage in Europe and that more than 50 per cent of those in our overcrowded prisons are there for drug-related crimes. The war on drugs by any measure that one cares to take is not being won. One has to ask: is it indeed winnable with present policies?
I was brought up with stories of Al Capone and alcohol prohibition in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s. Prima facie, it seems that there are lessons to be learnt from that experience. Indeed, to the casual observer, today's drug scene looks even worse than Chicago. We are told that there are now about 250,000 problematic drug users in this country, compared with only about 5,000 in 1971, and that the 250,000 heroin and crack addicts are responsible for 99 per cent of the nearly £18 billion annual social and economic costs to which I have already referred.
Then there are the strong links between problematic drug use and crime. According to the Government's Updated Drug Strategy 2002, around three quarters of crack and heroin users claim to be committing crime to feed their habit. But drug usage is not confined to the 250,000 problematic drug users. Around 4 million people, we are told, use at least one illicit drug each year, and around 1 million people use at least one of the most dangerous drugs that are classified as class A. All those people are therefore criminals. Does that make sense? One has to ask to what extent it is the responsibility of the state to protect individuals from damaging themselves. We live in an age when the nanny state interferes more and more in individual liberty. Has it gone one step too far in the case of drug laws? It is clearly the duty of the state to prevent injury and damage to third parties and to property, but our current drugs laws manifestly fail to do that.

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Prohibition is supposed to restrict supply, but clearly it does not. It benefits only the criminal gangs which dominate the trade. Common sense suggest to me at least that it would be more sensible to treat drugs in the same way as we treat alcohol and tobacco. Supply would be regulated and subject to tax and, very importantly, to quality control. Tax revenues could be applied to healthcare and educational campaigns on the dangers of drug use. The laws which already operate in the sphere of alcohol abuse could be extended easily to cover drug abuse.
But, as we all know, it is not as simple as that. Even if decriminalisation were accepted in this country—which it is not—it is not a one-country problem; it is global. That brings me to consideration of the national framework in which we operate.
Noble Lords will be aware that the main instrument for drugs control in the United Kingdom is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Noble Lords are probably also aware that this Act was the means by which the United Kingdom sought to meet its international obligations as a signatory to three United Nations conventions. In explaining the background to the legal position, I am indebted to the excellent report, Drugs and the Law 2000, commissioned by the Police Federation under the chairmanship of Dame Ruth Runciman.
The relationship between our domestic law and international agreements goes back to the early years of the 20th century—The Hague convention of 1912 and the Shanghai commission of 1909, to be precise. The pattern has been for United Kingdom legislation to emerge from international agreements, although it has always been possible for the United Kingdom, as for other countries, to take action separately from international conventions.
There are in fact three United Nations conventions on international co-operation in the drugs field, dating from 1961, 1971 and 1988. The 1988 convention supplements and strengthens the earlier two. Among other things, the conventions provide the basis for controlling the availability of drugs for legitimate medical and scientific purpose and for making the possession of drugs for personal consumption a criminal offence under domestic law in all member countries.
The conventions were further consolidated in June 1988 at the United Nations 20th General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the world drug problem. In its political declaration, the special session reaffirmed its,
"unwavering determination and commitment to overcoming the world drug problem through domestic and international strategies to reduce both the illicit supply of and demand for drugs".
The session set itself a range of ambitious targets to be achieved, among which were, first,
"eliminating or reducing significantly the illicit cultivation of the coca bush, the cannabis plant and the opium poppy by the year 2008".
Secondly,
"achieving significant and measurable results in the field of demand reduction by the year 2008".
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And, thirdly,
"eliminating or reducing significantly the illicit manufacture, marketing and trafficking of psychotropic substances, including synthetic drugs".
This 10-year programme was to be the subject of review after five years. This five-year review actually took place at a conference in Vienna on 16th and 17th April this year.
The meeting coincided with the war in Iraq and therefore received little or no coverage in the world press. The lack of publicity was in all probability welcomed by participants because it is self-evident that no progress whatever has been achieved in meeting the ambitious targets set in 1998. Drug production and use is at least as prevalent, and probably more so, than it was in 1998.
The Economist, in its issue of 5th April this year ahead of the Vienna meeting, wrote:
"This gathering will hear that the world is no closer to meeting its goals than it was five years ago. But instead of asking such questions as whether the whole project may be misguided, the meeting will almost certainly decide to redouble international efforts to achieve the unachievable".
The prediction of the Economist seems to have been fulfilled. The joint ministerial statement issued following the meeting makes no attempt to measure progress against the target set at the UNGASS session five years ago. The statement simply reviews the commitment to the principles established by UNGASS. It concedes that,
"drug abuse remains at an unacceptably high level",
and expresses concern at,
"the rapid and widespread increase in the illicit production and abuse of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances".
Finally, the statement closes the door on any more radical discussions when it states:
"We are gravely concerned about policies and activities in favour of the legalisation of illicit narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances that are not in accordance with international drug control treaties and that might jeopardise the international drug programme".
That sentiment is echoed in the Home Secretary's foreword to his Updated Drug Strategy 2002, where he stated that
"all controlled drugs are harmful and will remain illegal".
For those who support current policies that will be a matter of relief. But for those who would like to see a radical rethink of our policy on drugs the way ahead looks arduous, at both the national and international levels. The forces of zero tolerance are firmly entrenched.
What, if anything, can be done in the meantime? Are there any positive measures that can be taken within the existing legal framework? There are a number of research institutes, such as the Transform Drug Policy Institute and Forward Thinking on Drugs, which are actively promoting a change in the law. Nacro has said in its most recent report that,
"the war on drugs is over—we lost".
Many other excellent bodies promote work in the drug field and are doing a fantastic job.

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Noble Lords will be aware of the moves to transfer cannabis to Class C and to decriminalise its possession for personal consumption. These are welcome moves. Another area in which benefits can be achieved is harm reduction schemes. Such schemes are controversial, but they definitely help to reduce drug-related crime and the transmission of diseases, such as hepatitis and HIV. The Government's Updated Drug Strategy states in page 10:
"Treatment works. It is the key to reducing the harm that drugs cause to users, family and communities. Investment in treatment is cost effective—for each £1 spent, an estimated £3 is saved in criminal justice costs alone".
But, however effective and desirable treatment and harm-reduction schemes may be—and, of course, they should be encouraged—they are but a response to an existing crisis. They throw no light on the reasons for the crisis.
There appears to be a sort of official stalemate. On the one hand, the Chief Constable of North Wales Police, Richard Brunstrom, can say at a recent Edinburgh conference:
We have given control of the most dangerous substances in our society to armed criminals. This cannot be sensible policy".
While on the other hand, the Government's Updated Drug Strategy 2002 states that,
"we will prevent young people from using drugs by maintaining prohibition which deters use".
Prohibition, it appears, is accepted as a given.
In its excellent report of May 2002, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee made 24 recommendations, to which the Government responded formally in July last year. The final recommendation was:
"We recommend that the Government initiates a discussion within the [United Nations] Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways— including the possibility of legislation and regulation—to tackle the global drugs dilemma".
The Government responded:
"The Government does not accept this recommendation. We do not accept that legalisation and regulation is now, or will be in the future, an acceptable response to the presence of drugs."
I ask the Minister to confirm that that is still the Government's policy. Could he also tell us whether the Government believe that their policies are working, and that they are winning the war on drugs? Most important, can he explain why the Government appear unwilling even to discuss the pros and cons of decriminalisation versus prohibition?
For those who believe in legalisation and regulation the future looks bleak. Given the Government's current position and the United Nations convention, the chances of making any progress within the foreseeable future are extremely remote. But let me assume for a moment that the Government could be persuaded to change their mind. What then might happen?
There could be no rapid change since we would remain bound by the United Nations convention, and the only conceivable way of changing its terms, when they come up for review again in five years' time, would be for a group of like-minded nations to present
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a common view. There is clearly a mounting desire among some nations, particularly European nations, to pursue pragmatic strategies to address illegal drug use.
The Government might first pursue more actively the quiet path currently being followed by the Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Germany, and elsewhere by, for example, Canada and Australia. It is perhaps a situation in which Europe could take the lead, but it would not be plain sailing. France and Sweden would be strongly against any such moves, while the United States is the ultimate protagonist of zero tolerance, which seems strange given its experience of alcohol prohibition in the past.
But I fear that this is the land of make-believe. The best that we can hope for is that the Government might agree to sponsor an objective, cost-benefit audit of the pros and cons of legalisation and regulation. I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to this suggestion.
As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we are dealing with an emotive topic on which most people have strong views one way or the other. In raising the issue, I felt that a reasoned and objective debate on the subject was desirable and that your Lordships' House, with its unique wealth of experience, expertise, wisdom and, above all, common sense, was the best possible place in the world to have such a discussion.
8.26 p.m.
Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, for securing this debate, which is both timely and important. It is of particular interest to me because I must declare an interest as the chair of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, a special health authority set up in 2001 to oversee the delivery of drug treatment services to double the numbers in treatment from 100,000 in 2001 to 200,000 in 2008 and to bring down waiting times. I must also declare an interest as a member of the board of the Advisory Council on Alcohol and Drug Education.
This is a wide-ranging debate, but I shall focus on the issue of drug treatment in England and how we can improve its long-term effectiveness. I am fortunate in my role as chair of the National Treatment Agency in that it gives me the opportunity to travel around the country, visiting treatment programmes of many kinds and talking to providers, users and carers in a number of settings such as, for example, prisons, community settings and women's groups. I see both successes and problems.
Treatment is relevant to both the health agenda and the criminal justice agenda. There is no contradiction in that. Drug misuse devastates the lives and health of individuals and families. Drug misuse is linked to crime in communities. The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, referred to the success of treatment in saving money: £1 spent on treatment means that £3 is saved to the criminal justice system. But treatment has to be made effective; people have to be enabled to access the right

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treatment, be retained in treatment for long enough to help them to recover, and be given support after treatment in order to help them to stay drug free. Such support must relate not only to their drug habit, but to appropriate education, employment and housing.
In order to achieve long-term effectiveness, there must be sustained government policy and strategy for delivery; there must be effective local strategy for planning and implementation; there must be clear guidance on best practice; there must be attention paid to the needs of diverse groups such as young people, women, black and minority ethnic groups, and those living in rural areas; there must be involvement in planning by service users and carers; there must be community ownership of programmes; and there must be research to define what is needed in practice, as well as training to improve staffing capacity.
First, I turn to government policy. The updated drug strategy mentioned already by the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, has sections on prevention, reducing drug supply, reducing drug-related crime and treatment. New record investment is being made to tackle drug misuse, rising to £1.5 billion in 2006, with £300 million for the treatment budget. A drug worker in Manchester said to me recently:
"It is a good time to be working in drug treatment—there are new initiatives and more money around, and more emphasis on planning and monitoring by the National Treatment Agency".
As to guidance, a national service framework equivalent entitled "Models of Care" supports professionals in delivering appropriate treatment and through-care.
Planning and implementation of strategy is carried out at a local level in England by drug action teams, DATs, of which there are 149, supported and monitored by my organisation. On a drug action team typically there will be representatives from education, the police, the prison service, probation, and so on. Partnership and joined-up action is vital. The Government Offices in the Regions now have a variety of teams working across communities. Each drug action team should ensure that drug users have access to a range of treatment, for example, detoxification, GP services, community drug treatment and residential rehabilitation.
A few drug action teams are still not performing at optimum level, but there are spectacular success stories. For example, in South Gloucestershire a dynamic co-ordinator has within two years developed action plans across treatment services involving the community, and including users and carers. Dramatic improvements in services are evident. I have seen many drug action team plans which are systematic and impressive. All should be equally so.
Nowadays, there are many different drugs and many different users. Addressing diversity is essential. Young people, women, and black and minority ethnic users have specific needs. Young people may be experimenters rather than hardened addicts and need more counselling and education. Women may be fearful of coming into treatment because of childcare
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issues or difficult domestic circumstances. Black and minority ethnic users may be stigmatised in the system or have little family support because of cultural reluctance to accept the drug use.
I have said that involving users and carers in developing programmes is essential. There are now organised user and carer networks at national and local level: their voice is becoming stronger. Their insights about treatment systems are invaluable.
Research into practice is key to developing good services. My organisation produces and disseminates briefing developed by expert groups on issues of concern, for example, prescribing. An example of community-based research can be seen in a remarkable programme funded by the Department of Health and developed by the University of Central Lancashire. They have trained community groups to do their own research into the needs of black and minority ethnic users. The research has highlighted gaps such as language barriers and family constraints, and will continue with further funding. Communities can identify their needs to develop action plans. Policy makers should listen.
There are many new initiatives being carried out in the area of drug treatment. One such is the National Treatment Agency and the National Institute for Mental Health "Opening Doors" programme, which is working with 30 drug action teams to improve access to drug treatment and reduce waiting times. Teams at a local level have worked to identify blockages and possible ways through them, and not always costly ways. It has been described by a joint commissioner as,
"perhaps the most exciting and dynamic thing I can remember happening to drug services since I came into the field".
Waiting times in many of those areas have fallen dramatically.
The introduction of integrated criminal justice teams in 25 high crime drug action team areas provides a unique opportunity to consolidate recent initiatives like arrest referral schemes, drug treatment and testing orders and counselling, assessment, referral, advice and throughcare services and to develop a system that is capable of engaging and retaining offenders with drug misuse problems in treatment.
Workforce capacity is vital to delivering any service. The workforce in drug services is increasing ahead of schedule and exciting schemes are under way to engage young black and minority ethnic staff through the National Treatment Association apprenticeship scheme.
Monitoring performance is absolutely essential, and the NTA and the Department of Health are working to strengthen monitoring systems to give a better picture of both successes and problems.
In summary, treatment has been a Cinderella service. With new money, dynamic programmes and exciting initiatives at local level, we are getting somewhere. I hope that the Minister will agree with that. I do not pretend that all is well; many challenges still exist. As the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, said, it is not at all simple.

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I have tried to give examples of what is needed for long-term effectiveness in one area of drug policy treatment. I am sure that there will be similarities in other policy areas. I look forward to further discussions with noble Lords on these issues about treatment. Once again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, for his enterprise in raising this question.
8.35 p.m.
Lord Chadlington: My Lords, 1, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, for introducing this important debate and for his excellent contribution. For my part, I wish to review some of the government initiatives addressing drug problems in this country and, looking to the longer term, suggest how some of them may be improved. I want to review a couple of successful initiatives from continental Europe and add a grace-note on the long-term problems associated with changes in the law regarding drug use.
In doing so, as I have on other occasions, I declare an interest as chairman of Action on Addiction, the charity which specialises in research into the causes of addiction of all kinds.
First, perhaps I too may underscore the progress that is being made in the fight against drug use. Of course, no initiatives are ever enough, but the Government deserve praise for many of the recent steps they have taken. Several of these initiatives have, by almost any short-term measure, been a success and are continuing to make inroads. The drug action teams, already mentioned, Positive Futures and Progress to Work are practical programmes which should he welcomed on all sides of the House. The variety of treatments on offer is also being expanded with considerable and consistent effect.
Further, the Government have continued to increase the budget in the fight against drugs. Although I would of course like to see much more money being spent, there is still a significant uplift in expenditure compared with three or four years ago. For long-term success, however, that investment must continue to increase.
In reviewing the overall policy, will the Minister please turn his mind to one or two areas in which improvements could be made? First, the long-term success of these policies is ultimately dependent on them becoming a part of local community life. Drug addiction hits at the local community, not only in the breakdown of family life but, as has been mentioned, with the 7.5 million crimes a year directly attributable to drug use. Could we not make these programmes more locally specific—managed, organised and, importantly, evaluated locally? To me, long-term success means genuine delegation to local communities, particularly in inner cities, to deal with the implementation and evaluation of the programmes, with central government holding a broad monitoring role.
Secondly, if this policy of delegation was actively pursued vigorously, the problems of bureaucracy which bedevil so many initiatives may in part be eliminated. The Guardian newspaper recently reported
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a DAT in Bristol where the budget was £3.5 million, where there was a staff of six and a local client base of several thousand but where staff spent 40 per cent of their time producing paper plans and reports for Whitehall.
Thirdly, will the Minister also consider giving attention to the evaluation of these initiatives? Evaluation currently has too much to do with inputs—usually financial inputs—and not enough about outputs, how behaviour and attitudes are being changed in both the short and the longer term.
Let me give an example. The Ofsted report on drug, alcohol and tobacco education in schools shows a marked improvement. In 1997, 86 per cent of secondary and 61 per cent of primary schools had drug, alcohol and tobacco education. By 1999, this had risen to 93 per cent and 75 per cent respectively.
We do not know what effect this is having on either behaviour or attitudes. An evaluatory approach applies to all these initiatives. Output evaluation in the short and long term will enable us to direct our limited funds into the most productive areas. It will also help us to determine what does and does not work.
I turn now to a couple of initiatives which I should like the Minister to address. I am actively involved in the problems associated with drugs in prisons and work with the Howard League in a number of these areas. Thirty per cent of prisoners on short sentences are heroin or former heroin addicts. There is still not enough being done to help in the transitional phase between prison and reintegration into the community. The Minister may well reply that "through care" and other initiatives are improving matters. They are, but not fast enough. The drugs-crime/drugs-crime cycle is getting worse. Heroin users who leave prison are 10 times more at risk of death from overdose on leaving prison, either because of lower tolerance or bingeing. That could be reduced in the medium and longer term, first, with better pre-release training, and, secondly, by making the antidote Naxalone more readily available.
The second area which I should like the Minister to consider is that of injectable prescribing clinics. In both Switzerland and Holland those clinics have had some success. Containment should be an effective part of the Government's armoury in fighting addiction in the longer term. It is cheaper—as has been pointed out, three times cheaper—to pay for treatment, even if it does not lead to a drug-free life, than is a life of crime spent in and out of penal institutions.
The third area is that of motivational interviewing in schools. A pilot study was carried out among 200 sixth-formers who were Ecstasy and cannabis users—the majority daily users of cannabis. The success of the scheme was to reduce usage by up to 50 per cent. That is now a well documented, output-evaluated technique which could have real long-term benefit among the young of today.
Time allows me a final grace-note about the easement of the laws regarding drugs. I do not think that we know enough about the long-term effects of so-called "leisure drugs" such as cannabis to take that huge step forward. I have listened to, among others,

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the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, on the subject of cannabis use, and I have been convinced that there are real questions which still require answers. Will the Minister tell the House how the Government might initiate much needed research in this area so that we can make a wise, informed and considered decision? If such a conservative, research-based approach could precede changes in the law, we may save unnecessary suffering and that alone would make it an approach worth taking.
8.42 p.m.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, in associating myself strongly with and endorsing everything that the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, has said, I welcome also the initiative of my noble friend Lord Cobbold in securing this debate. It is, I think, the first on this subject in your Lordships' House since 1994.
The University of York, in research for the Home Office, says that drug use and misuse, and the associated crime, costs the United Kingdom between £11 billion and £18 billion a year. If the economic costs are awesome they pale alongside the social and human costs.
For 25 years, as a local councillor or Member of Parliament in another place, I represented wards and constituencies in the city of Liverpool where I saw drugs destroy whole communities. One response, echoed today, has been to call for legalisation. However, as the United Nations International Narcotics Board has observed acutely,
"persons in favour of legalising illicit drug use argue that drug abusers should not have their basic rights violated; it does not seem to have occurred to them that drug abusers themselves violate the basic rights of their own family members and society. Families and society also have rights that should be respected and upheld".
That is just another illustration of the clash between claimed rights and their consequences.
Just six months ago in Liverpool I attended the funeral of a young man, a heroin user, in his mid-twenties. I have known his family for the best part of 20 years. His is not an isolated case. A few weeks earlier a 10 year-old girl from Ellel in Lancashire died after taking Ecstasy. Joseph began with cannabis and ended with heroin. Legalisation would not have saved his life.
The American Academy of Paediatrics says that weekly users of cannabis are 60 times more likely to progress to harder drugs and that almost 100 per cent of heroin addicts started on cannabis. Joseph's mother is a supporter of the Coalition Against Cannabis, whose submission to the Home Affairs Committee in another place makes for sobering reading. Its submission and the learned views expressed during a symposium that I chaired in the Moses Room last year are underlined in the report Hidden Harm, which estimates that some 300,000 children are now being damaged by their parents' drug habit. We should not simply give in and go easy on drug misuse merely because it is so prevalent. We should abandon the
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dangerous sophistry of harm reduction and adopt instead a focused and coherent preventative strategy committed to a drugs free society.
According to a survey by Life Education Centres, 86 per cent of primary school children believe that, following reclassification, cannabis is now legal; 79 per cent believed it was safe. Muddled and confused messages are putting children's lives at risk. The fact is that cannabis today is, on average, 10 times stronger than in the 1960s. The psychoactive ingredient of cannabis has increased from 0.5 per cent to over 5 per cent and brain cells are never clear of cannabis. The British Medical Journal suggests that cannabis increases the risk of developing mental illness, including schizophrenia, psychosis, depression, suicidal behaviour and anxiety. The risk of suicidal disorder is almost tripled. The same research suggests that young male users are five times more likely to be violent. Smoking it during pregnancy also harms unborn children.
Professor Griffith Edwards of the National Addiction Centre says:
"There is enough evidence now to make one seriously worried about the possibility of cannabis producing long-term impairment of brain function".
The British Lung Foundation's 2002 report entitled Cannabis: Smoking Gun? pointed to the level of carcinogens in cannabis. There are 50 per cent more than in tobacco smoke. As compared with smoking tobacco, smoking cannabis causes a threefold increase in tar inhaled. The report says that lung, head and neck cancers have been observed in young cannabis users. Those cancers usually occur in cigarette smokers in their 60s. Last month, Professor John Henry and other doctors from Imperial College in St Mary's Hospital said cannabis could be a major contributor to United Kingdom deaths, possibly killing more than 30,000 smokers each year. Our noble friend Lady Greenfield, in an article entitled The real dangers of Cannabis has pointed to the loss of educational opportunities caused as concentration, attention span, damage to brain cells, loss of interest and dampened potential, all emerge as the sad sequelae of cannabis use.
The effects of the misuse of drugs on public health was well summed up by Philip Emafo, President of the United Nations International Narcotics Board. He said:
"Cannabis is not a harmless drug as advocates of its legalisation tend to portray".
The temptation has been to accommodate the drug in the hope that it might regulate drug misuse generally. It is instructive that, over the past 25 years, Sweden and Holland have followed diametrically opposed approaches. The UN Office for Drug Control noted that in Holland, acceptance of cannabis has seen,
"hard drug use doubled. The strongest growth was observed for ecstasy".
Holland's approach of harm reduction has led to usage rising from 15 per cent to 44 per cent among 18 to 20 year-olds. That point was made by the Home Office in the evidence submitted to the Select Committee in another place. Holland is also now perceived as a safe

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haven for drugs racketeers, and it is estimated that 80 per cent of heroin seized in the UK and France has passed through the Netherlands.
By contrast, Sweden's drugs policy is based on the goal of creating a drug-free society. Drug prevention, education and the criminal justice system all work together to limit any use of illegal drugs. In Sweden, this radical approach has led to a much lower use of drugs of all kinds than in Holland. The overall lifetime prevalence of drug abuse among 15 to 16 year-olds is about 29 per cent in Holland and just 8 per cent in Sweden.
Since the Lambeth experiment and reclassification, there have been reports of children as young as 10 getting stoned before going to school. The use of cannabis among teenage boys has risen from 19 per cent to 29 per cent—a staggering jump of 50 per cent. Some 79 per cent of teachers say that reclassification has made drug prevention more difficult.
Having 48 different funding streams for drug treatment creates administrative overload. Eighty per cent of criminals in prison have drug problems and still have them when they leave. We even have drugs charities—such as Lifeline, funded by lottery grants—offering advice to young people about how to conceal drug taking from their parents and telling them how to inject heroin. The logo reads:
"Better hits, healthier veins, healthier body".
That is downright irreponsible, and I for one would like to know what the Government are going to do about it.
So-called drug education can actually encourage drug use—and is no substitute for a programme of drug prevention. Deirdre Boyd, chief executive and editor of Addiction Today says:
"Current drug education is at best worthless and at worse probably exacerbates drug use. Drug prevention work hardly exists".
Public policy has sent out a worrying array of contradictory and confusing messages. There is nothing soft about drugs. They have harsh and often lethal consequences. Harm reduction does not work; working for prevention and a drugs free society does.
8.50 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, in joining the growing number of Members of both Houses who are prepared to engage in rational debate on drugs policy and to thank him for his well informed speech.
I have several credentials for speaking in this debate. Apart from having been a GP in an area with substantial drug problems and co-operating with my local drug treatment unit over many years, I now have the privilege of being the honorary treasurer of the All-Party Group on Drugs Misuse. This is not an onerous job since the group has no money! I also think that I have spoken in most, if not all, debates on drugs in your Lordships' House over the past decade or more—I have lost count of exactly how many times that is.
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The last time was in February 2001, in a debate introduced by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on the Runciman report.
I cannot reply in detail to the noble Lord, Lord Alton. There is no time to challenge all his points. Suffice it to say that there are counter-arguments to almost every one of them. Many of the points that he set out as facts are not accurate. As regards the intellectual impairment of children, perhaps the noble Lord can say why it is that, every year, we see improved and improving A-level results when we know that up to 50 per cent of our children have been using cannabis.
The Motion asks whether present policies have been effective. If that refers to a reduction in the numbers of drug users or abusers nationally, the answer is: well, no; certainly not yet. There may be a little flattening of the curve of increase, but this could simply be due to approaching saturation point rather than to any effect of policy. And internationally? Again, the answer is no—in fact, the illicit trade in drugs, both in manufacturing and in supply, is as buoyant as ever, especially in opiates in Afghanistan now that the Taliban has lost power, and also, I understand, in Morocco, until now better known for its cannabis resin.
While there is no reduction in the supply of drugs reaching the country, judging by street prices, there have been some hopeful developments in treatment. My noble friend Lady Massey, who is chairperson of the National Treatment Agency, has described the rather encouraging developments in some of the 149 drug action teams that she is looking after. The criticism that I have of these is that they mainly have different funding streams, which can cause an enormous amount of confusion and sometimes delay in instituting desirable policies.
In the treatment area, there is also a greater acceptance that the majority of opiate users who come into treatment are not ready to start a methadone reduction regime immediately, perhaps not for several years—and, in the case of a few, never.
Long-term maintenance, sometimes on heroin itself, is necessary while attention is paid to underlying social problems, including housing, employment and the need for counselling about family problems by trained health and social workers. Interestingly, the fatalities associated with methadone are often associated with receiving an inadequate dose so that the user supplements the methadone with heroin, which may lead to an overdose. I am afraid that there are plenty of examples of the inadequate availability of treatment other than treatment for offenders. Their treatment, for now, is more readily available.
In an article in the Big Issue two months ago, several homeless drug users in Bristol were reported to have considered getting arrested in order to get treatment for their addiction. Can my noble friend give us a bulletin on how drug testing and treatment orders are working? How many accept the option? How many of those complete the treatment offered and how many are still drug free six months or a year later?

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I welcome the relaxation of the law, which will enable certain GPs to prescribe heroin. However, that should be done only where the support services that I mentioned are readily available. Some GPs are already providing an excellent service in their practice for drug abusers. The treatment of problematic heroin users in that way has been shown in several studies—for example, in Switzerland and the Netherlands—to have great benefits both for the individuals and families concerned and for the community in that there is less crime and fewer hospital admissions. It has already been pointed out, as it was in our previous drugs debate, that the national treatment outcomes research study showed that for every £1 spent on specialist treatment, £3 was saved by society in healthcare costs, social security and prison places, let alone the value of the items that would otherwise have been stolen.
Giving evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee last year, Professor Strang, who is professor of addictions and director of the National Addiction Centre, said:
"With some types of treatment for some types of drug problems you have treatments which more than pay for themselves for each day the person is in treatment. This is the equivalent of the Post Office or the Bank of England releasing bonds which you can buy for one pound each and cash them in the afternoon for a fiver. I have to say that if that happened I would go out and I would buy, buy, buy. It is beyond understanding why that approach is not adopted with those bits of treatment where there is a rock sold evidence base that the benefit more than pays for the costs".
However, apart from those going into treatment, there are many other heroin users out there who do not seek treatment. In this regard, I have a different set of beliefs from that of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. To don my legalising hat, I would argue that even more benefit could be achieved for society if all serious heroin addicts could obtain their supplies in the form of the pure product in known doses that were administered with clean needles from controlled legal outlets. That was possible, by prescription from certain GPs, in the days before the current Misuse of Drugs Act came into force 30 years ago. It is worth reiterating that when given in that way, heroin has remarkably few ill effects.
On 30th October 2001, Rosemary Jenkins, who was then acting head of drugs and alcohol misuse at the Department of Health, said to the Commons Select Committee,
"clean heroin is not in itself particularly dangerous except of course for the area we all know about which is that it is highly addictive and produces dependence".
One could certainly say the same about cigarettes, which, however, cause much harm even when they are being used perfectly legally.
It is interesting that heroin, which is thought by most people to be the most dangerous controlled drug, is actually one of the least harmful if administered safely. At present, the supply is in the hands of criminals who supply it in variable strength and purity. If injected, it is often given through contaminated needles risking HIV or hepatitis C infection. To that I simply say, "Long live needle exchange centres!". Cocaine and crack cocaine are likewise "pushed" in
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unknown strength, with consequent increased danger to the cardiovascular system. Deaths from cocaine and crack have risen rapidly in the past two to three years. There is a need for considerably more research into how best to treat addiction to these stimulant substances, of which crack is the most problematic.
There is still an unhappy drug scene in prisons. It would be interesting to know what proportion of the prison population are there directly as a result of offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act. It would be even more interesting to know the proportion who are there as a result of crime committed as a result of an addict's need to buy drugs. What is the breakdown?
That brings me to the international drug scene and to the Vienna meeting of the UN Commission. There, as has been said, the United Kingdom was criticised for relaxing its policy on police practice regarding cannabis possession. The UN Commission clearly upholds the American initiated "War on Drugs" which has been so singularly unsuccessful.
I shall skip to my final paragraph. My noble friend may be aware that tomorrow a mass protest will be held by drug users' support groups outside the Thai Embassy and its consulates in many countries against the escalation in the killing of drug addicts in Thailand. Apparently, nearly 2,300 have been killed this year—42 by the police and the rest extra-judicially by persons unknown but thought possibly to be government inspired—in a campaign to,
"eliminate all drugs by December 2nd".
I suppose that could be regarded as a way to reduce demand, but I hope that Her Majesty's Government will register their condemnation of those barbaric acts and urge the Thai Government to bring to justice the killers as evidence of their non-involvement.
9.1 p.m.
Lord Mancroft: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, for introducing the debate. I think the noble Lord, Lord Alton, told us that this is the first time that your Lordships have had an opportunity to debate the subject since 1994.
As the noble Lord told us, there really are only two things that governments can do about drugs. They can either try to control the supply or try to reduce the demand. From the late 1960s onwards, Her Majesty's Government did both, but with an overwhelming emphasis—90 per cent—on the control of the supply.
As the noble Lord told us, the main weapon was the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. That remains largely unchanged today. If your Lordships regard drugs, as I do, as the greatest social problem facing the country today, and one accepts that the world has changed quite a lot over the past 30 years, it is quite unusual still to be relying on a 30-year old piece of experimental legislation—because that is what it was—to deal with this very difficult problem. Most other governments in Europe and the United States followed our lead. We were the leaders at that time.
As we have also heard, the international difficulties with the problem were recognised with the three United Nations treaties that we signed up to in 1961,

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1971 and 1988. But the Government also recognised that they needed to provide healthcare. They did so, even though when it started it was fairly primitive, moralistic, psychiatric and so on. There was of course in those days no drug education and no drug prevention. Drug prevention had not even been heard of.
Thirty years later the situation has changed. The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, gave us some of the figures. Drugs are now the biggest social problem here in the UK. Heroin addiction has increased 100-fold; we have the highest number of drug deaths in Europe; 2 million people take Ecstasy every single week; and 25 per cent of our children have tried cannabis by the time they are 16 years old.
The international drugs trade is worth £500 billion a year. That makes it the second largest industry in the world. As the noble Lord told us, York University research for the Home Office shows that it costs you and me—the British taxpayer—between £11 billion and £18 billion every year. However, it is worth noting that 88 per cent of that is the cost of drug-related crime.
The international situation is as follows. The situation in the United States is worse than here and, interestingly enough, wheat has been replaced by cannabis as its biggest cash crop. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, told us about Thailand. Democracy in Colombia and Jamaica has been virtually destroyed. Those two countries have been brought to their knees by the war on drugs. Afghanistan is the largest producer of the opium poppy. All heroin on the streets of London comes from Afghanistan. The effect of the fall of the Taliban and the arrival of western troops is that the poppy crop has doubled—not an overwhelming success.
There is a knock-on effect. During the past six years, gun crime in this country doubled to 21,000 offences by April last year 60 a day—of which 90 per cent are drug-related. Gang crime is 90 per cent drug-related. Black-on-black crime is 90 per cent drug-related. We have the largest prison population ever in this country—we have debated that in your Lordships' House three times since 1997. Well over 50 per cent of inmates are there for drug-related offences. We must remember that the Home Office was still denying the link between drugs and crime until the early 1990s.
There is only one conclusion: drug prohibition has failed to reduce or eliminate drug use; it is still increasing. The Scottish Police Federation stated:
"To many officers it is clear that outright prohibition under the Misuse of Drugs Act has been staggeringly unsuccessful".
The failure of prohibition has led to the creation of the largest black market the world has ever seen, which has been the single biggest cause of crime in the Western world during my lifetime.
The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, told us that other countries have recognised that. Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland now accept cannabis use; Portugal, Spain and Italy have decriminalised it for personal possession; Canada, Australia and New Zealand are
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heading in that direction. Only the United Kingdom and the United States are pursuing policies in the opposite direction.
Eighty per cent of government money is still devoted to prohibition; I am delighted to say that 20 per cent is devoted to a policy to reduce demand for drugs. As we have been told, money for treatment has increased from £120 million to more than £400 million a year. We welcome the creation of the National Treatment Agency.
However, I must say that my chairmanship of the Addiction Recovery Foundation during the past 16 years leads me to believe that, although much improvement has been made, there is not really a great increase in places. There are 48 different funding streams for drug treatment in this country; how on earth can people find their way through that?
I chair a day-care facility for drug addicts in Westminster. We contract to 32 local authorities across London. I think that we provide very good care. At present, 30 per cent of our budget is debt from local authorities that do not pay their hills, which means that we rely on bank overdrafts. That is unsatisfactory. I do not know whether the articles in the Guardian to which my noble friend referred are accurate, but if we really spent £3.5 million in Bristol getting 26 people from a possible market of 4,500 addicts off drugs, we cannot call that a success.
There are some obvious reasons for that. Far too much treatment is channelled through the criminal justice system. I have absolutely no idea why anyone thinks that the Home Office should be in charge of healthcare. That is a ludicrous concept. Apart from that, it must be said that neither the Department of Health nor local authorities seem to know any thing about drug treatment, which is why the care standards produced by the Department of Health last year had to be torn up. If they had been implemented, half the treatment facilities in this country would have closed overnight. That is not very satisfactory.
We do not have enough aftercare— that is improving, but there is still not enough. Waiting times are improving but are still far too long. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, mentioned inappropriate prescribing; there is much too much of that. There is a lack of clarity. The Government are still the only organisation in the world who regard alcohol and drug treatment as different. No one else does. There is chaotic referral—most GPs still do not really know anything about it.
Treatment works—it can work really well—but at present, for most people in this country, there is little chance of them entering treatment. If they get there, they will come out of the other end, end up back on the street and they will use. That is still the reality, but it may improve, and I must say that the Government are trying their best to improve it.
The most important thing is prevention. If we can prevent people from starting to take drugs or delay the onset of use, that is a real step forward. I chair Mentor UK, which is the British branch of the leading drug prevention organisation in the world. Despite some

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encouraging meetings with government during the past three or four years, I must tell your Lordships that we are making little progress—well, we are making a little, but it is perilously slow. If the Government do not really start putting their back behind the issue, we shall have no hope of making progress.
We need good, evidence-based, well researched prevention. The Government must give a lead, and they are not at present. The Government also need to work out that drug education is not drug prevention. As has been said, education by itself may even lead to an increase in drug use.
What is the conclusion? Present policies are not delivering. Prohibition has not reduced or eliminated drug use and has created a massive black market and all the associated crime. Only the Government fail to recognise that. Other European countries, the British media, and public. opinion increasingly believe that. The Government are still trying to use the criminal justice system as the primary tool to solve the health and social problem.
However, we can agree about many things. All drugs are bad and we ought to reduce them. The one way that one does not deal with something that is dangerous and bad is to hand it lock stock and barrel to organised crime. That is what the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 does. The problem is not prohibition, the problem is the failure of prohibition. The only way that one can control a dangerous commodity or any commodity is to bring it within the law. We need to repeal the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and replace it with a better and more appropriate tool that allows us to control the market in those incredibly dangerous commodities. At that stage we can remove the profit, remove the crime and devote all of our resources and energies to providing better treatment and real prevention. At the moment we are not doing that, and we shall not if the Government continue down their present path.
Regarding what parents want—they worry about schools, their children's health and their futures. However, their main worry throughout the world is about drugs. Parents are not interested in Ministers being tough on drugs, they want Ministers to be effective on drugs. Parents want programmes to dissuade our children from taking drugs, and effective and accessible healthcare. We do not want our children treated as criminals. When they or their friends develop those problems we want healthcare and support. At the same time we are bored with the levels of acquisitive and violent crime which are a direct consequence of the Government's own failed policies and make it difficult to raise children in what is already a very nasty world.
9.11 p.m.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lord Cobbold for introducing this important debate. The subject is a matter that is not often raised in your Lordships' House. I shall concentrate my remarks on looked after children—
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children in public care—and how a policy can prevent them from becoming involved with the drug culture, the prevention to which the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, referred. Before doing so, I welcome Her Majesty's Government's acknowledgement in their Updated Drugs Strategy 2002 of the special vulnerability of care leavers to problematic drug use and the commissioning of a study into that area.
Children often enter care against their will. The people who should have most cared for them, their parents, have often either neglected them or sought to harm them, either physically or sexually. Their parents may well have been unable to give them the ordinary love and attention that most of us have received. Those parents are often emotionally-maimed themselves. For example, the inquiry by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs concluded that around two to three per cent of children in England and Wales had parents who were problem drug misusers9. My noble friend Lord Alton alluded to that fact.
Children cannot normally allow themselves to believe that they are unloved by their parents. A child might say that when his father beats him, he is not his father. When his mother beats him, she is not his mother for the duration of the beating. Such children may harbour great mistrust of the adult world. They are normally unable to channel their resentments directly at their parents. However, when they arrive in public care, looked after children often feel no such inhibitions with respect to their new carers. They can continue to idealise their own parents, their abusive or neglectful parents, while they find fault with, attack or provoke their new carers.
A child may have lost not only his parents, but also his siblings, his friends, his school, or even his home country. He may feel pain and a sense of being neglected by those who should have most cared for him. He may experience rage, because the love that is so easily available to other children is not so to him. All of those fears and complex feelings may find vent in behaviour antagonistic to his foster carer, adoptive parent or residential social workers.
Such a child needs trustworthiness and consistency above all from his new caretakers. Yet that child's very neediness, arising from his past neglect or abuse, may make him uncontainable and may cause the placement to collapse. Then, the original experience of rejection is repeated and the child's sense of worthlessness is reinforced. It is no wonder, therefore, that such children are at increased risk of involvement in drugs while in care or, later, as care leavers. They may take drugs to offend the adult world, to help them forget the pain of rejection or to harm or punish themselves—for they must often feel that they are bad and wicked if all those who should naturally have cared for them have rejected them.
What then are the Government doing to support the caretakers of these children to prevent further breakdown of relationship and thereby to decrease the likelihood that such children will choose to take drugs? I welcome the work of the Choice Protects review under the Secretary of State, Jacqui Smith, with its

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objective of reducing placement breakdowns by improving placement choice. I am delighted that a £113 million Choice Protects grant has been secured to cover this year and the following two years, with the purpose of expanding and strengthening fostering services.
Through statute and investment, the Government have demonstrated over the past six years an enduring commitment to these children. I salute the Government's efforts, which should have the effect of ensuring that more looked after children benefit from a secure attachment and a consistent, caring relationship with a particular adult during their experience of care. That is one vital element, together with access to education, in preventing so many care leavers falling prey to problem drug use.
Once a child leaves care it is far more difficult to assist him. The containment implicit in care allows the fostering of a close relationship with a responsible adult. Children who have only known close relationships with adults to be tainted by bitterness may do all in their power to flee such relationships thereafter. A care leaver may be impossible to engage. It was depressing to read, in preparing for this debate, the comments on public care of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The council states:
"There is also a high level of drug misuse and pregnancy among teenagers in care. It"
—care—
"should therefore be considered the option of last resort".
Before concluding on this particular strand, I should like to stretch the discussion a little wider. My comments on children in care might be equally well applied to many of the other groups at particular risk of drug dependency. So I would offer this observation to the wider discussion of an effective long-term national drug policy. Treatment after the fact is very important, and the correct intervention beforehand is also important. However, any policy should at least acknowledge the emotional deficits common to many problem drug users and should indicate how policy fits with work to address the emotional deficits of at-risk groups. For example, it would be helpful to have a few short paragraphs indicating the importance of good parenting, of parenting support, of Sure Start and of the need to improve maternity services; and, indeed, to work generally to facilitate secure attachments and to improve early years provision.
Is the Minister aware that there are far better outcomes for children in public care in some of the continental countries, with Germany ensuring that most of its looked after children receive the equivalent of a good clutch of our A-levels? Will he emphasise to his colleagues the continuing need for increasing public investment in this area, and to keeping improvements in services for looked after children at the top of Her Majesty's Government's agenda? To be effective in the long term, drugs policy should address the special vulnerability of children in public care.
9.20 p.m.
Lord Best: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, for this debate, and for his important speech. I want to explore one small aspect of government policy on illicit drugs. It relates to the growing of cannabis by the people who consume it here in the UK.
First, I declare my interest as director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which funds a programme of research on issues relating to drug and alcohol abuse. My foundation supported the recent inquiry led by Dame Ruth Runciman, to which the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, referred. My trustees have now agreed to allocate approximately £1 million for additional research in this field, not least because in an area of intense controversy we see a need for independent, impartial analysis outside campaigns for or against legalising or decriminalising aspects of drug misuse.
While sharing the widespread concern for the individuals who suffer from drug addiction, we have a special interest in the impact of illegal drugs on local communities. Research points consistently to the destructive impact on local communities of drug dealing and drug dealers.
When Joseph Rowntree set out the tasks to be pursued in spending his large charitable endowment he specifically mentioned the social evil of opium trafficking. Although I feel sure that he would have disapproved of the consumption of opium in the same way as he was a supporter of the temperance movement against alcohol, it was actually the trafficking to which he drew attention.
In that context, I want to report to your Lordships the recent research that my foundation has funded on the slightly surprising subject of home-grown cannabis. Earlier this year we published A Growing Market: The Domestic Cultivation of Cannabis by the eminent Professor Mike Hough and his colleagues.
It appears that as much as half the cannabis consumed in the UK may actually be produced in this country. While there are no firm figures, we know that a large proportion of the 50 per cent that is UK-grown is grown in people's own homes for non-commercial, personal consumption.
The Home Office has announced that this particular drug is to be reclassified and its possession will be regarded as a less serious offence than in the past. The simple act of having cannabis in one's possession—surveys show that almost half the population under the age of 30 have consumed cannabis at some stage in their lives—will in future usually attract an on-the-spot warning, and the drug will be confiscated. But the user will not be arrested and will not, therefore, acquire the stigma of a criminal record. The maximum sentence for those charged with the most serious offences of possession will be two years' imprisonment. However, growing cannabis will continue to be a much more serious offence, punishable with a potential prison sentence of up to 14 years. If growers are charged with the offence of production, as often happens even for small numbers of plants, they will face a mandatory seven-year sentence for the third offence.

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While many offences will continue to be cautioned, or if prosecuted, fined, offenders in such cases will all receive a criminal record, as they do now. It is also worth noting that even a first offence involving cultivation for use and sale to one's friends—a frequent situation—is likely to result in imprisonment.
A final important issue revealed in the report is the extent of confusion and variation surrounding the criminal justice processing of cultivation cases. The available guidance from the Association of Chief Police Officers appears to be unknown or ignored by many police forces, resulting in disparities in charging and prosecution. There is also evidence that similar offences are being dealt with very differently by the courts.
The question I am posing therefore is whether the offence of growing small amounts of the cannabis plant should be regarded as less serious than at present. The research report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation did not set out to draw conclusions of this kind, only to point out the facts. But in reading this document, I see a convincing case for taking a less harsh stand on the issue than is currently adopted. My reason relates primarily to the social evils associated with the international trade in illicit drugs and the drug dealing which brings very large numbers of, mostly younger, people into direct contact with the criminal dealers or pushers. While it is not true that all those who sell drugs are from the world of gangland and organised crime—and many are the addicts who are themselves victims of the process—nevertheless, all these drug dealers are part of a chain which quickly links back to the criminal underworld. Association with this network is not healthy.
Acquiring cannabis on the streets, or in the clubs, from dealers and pushers can have a much more sinister outcome: it can lead to the individual being introduced to the far more damaging, very much more addictive, drugs of heroin and crack cocaine. Dealing in the so-called "soft" or "recreational" drug of cannabis can be used by dealers to secure addiction to the hard drugs which create a vicious dependency: this leads not only to the human misery of the individual but often to the waves of crime necessary to feed addiction on a daily basis, as many noble Lords have mentioned.
Although it is but a small part of the story of drug misuse in this country, I suggest that as the Home Office considers its policies towards the possession and sale of drugs, it may wish to look at the law relating to home-grown cannabis. The imminent legislative changes on cannabis signal a clear distinction between possessing and dealing in the drug, with possession offences moving down the sentencing tariff and dealing moving up-tariff, attracting a maximum sentence of 14 years. If we want the 4 million current cannabis users in this country to stop buying their drugs from criminals and feeding the international trade in illicit drugs, perhaps we should recognise that
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it may not be so bad for them to grow it themselves. Some degree of decriminalisation would not offend the UN convention to which the UK is a signatory.
A measure which underlines the link between cannabis and the pushing of the much more pernicious drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine would seem well worth exploring. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that.
9.28 p.m.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, for introducing this important debate. I congratulate him on his masterly exposition of the problems associated with prohibition and the state of the international law. I also associate myself with most of the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Rea, Lord Mancroft and Lord Best.
This has been a very good debate. Many of your Lordships have pointed out what a vitally important factor hard drug misuse is in the fight against crime and how many lives are destroyed by it. Certainly, despite their good intentions and the hard work of thousands of drug workers on the ground, the Government's drug policies are failing abysmally.
To their credit, the Government have increased the funding for the fight against drugs. For example, the budget for treatment has risen from £120 million to £438 million during the past three years. Sadly, however, much of this money is not reaching actual treatment, but I shall return to that matter later.
The fundamental problem is the collision between the dramatic rise in the use of drugs and a policy that prohibits them. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that drug users impinge on the rights of other people only when they steal, and they have to do that only because of prohibition.
As the Guardian pointed out recently, there are two ways of reducing the drugs market: reducing the supply and reducing the demand. Unfortunately, despite the most basic principles of economics, the Government are concentrating on reducing the supply and punishing, by putting in prison, those who use drugs and steal to support their habit. Once in prison, they do not even receive effective treatment.
The efforts by Customs and Excise at major ports and airports sometimes result in a large drugs haul, but Customs and Excise has admitted that it has no idea how effective it is being at stemming the tide. There certainly seems to be no shortage of drugs on the streets of even the smallest, sleepiest town or village in this country.
However, even when the supply is reduced, that serves only to increase the price, because demand is not falling. Then the users have to steal even more to pay for their drugs, and crime goes up. Here is an example that was quoted in the Guardian. The National Economic Research Council two years ago estimated that the street market in crack cocaine was worth £1.8 billion and that users fund about 48 per cent of it through stealing goods, which are sold on the black market for about 20 per cent of their value. In other words, crack users are stealing at least £3.45 billion in

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property each year. On that basis, if the Home Office succeeds in reducing the supply of crack so that the price goes up by just 5 per cent it will inflict an extra £172.5 million-worth of property crime on the community it pretends to protect. Logic shows that that is not the way to do it. Reducing supply will be a disaster unless we also reduce demand.
How can we reduce demand? There are two ways: prevention and treatment. I shall look first at prevention. It is vital that we do something effective to protect our children from the drugs culture. Indeed, Article 33 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child obliges us to do so. There is much evidence that drug use does not occur in isolation. It is therefore vital to target vulnerable young people and, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, to address the underlying social problems of poverty and deprivation that lead to drug misuse. The Government's revised drug strategy acknowledges that. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, mentioned, it does not emphasise the importance of measuring and evaluating prevention efforts and intervention, and it does not commit enough resources to it.
There is evidence from the Addiction Recovery Foundation that didactic lessons about drugs may be counter-productive and that it is time the Government adopted evidence-based strategies. Government bodies talk about advice from user groups, but these are usually composed of current users waiting for treatment. How much more effective drug education would be if it were delivered by former users who have recovered and learned from their effective treatment! We should be training more of them to deliver drug education, and we should be implementing more programmes such as those carried out by the organisation Mentor U K, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft.
The Government are currently spending £3 million on the "talktofrank" website, which offers information and stories from family members, but not one story from someone who has actually used and recovered from drugs.
That brings me to talk about treatment. Where do I start? It is in a terrible mess. Despite the increase in funding in the past three years, the number of beds has not increased. In fact, it has increased only marginally over the past 10 years. I understand that during the 1990s Turning Point closed four houses containing around 80 beds.
As the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, said, there is much evidence that good quality treatment works, and that residential treatment works best. Here I must declare an interest, as a trustee of Adapt, a drug and alcohol treatment and rehabilitation charity, which delivers excellent results.
The problem with drug treatment in the community is that the addicts are still surrounded by all the pressures and the pushers that got them into drug abuse in the first place. If we can get them away and through detox, when their heads are clear they are able to face the problems in their lives that made them turn to drugs in the first place. Through counselling and
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therapy they can begin to make sense of their lives and learn coping strategies which will stand them in good stead when they eventually go back into normal life. That should be done through a carefully graded set of stages, providing lighter and lighter support until the former addict manages a drug-free life on his or her own.
Unfortunately, that kind of treatment is superficially expensive. I say "superficially" because if it works, which it does, it is much cheaper than 10 other cheaper programmes that do not. Unfortunately, there are nowhere near enough beds available for that sort of work. The capital funding to bring beds into operation is not available because all the money has been divided up among local drug action teams and probation services; and none of those is going to fund the £0.5 million it will take to bring into operation 45 extra beds at Adapt's Princess of Wales Treatment Centre at Mundesley in Norfolk since these would serve patients from all over the country.
Where do we go to find the money to enable us to provide more of this much needed service? If noble Lords have any ideas, I would be glad to hear about them. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, is nodding her head; I am most encouraged.
Despite Adapt's excellent reputation and results, our beds are not full. Why not? We have heard about the complete mess that some of the drug action teams are in. There are 48 different funding streams for drug treatment. The DATs have an incredibly complex management structure. I was amazed when I saw this one from the Suffolk Drug Action Team, which is one of the best. It costs about £1 million. The teams spend much of their time collating data, reporting to the Government and the funders, and meeting targets. A DAT such as the one in Bristol quoted in the Guardian article that met its targets for the number of patients "participating in treatment" means nothing if none of those patients is successfully completing the treatment and leading a clean life.
Despite the fact that research has shown that residential treatment is by far the most effective, there are still some DATs that will not pay for it. That is because of arbitrary targets and situations such as that which pertains in Nottingham Probation Service, whose money is held by the social services department. It has imposed an arbitrary limit on what can be spent, which cuts out good quality residential treatment altogether. Do we want just any treatment or do we want good treatment that works? It is all very well for the Government to announce increases in funding, but if it is being spent on management and bureaucracy rather than on treatment, it is a complete waste of money.
It is ludicrous that the DATs report to the Home Office instead of the NHS. even though their money is held by the local PCTs. Drugs are a health and social problem, but they are being treated as a crime problem. If we treated drug addicts as patients rather than criminals, things would be different. I am sure

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that NICE would assess quality residential treatment as being a more effective way of spending money than producing more and more managers.
One ray of light can be seen in the drug treatment and testing orders, although recently they have come in for much criticism in the press. They can work well so long as the ex-offenders are sent into a suitable treatment programme. Unfortunately, they have gained a bad reputation because some of them are operating in a very idiosyncratic way. For example, in Southend, in order to get into treatment, an ex-offender has to maintain a clean and stable lifestyle in the community for three months before he can obtain treatment. That means reporting in regularly and remaining drug free. Usually those people are living in hostels, while some are of no fixed address. The hurdle is far too high. One might think that if someone can get over it, they do not actually need treatment any more.
Philosophically I was against coercion until I saw the results being achieved at Adapt with clients on DTTOs. They are better than those of other clients. I suppose because they all have the carrot of a better life, the DTTO clients also have the stick of going to prison if they do not stick with the treatment and succeed.
Finally, I shall say a quick word about heroin prescribing, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rea. I was delighted to hear that the Home Secretary was going to learn from the enormous success they have had in Switzerland with heroin prescribing, but devastated to learn that the proposal is to hedge it around with so much bureaucracy and regulation that only around 4,500 out of a potential 100,000 people who might benefit from this treatment will receive it. What a terrible missed opportunity.
To summarise, I believe that we need to ensure that the funding streams are simplified and concentrate on intervention that has been proved to work rather than prohibition and punishment.
9.39 p.m.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, for initiating this very interesting debate, which we are aware was well overdue in your Lordships' House. In agreeing with so much of what has been said by noble Lords, may I suggest an approach from a different angle, which nevertheless would be in many ways complementary? I am putting forward proposals first outlined on behalf of my party last October by my right honourable friend Oliver Letwin.
We propose to address the problem of hard drug addiction by targeting not so much the existing users, but the new entrants which, of course, means young people. In formulating these proposals we have drawn heavily on the drug policies of two of the success stories of the European Union, namely, Sweden and the Netherlands. I am aware that I may not necessarily be singing from the same factual hymn sheet as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, but I pray in aid the report of the National Drug Monitor of Utrecht for 2001 covering hard drug users in the European Union plus
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Norway, in which the Netherlands comes third, Sweden fifth and, sadly, the United Kingdom is exceeded only by Italy and rather surprisingly, Luxembourg.
As the noble Lord has said, treatment in the two countries is different, but they have three things in common. First, in both countries there is a strong consensus, including among the young, that the use of hard drugs is utterly destructive. Secondly, both countries have highly developed and highly accessible facilities for the treatment and rehabilitation of young offenders. Thirdly, in both countries coercive treatment is used. I was very interested in the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.
Turning to the first point, there is universal appreciation of the appalling dangers which arise from the use of hard drugs. But if there is awareness that heroin and cocaine are "loser drugs", and if that awareness can be sewn into the culture of the young, then the natural result will be that the number of new users will fall away. I am informed that in the Netherlands the average age of heroin addicts is rising by the year every year. If that statistic is correct, it means that that country is getting to grips with stifling the number of young people entering the habit.
Our proposals for achieving the same results in the United Kingdom are two-fold and they are closely linked. The first is to replace the current de facto policy under which the use of hard drugs is effectively ignored unless it is related to other crime. We propose that a young heroin or cocaine addict is given the choice between undergoing treatment or facing criminal proceedings. The rehabilitation programme will include specific targets for the drug user to judge its success, and the young person's commitment to it. It will be followed by adequate aftercare. Failure to complete the programme will be punishable through the legal process in conformity with current drug laws. On completion of the rehabilitation scheme the minor will not have a criminal record. Even the hopefully small number who refuse treatment and are sent to gaol will have their record wiped clean at the age of 18 to allow them a fresh start
All this is dependent on and closely linked to the second part of our proposals, which is the supply of a sufficient number of treatment centres. Sweden and the Netherlands each has 10 times the per capita supply of treatment centres available in the United Kingdom. It is a matter of urgency to increase the number of drug rehabilitation centres.
We are attracted by the Minnesota model in the United States. There is a great deal of evidence that this approach actually works. It gets large numbers of people off drugs; it is widely used in the US, in the main by private providers. As its name implies, it was developed in the state of Minnesota which, not coincidentally, is heavily influenced by Swedish Americans.
The model is based on the same 12-step programme that underpins Alcoholics Anonymous world-wide. Those key features include aims for the complete abstinence from all drugs except tobacco and caffeine;

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to end drug use completely at a discrete moment—that is to say, no weaning; intensive medical support for an initial period, usually one to three weeks. That is followed by intensive in-patient psychological support for a further four to 12 weeks and at least six months of less intensive support in the community. Finally, a social and expert support network is available for the rest of the participant's life.
It is significant that one of the most successful of the institutions on the Minnesota model is Castle Craig in Scotland. That is private, but its clients are a small number of Scottish and English health boards or PCTs, and some foreign governments. Sadly, a large number of local authorities will not, as a matter of principle, refer patients to private or even voluntary institutions, choosing instead to refer them to the overloaded NHS where the facilities are limited. We would like to see a large expansion of centres under this model. We would certainly want to encourage participation by a large number of local authorities in the private and voluntary facilities.
Concurrent with the expansion of treatment facilities we propose to launch a campaign to encourage parents, teachers and social workers to inform the relevant agencies when they encounter a minor who they believe is addicted to heroin or cocaine. We recognise that this will put a new onus on these groups to intervene at an early stage, but early intervention is crucial if we are to stop young people from joining the conveyor belt to crime.
We do not expect to implement such a shift in attitude or resources immediately. Instead, we intend to run a large number of pilot projects to test the most effective ways of running such a programme. This piloting programme will be the world's first systematic testing of which drug treatments work and which do not. It will involve rigorous testing of all the various methods of treatment and extensive consultation with all relevant bodies.
What will be the cost? At present, the average total unit cost of NHS in-patient treatment is £147 per patient per day, or £53,600 a year. This figure is derived from the Centre of the Economics of Mental Health. To achieve a tenfold increase in youth provision we shall need approximately 10,500 places, an increase of 8,600 beds at a cost of £462 million. This figure has been factored into our health budget. It will be to some degree self-financing through the saving in costs of treating illness associated with drug problems, and there will be indirect savings, as the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold said, in criminal justice expenses.
We offer this policy as a radical way of tackling the drug problem of this country at the point of entry. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's comments.
9.47 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Filkin): My Lords, it has been a fascinating debate. It has shown the House at its best and the depth of experience that there is in the Chamber on these issues. I did not notice a consensus on the problems or the solutions—apart from the
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usual consensus that the Government have not yet cracked the problem and need to do more. That is to be expected.
The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, clearly set out the social and economic costs of drug misuse, which are estimated at between £10 billion and £18 billion a year in England and Wales. That graphically illustrates the scale of the problem.
Drawing on evidence of what appears to work, the updated drugs strategy seeks to concentrate on the most dangerous drugs and the most damaged communities, recognising that 99 per cent of costs are accounted for by a quarter of a million problem drug users. The Government are tackling the drugs problem using a full range of measures based on what works—or, rather, what at this stage appears to work best given that there are no simple or easy answers.
The essence of our strategy is to focus on young people. We want particularly to reduce the number of class A drug users and the frequent use of any illicit drugs by all young people under the age of 25, especially by the most vulnerable young people signalled by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel.
In communities, we are trying to drive down drug-related crime by expanding and developing criminal justice interventions and the capacity of communities themselves to work to reduce illegality and drug taking. I shall return to this issue later.
I do not believe that progress in tackling the supply of drugs is as impossible a goal as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, signalled. Making some sustained impact on the drug crimes business at international, national and local level has to be part of a balanced strategy.
As to the issue of treatment, which is massively important, the participation of problem drug users in drug treatment programmes will rise substantially over the coming years. There is a range of measures through which we have made progress but time will not allow me to cover many of them. Already 4,500 drug treatment testing orders have been made in the most recent year; mandatory drug testing in prisons is showing positive results, with a drop from 24 to 11 per cent in the last year of figures; and there has been a major increase in direct annual funding underpinning the commitment to tackling drugs.
The noble Lord, Lord. Chadlington, and others, spoke of the importance of increasing funding, wisely spent. Funding will rise from just over £1 billion for the last year to nearly £1.5 billion from April 2005, an increase of 44 per cent.
We have clearly to inform our drug strategy by evaluation and evidence, and understanding the effectiveness of the drug policies, or different components of it at both national and local level. The first challenge to the Government's drugs policy—there were a number today—was by the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold. To legalise rather than to prohibit was one of the central debates. We are opposed to legalisation because all the evidence that we can see points to the fact that a massive increase in use would

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result. I shall not go into the evidence in the limited time, but where that has been tried that is what has occurred.
The reverse evidence is that prohibition appears to have a deterrent effect. The survey evidence from MORI and others demonstrates that some people are deterred by the fact that it is illegal. Therefore, for those two fundamental reasons, we are opposed to it. We do not believe that it would lead to a reduction in organised crime; and a free-for-all, with drugs available to everyone, seems to us to be a nightmare.
One should also recognise that these are not substances which have no effect on people's lives. Fifteen hundred-plus people died from drug-related deaths last year. Over and above that, drug use wrecks lives. It wrecks people's ability to work. It wrecks relationships in homes, families and communities. It is not a damage-free—
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. Can the noble Lord tell the House how many people died from alcohol and tobacco last year?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I cannot do so as regards alcohol, but I can recollect that from cigarettes the figure is about 120,000 a year. Is the noble Baroness asserting—I am interested to hear if that is what she claims—that because a lot of people die from smoking cigarettes (and we do not currently prohibit the smoking of cigarettes nor is it our policy to do so) that we should legalise the use of category A drugs? If that is her argument, I shall be pleased to hear it said clearly.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I think that I can answer that. The Minister said that legalisation would produce a free-for-all. Those of us who ask the Government to reconsider prohibition certainly do not propose a free-for-all. We propose a tightly-regulated and controlled regime which would take away the need for people who need to use drugs to get involved with the criminal fraternity. By no means do we propose a free-for-all. We accept that these are very dangerous substances. I believe that if tobacco were discovered today, it would not be legalised.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, if the noble Baroness interrupts me much more, she will limit some of the questions that I have to answer in a fixed time limit. I am very pressed to cover all the points.
The point I was making was that people die, but those substances also have a massive negative effect on people's ability to live a successful life, and on their families and friends. If it were a neutral policy, one would be more open minded to legalisation, but the Government are not.
On international policies, UNGASS came in for some stick. No one claims that UNGASS policies are perfect. The UN conventions do not allow specifically for harm reduction policies and the UK would support calls for a review of the conventions to make the option
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of such policies easier. Therefore, we would support moves aimed at enabling the legitimate pursuit of evidence-based harm reduction measures more easily within the constraints of the conventions.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, made a thoughtful contribution to the reality of the challenge to improve treatment. Clearly, whatever position one takes as regards legalisation—I think that most of us are opposed to it—one still has to face the importance of trying to find effective ways of treatment which are cost-effective. It is a key element of the Government's national drug strategy. We are on track to meet our target of an 8 per cent increase in the numbers presented for treatment. The investment in treatment is producing early results. We clearly need to do more, but I cannot speak at length on that, given the time that I have.
The noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, made a thoughtful and powerful speech based on a lot of evidence from his work. I agree with him that the involvement of local communities and local agencies and their ownership of strategies to address drug treatment in their communities must be part of any sensible policy. It is a matter of getting the balance between central funding and local initiatives right; that is the challenge for the Government. That does not mean that one can abolish any form of monitoring, nor do I believe that he was arguing that. But we recognise that we must work closely with regional and local partners to minimise burdens on frontline staff, to support initiatives and experimentation and to roll them out when they appear to work. Knowing that one does not have all the answers, one must have a mindset that recognises that local innovation and experimentation must be part of the policy.
On prisons and reintegration improvements, integrated teams are being built in each of the 30 areas with the highest drug-related crimes. Some £46 million to resource criminal justice programmes is going in from April 2003. We recognise the need for through-care and after-care. It is useless if there is not a continuous process of professionals and treatment, dealing with people in what can often be chaotic transmissions to different parts of the criminal system and their employment or housing. We have to challenge public agencies and professionals to make that more integrated.
We decided not to introduce Swiss-style injecting rooms. They can present risks and attract dealers to the areas involved. We prefer the option of enabling doctors to prescribe heroin to those with a clinical need.
There is a five-year research programme blueprint to evaluate the effectiveness of drugs prevention. One hopes that the early evidence from that is fed back into policy making. We are reviewing a range of direct education approaches, including motivational interviewing, and recognise its importance.
I was in agreement with the argument of by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in favour of putting an emphasis on the Swedish approach rather than the Dutch one. However, I differ from him in his

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comments on cannabis. It is an illegal substance and will remain so—that is the Government's policy—but we are seeking to make its categorisation reflect the reality of harm. I shall not respond now to some of the points that he made on misuse; I do not agree with them, but it is better that I deal with them in correspondence, given how time is pressing.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, argued that the unauthorised cultivation of cannabis is a lesser evil. Our view is that it is illegal and should remain illegal. There are dealers who cultivate cannabis for commercial gain, and a full range of penalties needs to be available to the courts for those cases. It would be impractical to make a distinction in law between those who cultivate small amounts and those who cultivate on a large scale, but the courts are expected to, and have the discretion to take account of the circumstances of individual cases.
Several noble Lords spoke on the crucial role of drugs education. The drugs strategy means preventing today's young people from becoming tomorrow's problematic drug users. That is the goal—I am not implying that it is that simple or that we necessarily believe that we have the right answer, but it has to be part of a balanced drug strategy. Almost all schools now have drugs education policies; there are programmes to support teachers' continuing professional education, and £21 million is being made available to support drug education in schools by the Standards Fund in 2003–04.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, said that the policy was ineffective and at worst encouraged use. It is not as effective as we want it to be, but we do not believe that it encourages use if it is properly done. I give the FRANK campaign as an instance of the Government's commitment to reduction of category A drug use. Research shows that campaigns that say, "Just say no", do not work without equipping young people with the knowledge to help them to make informed decisions about how dangerous that route is if they venture into it.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, asked a number of questions about drug treatment and testing orders. The percentage of the proposals for a DTTO that were converted by the courts into actual orders was 89 per cent; more than 54 per cent of orders have been successfully completed or are still engaging offenders with rehabilitative treatment. An evaluation of the three pilot schemes found that, on average, offenders committed 70 per cent fewer offences while on the order and reduced their spend on drugs by over 90 per cent. But these are early days. We have to continue to monitor the situation closely.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, asked about the Prison Service. Sixteen per cent of prisoners are there because they have breached the drug laws. There are no data on the percentage of prisoners who have committed drug-related crime, but 75 per cent of heroin and crack users do commit crimes; and, of those in prison, 4.5 per cent are opiate users.
Certain types of rehabilitation programmes are undertaken in prison and record re-conviction rates as low as 30 per cent, compared to an expected
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54 per cent. The Prison Service is benefiting from the SR2002 funding and intends to increase drug treatment and capacity, employ more drug workers and develop a low-intensity programme aimed at meeting the drugs misuse of those offenders who spend only a short time in custody and are therefore at risk—a point touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington. But a key gap has been identified; namely, the weakness in throughcare and aftercare, and a major programme is currently under way to address those issues.
In response to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Rea, we deplore the human rights abuses in Thailand. I shall read the speech of the noble Lord Mancroft. It was based on considerable experience. To put it politely, it was a serious encouragement to the Government to do more. The noble Lord claimed that there was not sufficient aftercare. There has been a considerable increase. He said that treatment can work, but that there is little chance of getting on to such a programme. Waiting times are being reduced, and the targets for reducing them considerably further are in place. I totally agree with the noble Lord that prevention is massively important.
A large part of the programme consists of targeted interventions with vulnerable young people. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and others signalled that drug use does not occur in isolation. It is frequently the product of some disturbance in the individual's lifestyle; therefore, one hopes that one has some ability to deal with some of the distress that leads people to take drugs rather than merely thinking that they can be treated mechanistically. So prevention programmes will be targeted at the most vulnerable young people and those who develop drug problems will be identified and supported early—it is to be hoped before problems escalate. Significant additional resources are going into such programmes. The Home Office will be investing an extra £107 million, and £28 million for local authorities to provide prevention treatment; and £30 million will be provided for prevention treatment and throughcare in juvenile custody institutions.
Looking to a further element of prevention, Positive Futures has not been mentioned but is an instance of an initiative launched in 2000 in an attempt to make a difference to the lives of thousands of young people which have been blighted by drugs and to find alternative ways of challenging people into a better lifestyle than dependence on drugs.
Several noble Lords made comparisons with Europe. The general picture in Europe is one of a stable endemic situation with constant recruitment and exit rates. The picture is one of a churn of people coming in and going out of drugs use.
On the FRANK drugs information campaign, we see that the provision of accurate, honest information to potential drug users and their families must be part of any mature strategy. The FRANK helpline will be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, offering counselling in many languages.

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As to the interesting economic analysis advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, we have found no evidence in any setting world-wide for the central claim that more action on supply leads to increased prices and more crime to fund drug use. By comparison, the Australian heroin drought in 2000 indicated that there was a substantial reduction in the consumption of heroin and a fall in expenditure among users. I am not claiming, however, that it will be simple to reduce supply; rather that it must be part of any balanced strategy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, commented on treatment. We are on track to meet our target of an 8 per cent per annum increase in the numbers presenting for treatment since 1998. Waiting times have been reduced to 2.8 weeks for priority treatment, and to 8.3 weeks for non-priority treatment. That is a substantial improvement, but there is a further way to go.
I shall read with interest the statement of Conservative policy set out by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman. My initial reaction is that the flaw is that these problems need a variety of interventions. It is not a case of one size fits all. Furthermore, many young people at whom the policy is aimed have not developed a problem requiring residential treatment at this stage. Nevertheless, I would wish to study and reflect on it and will not dismiss it out of hand.
In conclusion, we all recognise the scale of the problem. Most noble Lords recognised that there is no major or miracle solution; there is no one quick fix. The process will require persistent effort; the involvement of communities; experimentation with new methods when old ones do not appear to be working; an evaluation of new methods; and, when we find new methods that work, I hope that there will also be deterrence, education and treatment to roll them out. Undoubtedly, that will require an holistic approach, which is what the Government seek to roll out, that looks at the major elements in a co-ordinated manner to treat supply, demand, treatment and education in a balanced package.
It has been a privilege to listen to the debate and I was grateful for the chance to respond, although I have not done so as fully as I would have wished.
10.5 p.m.
Lord Cobbold: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who participated in this debate, particularly because it took place so late in the evening and during the dinner hour. As I said in my opening speech, strong views have been expressed on both sides of the argument. We all agree—there is no doubt about this—that drugs are dangerous and the whole situation is very tricky. We could argue, as noble Lords have done this evening, about the relative merits of different treatment methods, the availability of different treatments and the value and success rate of educational programmes. I strongly believe that the main problem is criminality, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, said. I thank the noble Lord in particular for his support—he spoke in both debates this afternoon and has had a busy day.
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I was very disappointed by the Minister's response. It appears that the Government's mind is still totally closed towards decriminalisation. He mentioned the availability of evidence for a massive increase in use but was not prepared to say where that evidence came from. He did not answer my request about whether the Government believe that their policies are actually working. Nor was he prepared to say that the Government would do more work—
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. I shall certainly write with the evidence to explain why we believe that decriminalisation will lead to an increase in use. We believe that the policies are working, although we are being modest about the rate and movement of them. We are not making heroic claims for them. This is a difficult subject.
Lord Rea: My Lords, will my noble friend send that information to all noble Lords who have spoken?
Lord Filkin: Certainly, my Lords.
Lord Cobbold: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that remark. I look forward to seeing what he will send me.
Once again, I thank all noble Lords who participated. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003
10.8 p.m.
Lord Filkinrose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 8th May be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham, I beg to move that the draft regulations laid before the House on 8th May be approved.
The draft regulations are made under Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. They implement the UK's obligations to prohibit discrimination on grounds of racial or ethnic origins under Council Directive 2000/43/EC—"the race directive". Their approval is important in enhancing our existing legislation and in ensuring that everyone is able to contribute to the best of their ability to the society in which we all live.
I shall start by briefly setting out the context. The race directive flows from Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam and is being implemented in tandem with the EC Article 13 Employment Directive, which introduces new anti-discrimination legislation in employment in the fields of sexual orientation, religion and age, as well as amending the employment provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act. The UK was a key player in negotiating this legislation,

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which introduces a common minimum standard of legal protection from discrimination across Europe, and we welcome the result.
The implementation of the two directives has been the subject of extensive discussions with stakeholders over the past three years. Since the adoption of the directives there have been two formal consultation exercises in the UK: first, Towards Equality and Diversity, and, secondly, Equality and Diversity: The Way Ahead. These regulations and those implementing the employment directive have been informed by the comments and detailed suggestions received in submission to those exercises.
There are certain principles that the directive requires the UK to import into domestic legislation, in this case into the Race Relations Act 1976. The principles we are incorporating include widening the definition of indirect discrimination, shifting the burden of proof from complainant to respondent and introducing the concept of genuine occupational requirements.
I should explain here that the amendments we are making extend across virtually all the areas covered by the Race Relations Act. That is: employment, training, education, the provision of goods and services and the provision of housing. The race directive is wider in scope than the employment directive, which covers only employment and vocational training.
The regulations will widen the definition of indirect discrimination so that there will be more circumstances in which claims can be brought. Informal practices will be brought within the scope of the legislation. A new definition of "harassment" as a form of direct discrimination will be introduced. At present, the courts consider harassment to be a form of discrimination, but we have taken the opportunity to formalise the position.
The regulations also shift the burden of proof from complainant to respondent, so the emphasis will be on the employer to prove that he did not discriminate. Up until now the emphasis has been on the person alleging that his employer had discriminated against him proving his case. Now, once an employee has established a prima facie case that would lead a court or tribunal to presume that there has been discrimination, the respondent—normally the employer—will need to establish that the action taken was not discriminatory. If the respondent fails to do this, the court or tribunal will rule against him. That will only come into effect once the individual has made a convincing case. A respondent would not have to disprove an accusation of discrimination by a complainant who has no plausible evidence to back up his or her claim.
The regulations will introduce the concept of genuine occupational requirements. A genuine occupational requirement is when a job can genuinely not be done appropriately unless it is done by a particular kind of person. The genuine occupational requirement provision applies a more generic approach, leaving it for a tribunal to determine
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whether there is a requirement. Unless there is a genuine occupational requirement, discrimination in employment will be considered unlawful.
These amendments will, in broad terms, also apply in respect of the equality strands covered by the employment directive.
The race directive requires that we remove exceptions in the Race Relations Act which are contrary to the principle of equal treatment. That involves specific changes to the Race Relations Act and increases an individual's protection from race discrimination. At present, partnerships of five or fewer partners, landlords who dispose of and manage small dwellings, charities in their role as employers, UK employers and training providers who recruit from abroad, and private household employers are exempt from the Race Relations Act provisions.
These enhancements, and the others we are making, widen the areas in which claims can be brought, making it easier for individuals to bring claims and to demonstrate that race discrimination has occurred. The regulations will apply on the grounds covered by the directive—discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnic or national origins.
As the directive, to a large extent, mirrors the Race Relations Act, the changes we are making to the Act could be described as minor and technical. For all that, they will be important. Their net effect will be that our existing legislation will be enhanced and that individuals will have improved access to justice.
General compliance costs to businesses linked to the implementation of the race directive should be minimal, as many businesses will already have in place policies and systems that are in line with the directive's requirements.
The Government are pleased to take forward these regulations, which will further strengthen the Race Relations Act and follow hard on the heels of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act, which is making a real difference to racial equality.
The UK leads the way in respect of protection from racial discrimination and implementing the directive further enhances that protection. I am pleased to move these amendments, which are an important step in achieving our aim. I commend the regulations to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 8th May be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Filkin.)
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I begin by thanking the Minister for his explanations. It is right that I should put on record an observation. We begin to debate a significant piece of secondary legislation after the hour of ten o'clock, the time at which, under the new rules agreed by the House, business is expected to conclude. Managers will obviously have to consider that in the future; certainly, Members of the House will do so when considering the review of proceedings. The principle alleged to be behind the regulations is of

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course one that we would all accept—how could we not? As the Explanatory Memorandum states at paragraph 4:
"The Directive lays down a principle of equal treatment between persons, irrespective of racial, ethnic or national origins".
The problem arises as soon as one considers the manner in which the Government seek to give effect to that principle by adopting a process of harmonisation.
Effectively, the regulations reverse the burden of proof in race relations employment tribunal cases—and do so by secondary legislation. That is unacceptable. Instead of an employee having to prove that he or she was treated in a racist manner, employers will in future have to prove that they did not act in such a way.
Paragraph 41, referring to the burden of proof, states:
"the tribunal shall uphold the complaint unless the respondent proves that he did not commit or, as the case may be, is not to be treated as having committed, that act".
Indeed, the burden of proof will be reversed not only for new cases brought after the regulations take effect but for cases that have already started.
The regulatory impact assessment states that the UK already has extensive legislation prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin. The Minister also referred to that. The impact assessment then states that, therefore, compliance here is more about fine-tuning existing legislation than introducing new provisions. That is the first time that I have heard something as significant as reversing the burden of proof referred to as fine-tuning. I hope that it is the last. We object to the reversal of the burden of proof and therefore do not support the making of the regulations.
However, I have some questions on the content of the regulations, which are strictly, as one would expect from me, the observations of a layman. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench. He will bring a more educated, lawyer's approach to the matter. It is tempting to ask a legion of questions, because so many parts of the regulations are likely to lead to confusion and a lack of transparency, but at this late hour, I shall restrict myself to six issues.
First, paragraph 3 inserts a new Section 1A into the 1976 Act that contains the new definition of indirect discrimination. Can the Minister explain how the word "particular" in paragraph (a) should be defined? The regulations state:
"Discrimination occurs if one applies a practice that puts or would put a person at a particular disadvantage when compared with other persons".
How is that particular disadvantage—as opposed to a disadvantage—to be measured?
Secondly, paragraph (b) adds that the employer has to show that the practice that he has adopted is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. How will the proportionality be measured? Against what or whose standard?
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My third question refers to the new concept introduced in paragraph 7, to which the Minister referred: the exception for general occupational requirement. Can the Minister give the House an example of the types of employment that the Government have in mind? I notice that it is not acceptable for there simply to be an occupational requirement that the employee should be of a particular race or of particular ethnic or national origin. Other restrictions also apply to the employer. He or she must be able to show that it is proportionate to apply the exemption in the particular case and that it is not reasonable for the employer to be satisfied that the applicant satisfies the occupational requirement.
All that is convoluted and seems fraught with uncertainty and difficulty. How can an employer demonstrate what is proportionate and that it is not reasonable for him or her to be satisfied in the circumstances? The obscurity gets worse when one reads the regulatory impact assessment. That makes the point at paragraph 11.1 that charities will be hit by the provision for the first time. The Government acknowledge that, in effect, that will prevent charities that target support to particular disadvantaged racial groups from being able to recruit staff from the same group to act as support workers. I find that appalling.
The assessment then makes an astonishing statement. It states:
"One way to allow charities to continue to select staff on this basis would be to allow them to rely on genuine occupational requirements when recruiting staff for particular posts".
"One way"; then why do the regulations not make that crystal clear? Why should charities have to depend upon fiddling the interpretation of the new regulations to clear themselves in cases brought against them? Would it not be better to have clear legislation that means that cases would not be brought against them in the first place?
My fourth question refers to the requirement for member states to ensure that procedures are available for individuals to enforce the directive's obligations. As the Explanatory Memorandum tells us, the 1976 Act already contains comprehensive provisions allowing for the enforcement of the rights of individuals. However, it goes on to point out, and I use the Minister's word, that these procedures are being "enhanced" by the regulation that requires respondents to respond to a questionnaire served by a complainant within eight weeks. Failure to respond within that time or the provision of an equivocal response may lead a court or tribunal to infer that discrimination has occurred.
I note that that is transposed into the regulations at paragraph 47, headed, "Period within which respondent must reply". Why have the Government decided to enhance the procedures and why did they light upon eight weeks as the magic moment? Is that eight-week deadline applied across the rest of our colleagues in Europe? What is their method of enforcing that part of the directive?

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Fifthly, I note that the implementation of the regulations will be brought to the notice of the public by guidance. When? I understand that the regulations go live on 19th July.
Finally, I note that the regulatory impact assessment takes a complacent attitude—I can think of no other way to describe it—to the costs of the likely changes by stating repeatedly that since most employers have had to follow the Race Relations Act 1976 for so long, making one more leap will not give them too much trouble. That of course will be a matter that can only be proved once the regulations are imposed. But even the regulatory impact assessment acknowledges that partnerships of fewer than six people will feel the draught. They are brought into the system for the first time. The regulatory impact assessment makes the prediction that even if only 0.29 per cent of newly covered partnerships have to defend a case at employment tribunal this will cost them £3.5 million. I suspect that smaller partnerships will argue that the cost to them will in practice be proportionately higher since it is even more difficult for them to cope with the bureaucracy involved in tribunal cases.
The regulatory impact assessment also acknowledges that the smaller partnerships are likely to have to bear the brunt of a further £3.5 million for compliance costs. The regulatory impact assessment states at paragraph 2.2 that the Government are taking a "light touch" approach to the implementation of the directive. Heaven preserve us from a heavier touch. I do not support the making of the regulations.
10.23 p.m.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, this morning the Government announced the commissioning of a review into the health and safety hazards of "nanotechnology"—the science of the very small. Although I do not share at all the criticisms that have just been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, from the Conservative Front Bench, these flawed regulations are an example of politically-driven nanotechnology as applied by the Government to equality legislation, and of the hazards that they will create in the effective enjoyment of the fundamental right to equal treatment without unjustifiable discrimination.
One hazard of nanotechnology is known as "grey goo"—an amorphous and unsightly mess. That is not a bad description of the regulations before us, and what we will have in the other equality regulations next week and beyond. I have a particular interest in the subject because I had the privilege of assisting Lord Jenkins of Hillhead as Home Secretary in developing policy in what became the Race Relations Act 1976 and Sex Discrimination Act 1975. I also introduced the Equality Bill that was recently approved by this House and has received massive support among more than 220 Members of the other place.
The Government are to be commended for having supported the making of the equality directives under Article 13 of the Treaty on European Union. I do not share the root and branch attack on the regulations
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that we have just heard. There is, as we approach night, no time to consider all of the examples. I therefore take just one example to stand for all—the burden of proof issue. Article 8 of the directive is quite clear about the burden of proof. It does not contemplate a reversal of the burden of proof; it contemplates a more evenhanded sharing of the burden of proof. That is exactly what Regulation 41 does. For good measure, that is what the courts for years have essentially been saying should happen in gender discrimination cases and in race discrimination cases under existing legislation. It is also what has been done for women and men who have been victims of sex discrimination as well.
So I do not think that there is anything in that kind of criticism, in just the same way as some of the other criticisms that have been made of these regulations could equally be made, if they were correct, as regards gender discrimination legislation and disability discrimination. I would be astonished if the Conservative Front Bench would dare to attack gender and disability discrimination in the same vehement terms that we have heard today.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am being taken to task by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, but I am not attacking any concept of equality—I made that clear in my opening remarks. I am attacking the way in which the Government are going about it. My assault is upon them, not upon equality.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I had thought that the attack was on the particular proposals in these regulations. I am saying that those proposals are in well-established discrimination legislation dealing not only with colour and race but also with other types of unjustifiable discrimination. There is nothing very novel about any of this. Indeed, I will be criticising the regulations from an entirely different perspective; namely, that the Government are. I think, to be criticised for having decided to implement the directives not by coherent, consistent, accessible, joined-up and user-friendly primary legislation, but instead to proceed by way of piecemeal and disjointed delegated legislation—that is to say, by means of statutory instruments made under Section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972: a "nanocratic" decision that will disfigure the existing body of anti-discrimination legislation.
That nanocratic decision was taken last year for short-term reasons of political convenience. It means that the Government do not have to consider how best to remake the existing tangled web of antidiscrimination legislation, a pressing need so long signalled by the equality agencies and by independent experts. It means that parliamentary time is used instead to enact the endless flow of criminal justice and other Bills produced by the Home Office law factory. Incidentally, I have still received no answer to a Parliamentary Question tabled on 9th May seeking to discover the extent to which those consulted argued for the use of primary and not secondary legislation. I very much hope to receive that reply before next Tuesday when we deal with the last batch of these equality regulations.

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The defects in that misguided approach are exemplified in these regulations as the Commission for Racial Equality—I am so glad that the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, will be speaking as a distinguished and powerful former chair of that body, the public guardian of the Race Relations Act 1976—has pointed out. I have written to the Minister giving notice of some of my main concerns so that he is able to deal with them in his reply this evening rather than in correspondence at a later stage. This is our only chance as legislators to probe the Government's intentions on these important matters before the regulations become part of the law of the land.
By using Section 2 of the 1972 Act, the Government and Parliament are narrowly circumscribed in what can be done to amend the Race Relations Act. The powers conferred by Section 2 go no further than what is required to transpose the directive into our internal law. That is the main source of the incoherent and inconsistent amending regulations that we are asked this evening to approve. Perhaps I may give just one example—the burden of proof. How can it make any sense whatever to have a different burden of proof in employment discrimination cases than in education or housing discrimination cases on the basis of colour or race? It makes no sense whatever. However, it is part of the general pattern of legislating in this area, without any respect for internal coherence.
In my letter to the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, I raised the following as particular concerns. First, the Race Relations Act 1976 covers discrimination on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins and, with the exception of immigration functions, nationality. The new definitions of indirect discrimination and harassment, the shift in the burden of proof and the new exception for genuine occupational requirement in the regulations will apply only to discrimination on the ground of race, ethnic or national origins, and not colour or nationality. How can the Government avoid that resulting in confusion and potential injustice to applicants who may not know whether they are being discriminated against by reason of their ethnic origin or their colour?
Surely the CRE is right in stating that it is,
"illogical to implement the principle of equal treatment by providing for greater protection from discrimination on grounds of race and ethnic or national origin but not colour. The principal trigger for racially discriminatory behaviour is frequently colour: discriminators will seldom know the victim's ethnic or national origin and sometimes not the racial group but 'colour' is a visibly different characteristic".
The CRE is surely also right in stating that the regulations will,
"create more complex and confusing legislation for individuals, employers, businesses and the public sector and the new public duty to promote racial equality. In particular, the … Regulations … will create a two-tiered structure within the 1976 Act".
Does the Minister agree? If not, why not?
Secondly, the new provisions, such as the new definition of harassment, the shift in the burden of proof, and so on, will not apply to many functions of public authorities—for example, police functions,
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such as stop and search, arrest and detention, functions of the immigration service and the enforcement or regulatory functions of local authorities. I have asked the noble Lord whether the Government accept that this will create widespread confusion among those carrying out public functions, with the result that they will not know which standards apply to which functions. How will such confusion be avoided in practice?
Does the Minister agree with the CRE's assessment that the regulations,
"will inevitably result in increased litigation to clarify the law with financial consequences for businesses, complaint aid organizations, including the CRE, and the courts and tribunals"?
I certainly agree with that view. If the Minister disagrees, I should be grateful if he would explain why this is not likely to be the undesirable practical outcome.
Thirdly, the regulations do not apply to many of the functions of public authorities imported into the Race Relations Act 1976 by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. That is another example of what will be a two-tiered structure. Does that not inevitably mean that the resulting complexity in the legal framework will make it very difficult for public authorities to comply with their new statutory duty under the recently amended Race Relations Act 1976? Again, if the noble Lord disagrees, I should be grateful if he would explain why this is not the likely, and undesirable practical outcome?
Fourthly, the fact that these provisions have been implemented through regulations rather than primary legislation will inevitably lead to an even more complex and opaque legal framework. Given the time-scale involved, I appreciate that primary legislation cannot now be introduced in time to implement the directive. But will the Government give serious consideration to the proposal that the regulations should be introduced as temporary provisions prior to the introduction of a single Equality Bill, or a new, modernised Race Relations Act? That would address the differences between the directive and existing primary legislation and provide equal protection on the grounds of colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origin, and in respect of all public functions. If not, when do the Government intend at last to grasp the nettle and remake the anti-discrimination legislation enacted more than a quarter century ago?
Eighty years ago, FM Cornford published his well-known guide for the young academic politician, in which he examined the argument that,
"the Time is not ripe".
He explained:
"The principle of unripe time is that people should not do at the present moment what they think right at that moment, because the moment at which they think it right has not yet arrived".
It saddens me that the Government are so timorous and lacking in ambition in this important area. It dismays me, frankly, that they are still so far from fulfilling their bold 1997 election manifesto promise to tackle unjustifiable discrimination "wherever it exists". I look forward to the Minister's considered

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and full response this evening to the concerns that I raised in advance. I hope against hope and experience for some assurance that the Government will at last accept that the time is ripe for coherent, comprehensive, accessible equality legislation that can be enjoyed in practice to be introduced and enacted.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I do not want to blame the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, who is in no way personally responsible, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said somewhat more politely, it is pretty deplorable that regulations as important and controversial as these should not be considered until well after 10 p.m. At least yesterday's disability regulations of a similar order of importance came before the House at about half past three.
What is so disgraceful about all these EU regulations we are discussing this week and next is, as the noble Baroness said, the enforced abandonment of our ancient tradition of "innocent until proven guilty". The accused will now be deemed guilty, albeit guilty in the civil rather than criminal sense, unless he or she can prove otherwise.
Whatever the Government may say in public, I expect that they must agree with me in their hearts. Otherwise, they would have automatically introduced this radical change off their own bat some years ago without waiting for the EU to bully them into doing so. After all, the Government have been in power for more than six years.
Incidentally, what demand has there been from the ordinary citizens of the EU for the introduction of this unfair practice? Virtually none, I suspect, as I am sure a referendum or public opinion poll across the EU would reveal. As with so many "euro-laws", as one might describe them, the whole thing is driven by a small group of no doubt sincere zealots. Perhaps that is a tautology as zealots are by definition sincere.
The whole of page 3 of last Sunday's Sunday Telegraph was devoted to an expos? of a Nigerian gentleman who claimed that he had been discriminated against 72 times. He lost 70 cases and won a partial victory in only two, but his actions have so far cost businesses, hospitals, local government and the police more than £0.5 million in legal and other costs. One can predict that if these regulations become law, such cases will mushroom, spurred on by lawyers who encourage grievances.
I have no personal axe to grind, but why are partnerships included—that is, tightening up the law—as partnerships have nothing to do with any employer/employee relationship? Do similar laws in other EU countries extend—
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that partnerships have been covered by anti-discrimination law for more than a quarter of a century; in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and in the Race Relations Act 1976 as well as in the Northern Ireland legislation?
Lord Monson: My Lords, yes, I am well aware of that and I shall turn to that in a moment. As far as I
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know, the EU directive refers only to employment laws. Therefore, why are these regulations being used as an excuse to extend the power to impose further restrictions upon partnerships? Do similar laws in other EU countries extend to partnerships, or is this another example of gold-plating by Her Majesty's Government?
It was, after all, a previous Labour government—and this answers the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill—more Left-wing than the current Government, which deliberately excluded small partnerships of between two and five individuals in Section 10 of the Race Relations Act 1976. How sensible they were. After all, there are many all-Jewish partnerships. One often comes across firms of solicitors with names such as Goldman, Levy, Katz and Greenberg. Why on earth not? Why should they not form all-Jewish partnerships? I dare say that there are a number of all-Bengali or all-Gujarati partnerships. Why on earth not? But it looks as if they will now be outlawed.
I finish with a story I heard first-hand less than three weeks ago. I happened unexpectedly to meet at lunch a couple who said that they were thinking of emigrating. As they were in their late forties or early fifties, and I knew that they still had dependent families, I tentatively inquired why, upon which they revealed that they owned a small science-based firm which normally employed only graduates, such being the skilled technical nature of the work required. But having social consciences—they did not use that expression, but that is what I deduced from their general demeanour—they one day took on a young lady of Caribbean origin who had no degree, but who they thought was bright and might fit in and learn reasonably quickly.
Initially the young lady seemed to do very well, so they promoted her. It was a total disaster. She was simply not up to the job. So, not wanting to disappoint her or hurt her feelings, they created a somewhat invented job for her, at the same higher salary as she was receiving post-promotion. Notwithstanding that she suffered no financial loss, the girl, encouraged no doubt by grievance-fostering lawyers, claimed that her pride had been hurt by the sideways move and launched an action based on alleged racial discrimination.
Although the couple think they have a good chance of eventually winning, such has been the emotional and financial cost of fighting the case that they are thinking seriously of winding up their business in Britain and starting up somewhere abroad, to the great disbenefit of this country. Once the burden of proof has shifted, we may expect more of this sort of thing.
10.45 p.m.
Lord Ouseley: My Lords, for the best part of four decades we have led Europe in the way in which we have tackled race relations, with the introduction of legislation, and our enforcement machinery which is the envy of many states across Europe. It is a great tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, that he was an architect of that legislation, supporting Lord Jenkins of Hillhead when the latter was Home Secretary.

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Britain's role has been honourable in helping to support the development of the European directive, which is important in that it provides protection for residents right across Europe in a consistent way. In many cases our own citizens have the same level of protection in other parts of Europe, and the directive will help to give at least a greater degree of consistency of protection for those who may be the victims of discrimination.
Back in 1965 we ended colour discrimination. At that time signs were very evident all over Britain saying "Rooms to let"—or "Job vacancies"—"No blacks, no coloured, no Irish." It seems to me that in 2003, with these regulations, we are going backwards. Despite what the Minister said about the Government's widespread consultations on the regulations, it would appear that no one listened to what people were saying.
In bringing forward secondary legislation at this time of night, the Government cannot be forgiven for wasting the three years that they have had to prepare and introduce primary legislation to strengthen our existing legislation. It is very disappointing that they have chosen to submit weaker and confusing regulations.
The Government have known exactly what the negotiated provisions mean, but instead of meeting the spirit of the directive—the establishment of the principle of equal treatment for all—they now purport to follow the directive to the letter by adopting a minimal approach to implementation. Not only will this approach create an unworkable law, it also fails fully to comply with the directive provisions. Instead of adopting fully the wording and definitions of the directive, the regulations change phrases arbitrarily, leave out crucial bits and thus do not comply with the spirit as well as the letter of the directive.
Despite the Government's commitment to bringing forward legislation that is clear, concise, comprehensive, effective and simple to interpret and to enforce, these regulations will unnecessarily produce an increasingly complex and complicated framework which will be confusing, difficult to understand and therefore difficult to use. This means that they will achieve just the opposite of what the Equality Bill promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, intended: a simplification of our equality laws which was welcomed by Members of this House.
The regulations will create a two-tier framework with two grounds of discrimination and key areas of material scope excluded from the revisions. With regard to the material scope and the omissions, the key areas of immigration and policing—that is, the enforcement and regulatory functions—are not included in the regulations, which means that in effect the Race Relations Act will be split into two.
The recently enacted Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 remedied the defect that existed for over 25 years by incorporating those functions within our existing legislation. But in so far as these regulations apply, they will now be excluded. That is bizarre and
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inexplicable. Are we to approve regulations that will permit immigration and police services to escape taking responsibility for the harassment of people simply because of their race? Surely this anomaly must be addressed.
That brings me to the grounds of discrimination. Race as well as ethnic origin are both included in the regulations, but colour and nationality are omitted. The exclusion of colour seems entirely arbitrary, as the directive's stated purpose of combating racism and xenophobia, along with its broad reference to race and ethnic origin, very likely encompasses colour. The Government did choose to include national origin as falling under the directive's definition of race and ethnic origin, so it is unclear on what basis colour can be deliberately excluded, especially when it forms an integral part of our own existing definitions. That is arbitrary, irrational, indefensible and—dare I say it?—racist.
The regulations will introduce an equality hierarchy if they remain in their present form. There is the distinct likelihood of increased litigation to clarify the law, with financial consequences for businesses, for the Commission for Racial Equality and for trade unions which provide legal assistance to victims. There is a lack of adequate sanctions. No attempt has been made to ensure that sanctions are effective, proportionate or dissuasive, as required by the directive. For example, tribunals could be given the power to order remedies to correct a wrong that has been perpetrated.
Then there is the possible non-compliance of the race regulations with the race directive. Taking the indirect discrimination provisions, the definition in the regulations departs from the wording of the directive at crucial points. One effect is that the anticipatory challenges to an indirectly discriminatory practice will not be possible. Rather, action can be taken only once an individual victim has already suffered a disadvantage. The regulations require a person to be an actual victim, whereas the directive permits cases to be brought even before someone experiences an individual disadvantage. In the absence of a directly affected victim, it will not be possible to challenge an indirectly discriminatory policy, criterion or practice.
The second point on indirect discrimination is that indirectly discriminatory practices will still be possible when deemed "appropriate" and "legitimate", whereas the directive requires additional tests of "objective justification" and "necessary" aims. Surely this cannot be acceptable and is contrary to the principle and the letter of the directive.
As regards the issue of genuine occupational requirements, the directive would replace the list of employment exemptions in the existing Race Relations Act with a strictly defined general exemption which must show evidence of being legitimate and proportionate. The regulations fail to adopt the full strict definition of the exemption by omitting that the objective of such an exemption must be "legitimate". Moreover, the regulations add "dismissal" to the scope of this exemption. That

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amounts to a violation of the directive's non-regression clause as there are currently no exemptions for discrimination in dismissal procedures in the Race Relations Act.
I move on to harassment. The regulations separate harassment from discrimination whereas the directive clearly says that harassment is a form of discrimination. This can have negative consequences for the victims who go through a continuum of harassment and discrimination and who encounter time limits when lodging complaints.
The provision on harassment introduces a "reasonable person" test. What is that? It is that harassment will be acknowledged as such only if it can "reasonably be considered" to have adverse effects. Such a test effectively perpetuates prejudice and indirect discrimination because a "reasonable perspective" is likely to refer to a spurious "average", the traditional standard which is characteristic of the dominant majority population, that of white middle-aged males whose presence, incidentally, still dominates our tribunals and courts. Inevitably, such perceptions differ from those of people who are often most affected by harassment.
These regulations defy belief when set alongside our track record of leading Europe in outlawing racial and other forms of unjustifiable discrimination. It is clearly incumbent on the Minister to explain what representations have been made during the extensive consultations. What representations have been made by the Commission for Racial Equality, for instance, and why have these been rejected?
These regulations are too deficient to be approved. The Government should look at them again before taking them any further.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I take exception to something which the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, said. The exception I take is to the accusation that we on this side of the House would not have objected to the measures in these regulations had this been discrimination in any other form. As they have been shown to be flawed, not only by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, but by the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, it would be an insult to our intelligence to suggest that if similarly flawed regulations were introduced on sex discrimination or other discrimination we would not have objected. I certainly would have done so on exactly the same grounds as I object to these regulations.
However, one must always give a little and take a little. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, on the need for genuine, all-purpose equality legislation. It makes much more sense that there should be a general right of equality, a general right not to be discriminated against and a new Bill. I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, and with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that these regulations are flawed in themselves. They are over-complicated and they should not have been introduced at this time of night. These matters should be dealt with by primary legislation.
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I suggest to your Lordships that this country has some of the best race relations in all Europe. Try being a Turk in Hamburg; try being an Algerian in Marseilles or in some of the scruffier parts of Paris. I was driving home yesterday fairly early. Some schoolchildren were leaving a school in Wandsworth. It was a racially mixed school. It was a pleasure to see the children walking along, talking to each other. with no form of discrimination in their bones at all. That is the level which race relations in this country have reached.
There are cases of discrimination and they are not necessarily white on black or white on brown. One of my favourite fishmongers is in Chinatown. There was a notice outside saying "New sales assistant required: Mandarin essential". Many school leavers from inner London schools could get a perfectly decent job in an English fishmonger and, with a little bit of training, would be able to sell cod. But those who speak Mandarin would, I assume, come from only one racial minority.
It is interesting that there is a society of black lawyers. If there was a society of white lawyers the noble Lords, Lord Ouseley and Lord Lester, would he jumping about with rage like peas in a banshee bucket—justifiably so. There is a society of black policemen. If that is not racist, I do not know what is. It strikes me as being racist.
Having said all that, the English—I use the word advisedly—I hope, are sufficiently tolerant and sensible to say that, even though it is racist, it is not unreasonable to have a society of black lawyers because it is trying to produce fairness in this world.
I am lucky enough to go sailing at Cowes. Your Lordships may ask what race relations have to do with Cowes. I went onto a boat called "Drumbeat", which had been owned by Lord Beaverbrook —Maxwell Aitken—and was now owned by an ex-sergeant in the Royal Engineers who was half-Jewish and half-Ghanaian and had made a fortune out of property. He had a crew of New Zealand rugby players to make sure that his racing was successful. That situation at one end of the social scale and the school at Wandsworth at the other shows how successful is the general ease of race relations in this country.
Of course we must not be complacent—it can all go wrong—but I am told that paragraph 41 of these regulations—I have taken a certain amount of advice is the first legislation to change the burden of proof in the way that it does, certainly by regulation. The people I asked—one was a judge and the other was a distinguished legal correspondent—had not been briefed, but neither of them could think of a case involving this kind of reversal of the burden proof.
I was always told that it was scientifically impossible to prove a negative.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, in the light of the speech of the noble Earl, perhaps I may clarify what I said. I am not suggesting that the Conservative Opposition has double standards and is not attacking disability and sex discrimination legislation but only

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race discrimination legislation. I was seeking to say—the noble Earl's point about the burden of proof illustrates this—that the way in which the attack has been mounted today could equally be made on the sex discrimination and disability discrimination regulations, but there has been no similar attack by the Conservative Party upon them.
As to his point about the burden of proof, paragraph 41 of the regulations simply states that if the complainant proves facts from which the tribunal could, apart from this section, conclude in the absence of an adequate explanation that the respondent has acted unlawfully—that is, something like a prima facie case—then the burden shifts to the respondent to show that the act was not done on unlawful grounds.
That is a well-established concept in English law of the shifting of the burden. It has been applied in sex discrimination legislation under European law and it is being applied here under race legislation. I do not understand the Conservative Opposition to be attacking it in relation to sex equality legislation but only in respect of this legislation. If they attack it on the grounds of both they will be equally wrong, but they will be consistent.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, the reason that I did not tack that on is that I did not have the faintest idea that it was being introduced on the other issue. I read about the matter, thought that it was wrong and still think that it is wrong. I am still not convinced that turning the burden of proof upside down by regulation is not a "first" and it is a wrong "first".
The Government have a tendency to tyranny. On Monday, we shall hear about hearsay evidence, the reduction of trial by jury and all kinds of nasty things which I, as an old-fashioned person who likes the concept of the protection of English law for subjects of the Crown, find deeply offensive. Her Majesty's present advisers are too prone to that tendency.
That is why I dislike the measure. I do not think that this reversal of proof is a measure which any government should be proud to introduce. I agree that we should have proper equality legislation. To demonstrate how difficult it can be to define what is an ethnic minority, perhaps I may say that my great-great-great-grandmother was a Negro slave in Jamaica; and my great-great-aunt was a daughter of Tullachdan of Aude. When my great-aunt was vicereine of India, they met. She saw him. He said, "My name is Gardner", to which she said, "We must be cousins".
I am deeply disturbed by these regulations. It is an achievement for the Government to have united against them the noble Lord, Lord Lester, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, the noble Lord, Lord Monson, myself and the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley. It means that the Government are not thinking and are introducing the provision in a sloppy and haphazard way.
11.1 p.m.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, the first of the questions by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, was on the burden of proof. The burden of proof does not shift to the respondent unless and until the complainant proves facts from which the tribunal could conclude, in the absence of an adequate explanation from the respondent, that the complainant has been unlawfully discriminated against. In simple language, if it appears on the facts of the case put forward that there is a case to answer, there is an expectation and a responsibility on the person against whom the complaint is made to answer that complaint if they wish to defend themselves from the presumption that something that should not have happened has happened. If there is no prima facie evidence of race discrimination, the tribunal will dismiss the case as at present. There is no question of a respondent having to prove an unsubstantiated accusation.
The situation is not new. Employment tribunals have been applying the revised rules on the burden of proof in employment cases under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 since October 2001. Therefore, tribunals should be well acquainted with the principle involved. We see nothing that is fundamentally wrong with this. The title "reverse burden of proof' perhaps over-dramatises in ways that may slightly mislead.
The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, also asked about time limits. The time limit of eight weeks for a respondent to reply to the complainant is in part a question of complying with the directive. It is the directive's requirement to provide an appropriate redress to complainants. It is consistent with the approach taken in respect of the regulations implementing the employment directive.
The noble Baroness also asked about "particular disadvantage". The phrase reflects the wording of the directive. It means that the complainant must show that the provision criteria or practice concerned causes a significant disadvantage to his or her racial group which would not be suffered by persons of comparable racial or ethnic groups.
On proportionality, it has to be shown that if the provision criteria or practice cause a disadvantage, the application of the provision criteria or practice needs to be proportionate to the aim that it pursues. That means a judgment of whether it is appropriate to achieve the aim and necessary to do so. That includes consideration of whether there are less restrictive means of achieving that aim. I hope that that explanation will seem a statement of virtual common sense, rather than anything more contentious.
The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, also asked whether the provision set down obscure and incomprehensible tests—on proportionate application, for example. Genuine occupation requirement is a narrow exception and it is important that it be drafted in the strictest terms to show that the requirement is applied proportionately. In order to clarify the application provision, employers are given the choice of showing that the requirement is not in

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fact satisfied or, where that is not clear cut, to show that it is reasonable for them to consider that it is not satisfied. That will assist employers and tribunals in the practical application of the legislation.
On the impact on business, we have sought to implement this directive and the employment directive so that they have an eye to each other. We recognise that employers will be under a duty to respond to both directives. Therefore—although it has met some criticism tonight—we have sought to take in parallel the processes by which they would be implemented, trying to ensure a joined-up approach as far as possible, to minimise unnecessary regulatory burdens on business. However, it is my experience that most businesses in Britain take a positive approach to the importance of race equality measures and legislation and are alive to the business case for so doing.
As a result of the changes by the directive, charities will be subject to the same employment provisions in the Race Relations Act as other employers, in relation to discrimination or harassment on grounds of race or ethnic or national origins. That change has been welcomed, because it will make the approach to employment in the Race Relations Act more consistent. That will prevent charities that target support to particular disadvantaged racial groups from being able to recruit staff from a particular racial group, unless they can demonstrate that there is a genuine occupational requirement. Charities will be able to rely on genuine occupational requirements when recruiting staff to undertake certain posts or roles where the post holder needs to be of a particular background. They will continue to be able to rely on the existing exemption to the provisions of the Race Relations Act when recruiting staff who need to be of a particular nationality, as grounds of nationality are not covered by the changes.
The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, asked when the guidance would be produced. It is our intent to produce a leaflet and guidance by the end of June so that advice is available to employers or others in that respect.
It is with regret that I find that I have not completely satisfied the noble Lord, Lord Lester, on the way in which we have handled these important measures. The House is aware of his leadership on equality legislation. However, I shall do my best to respond to his specific questions. He asked about the 1976 Act, which covers discrimination on grounds of colour, race and ethnic origin, and the new definitions of indirect discrimination and harassment, which will apply only to discrimination on the grounds of race and ethnic or national origins.
The short answer, which I do not pretend will fully satisfy him, is that we are fully implementing the race directive. We are satisfied that we are by these measures fully implementing it, and we are doing so by the due date. As such, we are making changes that will benefit those bringing claims within the scope of the directive. The criticism from the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and others, is not that we have not implemented the directive but that we have not gone
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further than the directive to extend the directive's benefits to all other elements of our race relations legislation. I hear and acknowledge that as a statement of fact. However, we are making changes that will benefit those who are bringing claims within the scope of the directive. Those bringing claims that are outside the scope of the directive will not have suffered any detriment as a result of the changes that we are making. Courts and tribunals will of course have to come to terms with the provisions; that is often the case.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am grateful for that answer, but there is something that I do not understand about it. The race directive itself, as the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, indicated, refers to grounds of racial or ethnic origin. Would the Minister not agree with me that, if someone is discriminated against on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin, in ordinary common sense language that would include their colour? When someone is the victim of a colour bar, would we not all say that that person is the victim of racial discrimination? So I do not understand why the directive is not being implemented more faithfully to include colour bars as well as other forms of racial discrimination. Will the Minister deal with that point?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I can deal with it to the best of my ability as a non-lawyer as compared with the noble Lord, Lord Lester. Our understanding is that the directive does not apply to discrimination on the grounds of colour, and that it specifically includes discrimination on the grounds of nationality. That is our understanding and interpretation of the directive: it does not apply to colour—hence the difference that the noble Lord has raised.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, how does anyone allow a directive to be passed which says, "You can't do it because you're West Indian, but we're not going to complain because you say you are black". That merely seems stupid. Why do we pass such legislation?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, perhaps I may further address the second question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lester. We do not expect that we are creating widespread confusion in this area. The new statutory definition of harassment, for example, mirrors the concept which has been developed through case law. We do not consider that it will be unduly difficult for the courts or public authorities to determine whether the provisions of the directive apply to particular functions.
It is already clear that functions of public authorities that constitute the provision of goods and services are covered by the directive. Courts may, in some circumstances, have to determine whether a particular function falls within the directive. Our discussions across government, however, have led us to the conclusion that this is unlikely to cause significant problems. Again, of course, we are fully implementing the directive.

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Perhaps I may give an example. Our view is that functions such as social work, benefit payments and social inclusion would constitute—
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, will the Minister answer my question as to why there is this difference—this lack— regarding colour and race? He has done what I have seen Ministers of all parties do. When asked a difficult question, he has stuck his head down, got his neck into his collar, read his brief and hoped that people will ignore and forget what they have asked. Please will he answer the point about the difference between colour and race?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, the question that I heard from the noble Earl was: "Why is legislation of this type passed?"—to which there is not a particular focused answer. The directive was passed—
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I wonder whether I might interrupt the Minister. I think there has been a genuine misunderstanding. I think that my noble friend was seeking to agree with the noble Lords, Lord Ouseley and Lord Lester of Herne Hill. He was not questioning the need for this legislation per se. He was questioning the disparity between a definition including a reference to nationality without referring to the word "colour". He was trying to agree with both noble Lords who raised that point and felt that perhaps the Minister had not adequately responded. I hope that that assists the Minister. From my knowledge of my noble friend, I believe that that is exactly what he was trying to present.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I shall do my best again to respond. My understanding was that the noble Earl was asking why colour was not covered in the directive but race was. There, I am in some difficulty, because the directive was passed in 2000 and I was not party to it. I have no knowledge of the negotiations. I can do my best to research the matter, but I am not in a position now to give an answer as to what happened at that point in the negotiations. I shall do my best to see whether I can find a fuller answer and write to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, on that point.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer. It is such a relief when someone says: "I don't know the answer. I shall go away and find it". That is always appreciated. I am sorry if I have been slightly beastly to the noble Lord. I thank him for that last intervention.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, when the Minister does his research, will he note that the preamble to the directive contains a reference to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination that includes colour? It was plainly contemplated by the makers of the directive that colour should be included. The definition in the international convention is the one in the Race Relations Act and the one in international
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human rights law. So, although I put it very politely, I respectfully submit that the Government have been badly advised on that important issue. If it could he looked into, I should be very grateful.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I am glad to give an undertaking to do so and to press the point strongly. I shall respond in parallel to both noble Lords and to other noble Lords who have raised the issue, which to my recollection included the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley.
The third question raised by the noble Lord. Lord Lester, was about the regulations not applying to many of the functions to public authorities which were imported into the Race Relations Act 1976 by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. Again, we do not think that public authorities will he caused undue difficulties. Although not all public functions may be within the scope of the directive, many are. In any event, the new statutory duty applies to all forms of unlawful discrimination whether they are unlawful by virtue of the original provisions of the 1976 Act, by virtue of the amendments made to that Act by the 2000 Act or by these regulations.
Public authorities will not therefore have to take a significant number of new issues into account in complying with the duty. We do not anticipate that the regulations represent a significant burden. if any, to public authorities in this respect.
On the fourth question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, regarding whether this provision will inevitably lead to more complex and opaque legislation and on the question of a single equalities Bill, the Government welcome the noble Lord's Bill as a major contribution to the debate on equality. However, as he knows, and I am sure does not celebrate, we are not at this point in time of the view that a single piece of legislation at this stage would be appropriate.
Equality legislation is constantly evolving. Our view is that an incremental approach to implementing equality legislation allows us fully to think through the implications at each stage. We shall be indicating our thinking on a single equalities body and making public how the Government intend to move forward on that. I hope that we can make that clear before the summer.
However, I have heard the comments that have been strongly argued from at least three points in the House about whether this legislation will be complicated to implement. I repeat that the directive is being fully implemented in our judgment. Therefore, we are fully in compliance with the directive by the timetable it sets.
The argument has been made that the issue may be more complicated by using secondary rather than primary legislation. I shall commit to monitor the situation. We will look at evidence from the CRE, from practitioners and elsewhere so that we are in a position to track if there are difficulties experienced which in our own judgment are greater than those we have concluded will be the case.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I promise the noble Lord this is my last interruption. I wonder

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whether he will consider one further point. He mentioned in his important speech that the Government were looking across horizontally at the framework directive and trying to get it and the race directive internetted in a similar way.
Perhaps I may put this point for further thought by him and his department. The difference in the race directive is that it applies beyond the employment field. The Government have levelled down to the framework directive—for example, so far as concerns the burden of proof—in a way that means that it is lightened in employment cases but not in other cases, even though that is not what the directive says. That is a good example of not giving full faith and credit to this directive because the Government are concerned about broader considerations in the framework directive. I should be grateful if that could be looked at as well.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I shall certainly undertake to look also at that. What I was seeking to express was not exactly as put by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that we were seeking to implement the provisions in exactly the same way legally, but to think about the consequences and the processes of their implementation on the end target—the employer—to try to see where as far as possible, consistent with a duty to implement each of them, one could do it in a way that would make the regulatory burden on business less rather than more.
In conclusion, on that general point, before turning to one or two others, I wanted to say that we shall monitor the situation to see whether there were problems with its implementation and look to rectify any inconsistencies that resulted when a suitable opportunity arose.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, also raised the charge that we were being bullied by the European Union in that respect. In fact, Article 13 was not a product of the European Union bullying us but, if anything, the European Union taking the basis of British race relations and seeking to use it as a platform to apply to other European Union countries. That is in part why we have taken the view that the impact on us of the directive is relatively minor compared with the impact on most other European member states, which have had to pass substantial legislation to bring themselves into compliance with it.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, also asked about the issue of partnerships. The directive covers partnerships in Article 3(1)(a), which sets out the scope of the directive and refers expressly to access to self-employment. A partnership that refuses to admit a person to be a partner on the basis of his race will be in breach of the principle of equal treatment laid down in the directive, which is why it has been included.
The noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, made a strong, trenchant and painful criticism of the Government. It is doubly painful to hear them from him, given the leadership to race equality that he has given in his previous roles. Nevertheless, without necessarily answering every question, we believe that we are fully complying with the directive.
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I shall address one or two more points and then make a general concluding comment. On the issue of indirect discrimination, Article 7 requires a remedy to be available to persons who consider themselves wronged. Individuals who respond to discriminatory advertisements but do not gain employment, for example, will still be able to bring employment tribunal proceedings alleging discrimination in recruitment and will able to rely on the new burden of proof provisions in support of their case.
In theory, it will also be open to an individual who had not responded to a discriminatory advertisement—because the advertisement had discouraged him from applying—to bring tribunal proceedings. However, such a person may be unlikely to want to bring proceedings and, if he does, will not necessarily be successful because, if he did not apply for a job, he will have difficulty proving financial loss; or may have difficulty showing as a matter of law that the employer discriminated against him as an individual; or that the employer is under a duty to make adjustments where he does not and ought not reasonably to know that the person might be an applicant.
The current arrangements ensure that the CRE can take a strategic approach to discriminatory advertisements, while also being able to act against persistent offenders. I have answered the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, with respect to our firm view that the directive does not apply to discrimination on grounds of colour. I hope that he will bear with me if I have not covered all his points, but there are one two others that I should cover.
On the definition of harassment, subsection (2) of new Section 3A makes clear that when considering whether the conduct has the effect of violating dignity, tribunals must take into account all relevant circumstances, including the perception of the complainant, but it will be regarded as harassment only if the tribunal is satisfied that the conduct complained of should reasonably be considered as having that effect. So trivial incidents would not constitute harassment, even if the complainant genuinely believed that his dignity was violated.
We do not accept that that definition goes too far. The provisions reflect the judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in the case of Driskel v. Peninsula Business Services, decided in 2000. Employers should not be found guilty of harassment just because the complainant thinks that he has been harassed. Subsection (2) of new Section 3A does not apply to conduct intended to violate dignity; that would always amount to harassment, irrespective of perception.
The only other comment that I want to make to the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, is that although he is more than disappointed about how we have implemented the directive, I reaffirm that the Government's commitment in practice to drive race equality and equality of opportunity in our society is as strong as that of any government has ever been.

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The mechanism of the law may not be in exactly the form that the House may have ideally wanted, but we will use the law—the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and the framework agreement—in what I hope will be a vigorous and intelligent fashion to try to ensure that we deliver race equality in our society in ways that will deliver significant improvements to people in Britain. I commend the regulations to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Regulatory Reform (British Waterways Board) Order 2003
11.24 p.m.
Lord Whittyrose to move, That the draft regulatory reform order laid before the House on 28th April be approved [19th Report from the Regulatory Reform Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the order will amend the Transport Act 1962 and the Transport Act 1968 by adding to, and clarifying, the British Waterways Board's statutory powers, and will enable the board to participate more fully than it can at present in the public/private partnership known as Watergrid.
Watergrid is a joint venture between British Waterways, the public corporation that runs the UK's 2,000 mile canal network, the water services and infrastructure management group Anglian Water Group, utility provider Bristol Water Holdings and Partnerships UK. It is one of the first projects to be taken forward under the Government's Wider Markets Initiative to create better value from public sector assets by utilising private sector expertise and funding. Watergrid will supply industrial, commercial and property development customers alongside the inland waterways with sustainable water solutions. These will include bespoke water treatment, wastewater treatment, recycling services and environmental consultancy based on individual customer needs.
The amendments proposed in the order will give the British Waterways Board additional powers to abstract, purchase, treat and sell water, and to treat and dispose of effluent. They will also clarify that the borrowing of a company formed by the board—but which is not its subsidiary—does not count towards the board's overall borrowing limit.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consulted widely on the proposal last year. It was generally welcomed as a means of raising additional income for the waterways and of bringing more competition to the water supply industry. Following consideration of a number of detailed legal points in respect of the board's borrowing limits and its duties to maintain the waterways in a navigable condition, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee concluded that the proposal to amend British Waterways' powers was an appropriate
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use of the powers under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. I thank the members of that committee for the time they spent scrutinising the proposal and for recommending it unanimously to the House.
The equivalent committee in another place also concluded unanimously that the proposal was appropriate to be made under the Regulatory Reform Act, following detailed consideration of concerns raised about the adequacy of the consultation process, which were addressed to its satisfaction. The order was subsequently approved. I commend the order to this House.
Moved, That the draft regulatory reform order laid before the House on 28th April be approved [19th Report from the Regulatory Reform Committee].—(Lord Whitty.)
Baroness Byford: My Lords, before I turn to the order, I wish to record my deep concern and dismay that here we are, two minutes before 11.30 p.m., taking forward a statutory instrument when the new procedures of the House were to encourage us to finish at around 10 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, my understanding of the agreement of the House was that divisible business would be completed on the appropriate days by 10 p.m. For example, on Thursday evenings the legislative business is completed by 7.30 p.m., but the House often takes an Unstarred Question after then.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for intervening. I infer from the shake of the head that I see from my left from the Clerk that that understanding may not be fully correct. The matter is not an issue that I wish to ram at the two Ministers opposite. It is a practical problem. We sat through and waited patiently while an important statutory instrument was taken through the House—one that should not have been taken at this time of night, a matter conveyed by other noble Lords. I am not getting at the two Ministers opposite, because unfortunately we are where we are.
However, I want to record that I am dismayed at taking the order and that I hope that those who are looking at reforming the House will bear in mind some of the words that others have said tonight. For example, last night we rose at 6.45 p.m. To do that and then to take two statutory instruments through at nearly 11.30 p.m. is unacceptable—not only to me and our Benches, and the Liberal Benches, but it is unfair to the Government Ministers who have to put the amendment through. I am recording my deep dismay that we are here also on their behalf.
The Minister was with us yesterday for a long debate on a very important Select Committee report. Today we had a four-hour debate on the countryside, and tomorrow we shall have a six-hour debate on the Water Bill. The usual channels should therefore examine the business and see whether we can avoid this

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sort of situation in future. As I said, I am not criticising the Minister. I just think that we have a practical problem that the House needs to address.
I thank the Minister for his comments. I appreciate that the order will enable the board to use private enterprise and private funding, a change that we would certainly support. Sustainable water solutions are also desirable. Nevertheless I have a couple of questions.
In the introduction to their report, the House of Commons Regulatory Reform Committee rightly said that the order would,
"give the Board additional powers to abstract, purchase, treat and sell water, and to treat and dispose of effluent".
That gives rise to two questions in relation to the Water Bill. Is the Minister confident that Clause 29 of the Water Bill, on water resources management schemes, will not be affected by this order? Secondly, will Clause 7, which deals with the rights of abstraction for drainage purposes, not be compromised by the Bill? If he cannot answer that question tonight, I should be happy in the circumstances for him to write to me. Those are obvious questions as the House is currently considering water legislation. We wonder how that legislation might impact on this order.
On page 5 of the same report, the committee expressed some concerns. The report states:
"However, we were concerned by the apparent lack of opportunity at the planning stages of the Water Grid project for groups such as English Nature and The Wildlife Trusts to raise environmental concerns. We suggested that had the Department provided certain relevant information to English Nature, The Wildlife Trusts and other interested environmental bodies, and given them the opportunity to comment on that information, their environmental concerns could have been resolved at an early stage. We considered it unfortunate that English Nature's concerns were properly addressed only when a parliamentary committee chose to seek further information about the adequacy of the consultation process".
The Minister said that the committee expressed a couple of concerns. I thought that I should record the fact that those were major concerns. We on these Benches are concerned about what input English Nature and the Wildlife Trusts might have. Our earlier debate also dealt at great length with the issues facing us as regards environmental legislation.
Paragraph 8 of the report goes on to state:
"Both the Department and the Board have undertaken to make the information discussed above available on request, and to seek to address any outstanding environmental concerns that may arise as a consequence of such a request".
I heard what the Minister said. Having expressed their concerns about the lack of consultation, the committee nevertheless felt that the order should come before the House. I therefore support the order.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I shall not repeat the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, save to say that I noted the concerns of English Nature. I, too, have a query that I want to raise about how the order relates to the Water Bill.
The noble Lord will know that in our discussions on that Bill he defended the decision to keep British Waterways network of mini reservoirs outwith the Water Bill. By means of this order, the motives which
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I fully understand and agree with, British Waterways is being moved more into becoming the equivalent of a private sector water company. The Government do not have a good record of taking advice from English Nature, and I understand that they are resisting advice from the Environment Agency.
Having seen the order and having become more aware of the issues, I am surprised that the Government are not inclined to take the Environment Agency's advice to include all of British waterways water assets within the framework of the Water Bill.
The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, my apologies for attempting to prevent the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, from getting to her feet and delivering that oration.
I do not expect the Minister to answer the point that I want to make as it is beyond his remit. I apologise because the hour is late, but this is a desperately important issue. Notwithstanding the intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, life in this House is becoming insufferable, given that increasingly the Government seem not to have understood what they have done in changing the hours.
I want to register an intense protest from the Back Benches that the way in which the Government are managing the phraseology, "We should normally stop at 10 o'clock" is causing deep concern. The Government should be aware of that and ought to address it.
Without in any way criticising the noble Baroness for her interpretation, I make the very obvious point that when a public Bill exceeds the 10 o'clock sort of limit and ends up being considered post 1 o'clock in the morning, we have to ask how realistic the reform has actually been. I merely wanted to make your Lordships aware of that issue.
Lord Whitty: My Lords. it is not for me to reply on the issue of the timing. I simply say that it was not the Government, but the House, that agreed those terms on the basis of an all-party report. Clearly, there are a few hiccups, but I am sure that the usual channels will look at concerns expressed by the noble Earl, the noble Baroness and others.
On the substantive points, the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, raised the issue relating to the Water Bill, as indeed did the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, in a slightly less direct sense. She asked how Clause 28 of the Water Bill, dealing with water resource management, related to this order.
This provision does not give British Waterways any additional abstraction rights. It already has those, and will continue to do so under the Water Bill. The order provides for what it can do with the water subsequent to abstracting it, which is principally to treat it and sell it in competition with other water suppliers. The water resources management side is not affected, as no additional rights are involved.

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It must similarly be the case in relation to Clause 7. I cannot see why the drainage provisions would alter as well. I am pretty sure that the same answer would apply, but if there is any difference, I shall talk to the noble Baroness before the Water Bill is considered tomorrow. I think that that must be right logically.
In relation to English Nature, I think that I would accept the view of the Committee in another place. The consultation with English Nature and wildlife interests was not sufficient at an earlier stage. The Environment Agency was heavily involved in the discussion of this proposal at an early stage, but English Nature almost certainly should have been consulted earlier. On the substantive concerns of English Nature, the committee in another place felt that it was adequately reassured. That also appears to be the case with English Nature. Therefore, those concerns have been covered.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, raised a point about the Water Bill, which deals with British Waterways' reservoirs. The only reservoirs exempted from the Water Bill are those that are not connected with the system. They are significant but any part of British Waterways' reservoirs that are connected with the system, and would therefore have an effect on the total availability of water within the system, are covered by the Water Bill. Therefore, in this context and in the context of Clause 28, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, the abstraction position of British Waterways is covered by the general provisions of the Bill. This order does not alter the existing rights of British Waterways.
I hope that with that explanation, the House will give a fair wind to the order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes before midnight.

Official Report of the Grand Committee on the

  Local Government Bill
  (Fourth Day)
  Wednesday, 11th June 2003.
  The Committee met at half past three of the clock.
  [The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon) in the Chair.]
  Schedule 2 agreed to.
  Clause 43 [Arrangements with respect to business improvement districts]:
  Lord Jenkin of Rodingmoved Amendment No. 113:
  Page 20, line 2, after "work" insert ", invest"
  The noble Lord said: With this amendment, we shall also discuss Amendments Nos. 114 to 116, 118 to 124 and 132. It is a large group of amendments which have been tabled in the names of various noble Lords. No doubt, we shall spend a little while this afternoon debating them. I shall open the debate by speaking primarily to Amendments Nos. 113 to 116, 120, 123, 124 and 132, which are in the names of my noble friend Lady Hanham, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the noble Lord, Lord Rogers of Riverside, and myself. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rogers of Riverside, for adding his name and authority to the amendments.
  The amendments are intended to provide that owners or lessors of property in a business improvement district shall have a role in the processes for establishing a BID alongside the occupiers, the non-domestic ratepayers. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, does not like the name "BIDs", but the full name is so long. I hope that he will be happy with that.
  I start by repeating the welcome that I gave to this part of the Bill at Second Reading. I welcome the fact that the Government have chosen to proceed by means of BIDs as the instrument whereby businesses can pay to improve and enhance their local area. It is clear that the BID concept has attracted wide support from the representative bodies of business and property interests, including bodies such as the Association of Town Centre Management, the British Retail Consortium, the British Council for Offices and the British Property Federation, as well as a long list of others.
  It would not be appropriate for me on this occasion to rehearse all the details of the scheme. They were well described by several noble Lords, including the Minister, at Second Reading on 3rd April. However, I remind the Committee that the essence of a BID scheme is that the proposers, in consultation with the local authority and in relation to a defined area, should
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  draw up proposals to raise a levy for improving the area by means of facilities over and above those that the local authority already provides. There was some discussion of that at Second Reading. Such proposals might include measures to enhance the environment, strengthen security, improve the infrastructure and provide a range of services. The proposals are then put to a vote of non-domestic ratepayers—the occupiers—and, if they are approved by a majority, the scheme goes ahead. All must pay, not only those who voted for the scheme.
  Wisely, the legislation allows for much flexibility in, for instance, defining which occupiers should contribute, and allows for variation in the rate of the levy for different classes of occupier or for the exclusion of small businesses. It is up to the proposers of a BID scheme to decide how they will deal with that. As a last resort, the local authority has the power to veto the scheme, if it decides, for any reason, that it cannot support it. One of our amendments was tabled so that we could explore what that might mean.
  There is a gaping hole in the legislation. There is no provision for owners who are not occupiers—lessors or freeholders—to be brought into the statutory scheme. The amendments to which I speak aim to fill that lacuna. Before I come to the detail of the amendments, I shall make three important points. The first point, which was made by several noble Lords at Second Reading, is that it is clear that, in most cases, a BID scheme will simply not get off the ground, unless it is promoted by the property owners and they are involved from the outset. Property owners have a key long-term interest in urban management, whether through a BID scheme or by the continuation of existing voluntary schemes. The benefits of a successful scheme—higher property values that may, in turn, lead to higher rents—will often be felt most keenly by the owners of property, not necessarily by those who occupy it. Landowners have initiated and funded most of the voluntary BID-style arrangements to date. There is a broad consensus among organisations representing landlords—such as the British Property Federation—and tenants and among bodies representing small businesses.
  The involvement of owners in schemes developed under the Bill should be more clearly encouraged and facilitated. That is the experience in the United States, where the BID concept originated. There, the liability of a BID levy sits with the owners of a property. In many cases, at least part of the cost is passed on to the occupier through rent reviews and service charge negotiations. Generally, that happens only after the benefits of the BID have been demonstrated.
  If the current proposals in the Bill are adopted, the cost to an occupier will be borne, first, through the BID levy, secondly, through increased rental levels as a result of rent review negotiations, and, thirdly, through increased business rates following the increases in rental levels. It may be felt that occupiers are unlikely to vote for such a scenario or to have the motivation to initiate a scheme without the total commitment of their landlord.

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  That fact is well recognised by the Government—I come to my second point—as evidenced by the explicit statements in the draft guidance produced by the Minister's department, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Although noting that, under the Bill—this is what we are complaining about—owner contributions can only be voluntary, the guidance lays some emphasis on the owner's role. In section 2 of part 2 of the guidance, under the heading "Motivating Key Partners", there is a whole page about the role of owners. I was tempted to read the whole page into the record at this stage. In this Parliament, we do not have a system of reading documents into the record simply by handing them in. I resisted the temptation, although we may have to come back to it later. I shall read just one or two sentences. I have, however, placed copies of the whole page about property owners at the back of the Committee Room. They are available to any Member of the Committee who wishes to read the whole thing.
  Under the heading "Property Owners", the ODPM has said:
  "Property owners will have a vital role to play in the success of Business Improvement Districts".
  We should note the words "vital role". It also says:
  "For many, enhancing their local area will be a key objective because it will result in an increase to the value of their property. For this reason, businesses will need to ensure that property owners are a part of the BID process from the earliest stages. Once property owners are convinced that the BIDs objectives are beneficial to the area, they are likely to be willing to invest in the scheme".
  It goes on:
  "There are ways in which property owners can contribute financially to BID schemes".
  The first way mentioned is the voluntary contribution to which I have already referred. The second way is through negotiation with tenants. The document says that the property owner may be willing to remit some rent if the tenants on his property agree to vote in favour of a BID. The third way is by,
  "paying the additional BID levy on behalf of tenants. In an area where a property owner is particularly keen to endorse the BID, they could agree to pay the additional levy on behalf of their tenants in return for the support of tenants",
  in the ballot—that is, under the scheme set out in the Bill.
  The document spells out other ways in which the property owner could be included in BID schemes. It says that it would be good to have representative property owners on the BID board. That seems sensible. It goes on to say:
  "Property owners have an important role in 'selling' individual BID schemes to other interest groups".
  There is much more in the same vein.
  Given the quite explicit statements in the draft guidance—I recognise that it is only draft—produced by the ODPM, owners still have no statutory role. They have no right to vote on the BID scheme, and their contributions can only be voluntary. That is what I call a gaping hole in the legislation. The key point is exactly the same as with occupiers. If occupiers vote
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  for a BID scheme and achieve a majority, there can be no free-riders. All occupiers in the BID must contribute to the levy because they will get the benefit of the improvements to facilities and services and to the environment or whatever. Why does not the same apply to owners? What about the free-riding owner who says, "I'm not going to contribute to this. If others want it, let them go ahead". He gets all the benefit of the scheme, while contributing nothing to help finance it. That cannot be fair.
  The third point is that I have evidence that Ministers are trying to find ways in which owners can be brought into the statutory scheme. They blow a bit hot and cold. I have a letter from a senior manager in Boots, and I shall quote one paragraph from it. There was a launch of the BIDs pilot in February, and the Boots executive wrote to me to say:
  "I find it interesting that after the presentations, Nick Raynesford came to me and asked how we could find a way of formally including landlords in the process".
  I found it encouraging to read that. This is Mr Raynsford's Bill, as he is the Minister of State in charge of it. If he is trying to find a way, we may be pushing at an open door. I know, however, that there have been other meetings at which the doors have been firmly closed.
  I will summarise. The owners' involvement is essential, and the Government fully recognise that. Apparently, the Government are searching for a way to achieve it, but there is nothing in the Bill. I hope that our amendments will show a way ahead.
  Amendment No. 113 would simply add the word "invest" to Clause 43(2)(a), which identifies those whom a BID may benefit as,
  "those who live, work or carry on any activity in the district".
  We would include those who invest in it. Amendments Nos. 114 and 115 are, in effect, paving amendments for the substantive amendment, Amendment No. 116, which would insert a new clause, headed "Superior property interests". The word "superior" has a legal meaning and does not imply any moral superiority.
  Subsection (1) of Amendment No. 116 requires the details of superior property interests to be set out in the BID arrangements. Subsections (2), (3) and (4) contain the heart of the system. The bid arrangements must describe how the owner's share of the levy is calculated. Obviously, that is a key issue. It defines that share as "the allocated proportion". They must then specify how much is left to be paid by the occupiers, which is defined as "the residual proportion", and the clause ends by stating that the sum of the allocated proportion and of the residual proportion must not exceed what would be paid if the occupier alone were paying. There cannot be more because there are two paying—it is simply a question of how the share is calculated. I will return to how this would work, but first I would like to complete my references to the rest of the amendments to which I am speaking.

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  Amendment No. 120 states that no person should have more than one vote. This is intended to ensure, for example, that the owner of a shopping arcade—a shopping centre, even—with a great number of shops would not have more than one vote in respect of his superior interest. To do otherwise would tilt the vote very unfairly—or it could.
  Amendment No. 123 is consequential on the new clause, making it clear that in calculating the outcome of the vote, an owner is to be treated as voting in respect of his "allocated" share and the occupier in respect of his "residual" share.
  Amendment No. 124 sets out how the local authority should approach its decision whether to veto or not. In particular—and this is a very important point—local authorities must be satisfied that the arrangements are "fair and equitable". I am assured by the lawyers that there is ample statutory precedent for that.
  Amendment No. 132 is a new clause entitled:
  "Restriction on reimbursement of levy".
  It would prevent an owner from recovering his share of the levy from his tenant. It also deals with a case where new interests are created after the bid scheme has come into force.
  Those are the amendments, but before I sit down—I may be disappointing the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in that the afternoon is yet young—there are three further points I must touch on. First, the amendments are drawn up in a form that makes the levy by property owners a charge in the sense that what they pay is directly attributable to the benefits that are to be provided. As such, they create a recoverable debt which the BID managers can recover by civil action. Like the occupiers' levy, it is not a tax.
  Secondly, we envisage that it will be for the local authority to use its powers under Section 16 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 to secure details of the ownerships of property. There will probably need to be added to the Bill, at some stage, regulations to set out how this should be done. This is necessary because there is real commercial value in establishing precise ownership patterns, rental payments and other lease terms, and these powers should not therefore be given to BID managers.
  Thirdly, and most importantly, there is the issue of how the apportionment of the levy between "allocated" and "residual" shares should be done. Our proposals envisage that it would be done by the BID proposers, based on information supplied by the local authority and by the owners and occupiers. The calculation could be done for each hereditament and would depend on the terms of the lease, the rent paid, and so on.
  I have in my hand the executive summary of a very interesting report prepared for an umbrella body for BID proposals, the Circle Initiative, about which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has heard. The report has been prepared by a leading firm of property consultants. Jones Lang LaSalle. It suggests two possible models, as they call them—the formula model
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  and the broad-value approach. Both models seek to achieve the objectives which are stated in the report. It says:
  "We consider that the Model needs to be:
  "Based upon a business plan that will fulfil the requirements of both property occupiers and owners within the BID area; implementable/deliverable; cost and time effective to implement; simple and transparent i.e. readily understandable; as fair and equitable as possible".
  The report describes the formula model in these terms:
  "The Formula model is based on an apportionment between owners and occupiers based on:
  "i) a banding of interests by reference to lease length (which should be adjusted to reflect the BID business plan and services);
  "ii) apportionment of the owner levy between owners on the basis of net rent receivable and lease length subject to a threshold test of sufficient economic interest.
  "The Formula model relies on a simple calculation based on these two measures of "value". This has the advantage of being transparent in providing an objective explanation of how individual assessments have been reached".
  Under the heading, "An Alternative Approach", the report describes the broad value approach as follows:
  "We have also considered the potential for a less complex approach where occupier and owner interests could be assessed in relation to relative broad value bands (rather than measured in absolute financial value terms).
  "Accordingly, we have developed the 'Broad Value' approach which categorises property interests through a subjective assessment of the same key ownership factors for individual property interests as we have used in the Formula approach, namely term of interest and net rent receivable.
  "The Broad value approach, however, works on the basis of the BID manager's assessment of the appropriate value band for the individual interest. This relies on a more subjective assessment than the Formula approach".
  I hope that this demonstrates that there has been a great deal of very skilled professional work to establish the workability of the apportionment that would he required by the amendments to which I am speaking. It is, in fact, a perfectly feasible operation. Yes, there will be some cost, put by one commentator as perhaps as high as £50,000. But in the context of a BID which may be aiming to spend several million pounds over a period of five years, £50,000 may not seem very much as the price of getting the owners statutorily involved in the scheme. Indeed, they describe it as an entirely reasonable cost.
  To sum up my case, I make six points. First, the approach offers choice. The proposal allows each BID to choose whether to involve property owners. It does not force them to do so. In some cases, where the focus is on short-term services, a BID may simply seek to charge occupiers. Conversely, where the works proposed by the BID are of a capital nature, the bulk of the charge would probably be borne by those with longer term interests. The proposed mechanism would allow that.
  Secondly, the approach allows local decision-making. Each BID would have to decide for itself whether the investment in establishing a property register is worthwhile. There will, as I have said, be a cost attached; in some cases the benefit will not justify it, but in others it will. In other cases, it may be sensible

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  just to seek to charge property owners with a "significant" property interest, with the level of significance agreed locally. If the proposals meet the "fair and equitable" test, this, too, should be acceptable.
  Thirdly, the approach is simple. It builds on the proposed measures in the Bill and ties any payment to the rateable hereditament. There will never be a situation where the combination of occupiers and owners of any hereditament pay more than a single occupier would pay. All that is suggested is that in relation to each hereditament the BID levy should be fairly allocated between the immediate occupier and the owners—if any—standing "behind" that hereditament.
  So we have choice, it is local, it is simple, and my fourth point is that it is fair. Nobody will be asked to pay without being able to vote. Anyone being asked to pay any amount will get a head count vote. Everyone being asked to pay will get a value-related vote, with the "weight" of that vote being directly proportional to the percentage of the total value of the hereditaments in the BID area.
  Fifthly, there are no disadvantages. There is wide business support. There is small business support and there is strong local authority support. There is national and international experience suggesting that it is the most sensible approach.
  Sixthly, there is a real risk that without statutory property owner involvement, BIDs will tend to concentrate on short-term fixes with limited imagination. While they may succeed in securing initial support—and perhaps one is entitled to be a little sceptical, given the "freeloader" concern—the view is expressed that they will be very likely to fail to secure a second term.
  These amendments seek to fill the gaping hole to which I drew attention at the start of my speech. I commend them to the Committee. I beg to move.
  4 p.m.
  Baroness Hanham: I support what I was about to call this very competent speech, but that sounds very patronising when someone has as much expertise as my noble friend. He has raised one of the most important lacunae in this legislation.
  I have worked in an area where there has been voluntary co-operation between businesses, local authorities and voluntary organisations—in fact, BIDS in everything but name. It would have been impossible without the support and influence of the local major landowner. When that scheme started, there was no reason to suspect that the landowner would join in—it was a purely voluntary arrangement. I think that was serendipitous. We were very fortunate that we were able to have that voluntary contribution. But I know that had that big business landowner not been involved, the scheme would have been severely jeopardised. Therefore, there is no real expectation that these BID schemes will work if any major
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  landowners in the area are not involved and not required to be involved. That is the point that my noble friend Lord Jenkin has been making.
  The code of guidance is very clear that this could be a voluntary intervention—in fact, that seems to be the expectation. But in real life, the statutory noose might be a helpful tension to ensure that landowners were part of the scheme from the outset and expected to be part of the original BID decisions, with statutory involvement thereafter.
  There is also another side to this. If legislation requires landowners to be involved, the occupiers will be more interested in the scheme. There will be less concern about becoming involved. It will be very important that occupiers are signed up to this, otherwise it will not work. Some people see benefits to some and not to others.
  I very much support the amendments. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Jenkin for taking on the burden of ensuring that the matter was explained so thoroughly and clearly. I hesitate to cloud the issue, which the noble Lord presented very well.
  My name is attached to four amendments in this group. I worry about the order of the Minister's speaking notes, but would it be appropriate for me not to move the four amendments now and to regroup them further down the list? They are not germane to the problem of landowners' involvement. If regrouping the amendments would make life difficult for the Minister, I shall speak to them now, but they are slightly outside the scope of the subject. I am in the Minister's hands; he can tell me that his notes are so tied to the amendments that a regrouping would muck them up. I would not want to inconvenience him.
  The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker): I came here today in a really positive frame of mind. I was as happy as Larry when I left last night, as there was no regrouping. I said that I did not mind if amendments were regrouped but that that must be done early in the morning. The response was, "No, no! Everything will stay the same; it is perfectly OK". Frankly, I don't give a damn. The noble Baroness can continue as she started or she can change. I will respond to all her amendments, but the trouble is that they may be answered at different times.
  Baroness Hanham: I am reluctant to waste time, which is what is suggested would happen if I regrouped amendments. The trouble is that my amendments relate to Clause 52, which is about the voting system and not this important new area. I was worried that, if I did not regroup, it might make matters more difficult or complicated.
  I shall move the amendments now, and we shall have to discuss the whole matter. Amendments Nos. 118, 119, 121 and 122 focus on Clause 52. The Explanatory Notes comment on Clause 52, stating that the clause,
  "provides for the requirement that must be satisfied in a ballot to secure the approval of a BID. There will be a two-part vote. A majority of those voting must vote in favour, and the total rateable value of the properties of those voting for must be more than that of those voting against".

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  Our amendments challenge that system of voting. First, we have problems with the first conditions set out in subsection (2). For a BID to be established, a majority of those who would be liable to pay the levy must first vote in favour. We do not feel that a simple majority is a satisfactory trigger for a BID levy, bearing in mind the number of ratepayers who would be liable. Amendment No. 118 would ensure that a BID levy would not be approved unless two thirds of those who vote in the ballot vote in favour.
  Amendment No. 119 also states that a ballot will not be valid unless 75 per cent of people eligible to vote turn out to do so. We want there to be a concerted vote of approval by a substantial majority of those eligible to vote, not a mere 50.1 per cent majority in a vote with a 35 per cent turnout. We have had many long, involved debates about voting majorities in the context of another Bill and balloting systems. But, on matters of such importance, it is legitimate, in the interests of democratic accountability, to impose a higher majority and turnout cut-off point.
  Amendment No. 121 makes a very simple point: should those who own two properties that qualify for the levy, and subsequently the ballot, get one vote or two? We should bear in mind that there is some discussion about property owners becoming involved in the BID arrangements, which my noble friend has just put forward. Many people might have two residential or business properties within one BID area.
  Amendment No. 122 challenges the rather complicated mechanism that is to be the second condition under Clause 52(3). Can the Minister clarify how the calculations will be made in practice—in the real world, not in the legislation world? We propose simply that a majority of those entitled to vote turns out to do so. It is a straightforward test. I appreciate that these amendments are not entirely associated with those that my noble friend Lord Jenkin moved, but no doubt we will get round to discussing them at some stage.
  Baroness Hamwee: My name is attached to the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding. I mentioned previously that we had attached only one name to them to leave a space for a fourth name from elsewhere in the Committee. I am glad to see that that has worked on this occasion. I am beginning to wonder whether the Government have a cunning plot to feed petrol fumes into the Chamber so that we all fall asleep. The same thing happened at around the time that I first stood up yesterday.
  The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has brought the matter very effectively to the attention of the House previously. I am glad to see that his work now appears to be about to bear fruit. I congratulate the organisations involved. They have clearly put a lot of effort, not only into these proposals, but into the ongoing pilot schemes. We support the proposals. We want to see them given a sound legislative basis and to see good practice.
  It is notable that property owners wish to be involved. We do not often hear a clamour from people wishing to pay when that is not initially proposed. I
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  conclude that property owners also see the scheme as an investment rather than a form of tax. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, talked about the importance of property owners' involvement. One can look at that involvement on several levels. The first is the legislative level. Another is that of human behaviour and psychology—I apologise for straying into psychobabble language—involving "ownership" of a process. The very involvement that the noble Lord proposes we should provide, makes the process much more meaningful—I am using more psychobabble—to those who will be affected. That is an important ingredient. I shall try to be topical: the noble Lord's six tests, rather than five, have been satisfied, as he has demonstrated.
  Amendments Nos. 118, 119, 121 and 122 return to the issue of thresholds and turnout. Our response is no different to the one that we give when the topic occurs in the context of elections and referendums. One should encourage people and campaign to achieve a majority. There is no inherent reason why there should be a bigger turnout. After all, one wants to achieve the necessary turnout, but if people do not exercise the right to vote, it is their lookout.
  In this situation, there are protections that I hope would satisfy the noble Baroness. They include the double-lock on voting and the local authority veto. As a matter of principle, we do not support the amendments, but I do not think that the situation is as worrying as the noble Baroness might read it. I am unclear whether there is a difference between Amendment No. 120, tabled in the noble Lord's name, and Amendment No. 121, but that may not be important today.
  Lord Graham of Edmonton: I am the vice-chairman of the All-Party Retail Group. As the Minister will know, the British Retail Consortium broadly supports the thrust of the proposals. I continue to have a close association with the Co-operative group, which is also a member of the BRC.
  I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, speak on the matter in general many times in the House, long before the concept of a BID was received so favourably. Having listened to him put forward the case, and bearing in mind that the name of the game in many aspects of legislation is a partnership between the private and public sectors, I will listen with interest to the Minister's response. I will be interested if he tells us that the concept of seeking to involve property owners, in addition to the other interested parties, cannot be supported at this time.
  If we want to improve the value of town centres—or however BID areas are delineated—we must look at new concepts. I am puzzled by the concept of excluding property owners or treating them less comprehensively than other interested parties. I am absolutely certain that the Minister will have taken good advice, and he has long experience in local government as a constituency member, but I would

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  welcome a response from him that the concept of a BID is acceptable as it is part of the legislation. We seek to improve on the legislation.
  I am certain that, if the amendments in general are not accepted today, they will come forward in another form as the BID concept is put into practice. Is the Minister not prepared to consult meaningfully and widely with the interests that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, enumerated? I am certain that he will have carried out ample consultation. But I imagine that some people outside the House, on the basis of their own experience, wish the Minister to succeed with this legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said that the BID concept would not get off the ground unless property owners were involved. That was slightly menacing but it was realistic, too. The noble Lord tells us that, for people to be involved, they must have some say.
  I am heartened by the reminder given by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that local authorities virtually call the shots. They can initiate, shape, include or exclude matters. The noble Lord and I are joint-presidents of the Association of London Government as part of which we participated in a meeting yesterday. We keep in touch with local authorities. I will be very interested to know whether the Minister has a view from the collective voice of local authorities. I cannot believe that they will resist involving property owners who will then be able to help keep down the cost.
  I wonder whether the Minister is considering the possibility that because the big property owners are powerful people, they are able to use muscle and do things that the small owner cannot. These are matters that should come out not just in guidelines, but in strictures which are placed in legislation. Therefore, I look forward with interest to what the Minister has to say. I very much hope that he will not give a complete negative to the concept of involving property owners. I am speaking, in general, for the Co-operative movement, which has a great interest in property owning, especially in town centres. It has given me the nod to support these amendments, and I very much hope that the Minister will be as helpful as he can.
  4.15 p.m.
  Lord Rooker: On listening to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, when he introduced his amendments, I was reminded of the number of times that the boot has been on the other foot. I moved amendments to Bills when the noble Lord was Secretary of State, and he was always polite—unlike some of his colleagues. We always thought that he was a real gent—unlike some of his colleagues—except for the girls, of course! He always said, "No", at the end of the day. That is no reason for me to come here and say, "No", but I have decided positively to get off on the wrong foot. I have good news and bad news, and I might as well give the bad news first.
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  In order that there is no misunderstanding, which is absolutely crucial bearing in mind what my noble friend Lord Graham has just said, I must say that, if there was any thought at another stage of this Bill—namely, on Report—to press any of these amendments to a vote and the Bill had to be changed, Nick Raynsford, the Minister for Local Government and the Regions, has made it clear that because of the thrust of the rest of the Bill, ping-pong would not be allowed and Part 4 would be removed from the Bill. That is not a threat. I am just spelling out the facts. Well—
  Noble Lords: Oh!
  Lord Rooker: No. It is right. I do not want to be accused of misleading the Committee. I say that only because of what was said both by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, about future stages. This Bill is important. Business improvement districts—that is the first and only time I shall say that; I shall stick to "BIDs" from now on—are also important. But they are not so important that we could contemplate delaying Royal Assent to this Bill. Everyone here knows that there is a target date for Royal Assent in order to get the new system of local government financing operating from the next financial year—that is, next April. It is crucial that we meet the agreed date for Royal Assent. Ping-pong is not even on the agenda. It is as simple as that. As regards the comments made by the noble Baroness, in some respects the introduction of the amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, was like a mini-Second Reading. I am happy to encompass the amendments on the voting.
  There is a further issue that I should clear up because it sets the tone of my comments. I know that people have been taking advice on this—I have read some of the documentation—but obviously I am not the policy Minister so I will not claim to have read everything. A question raised was: is the BID levy a tax? The answer is, "Yes, it is a tax". We are not denying that it is a tax. It will be paid through, in effect, the council tax and the business rate, which are taxes. But the BID levy is accounted for as a tax by the Treasury and will be recorded as such in the national accounts. That is because a tax is defined as a payment that is made when an individual payer does not receive an individual service in proportion to the amount that they are charged. This is in accordance with international guidelines—ESA 95—which we are bound to follow by law.
  All ratepayers will contribute towards projects that will benefit them collectively. They will therefore be paying a tax. We do not hide that it is a tax. The question arises: do we want a new tax? That is the implication of the thrust of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, but not those from the noble Baroness. Do we want a new tax? The answer is, "No". That is all the bad news really—just to sour it to start with.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I wonder whether the noble Lord might give way to allow me to put this question to him at this stage because I shall certainly want to return to this issue of whether it is a tax. I have been doing my homework introducing the European System of Accounts 1995 and I have been in touch with the people in the ONS. If it is a tax for the owners, why is there a tax on the occupiers?
  Lord Rooker: No. That is the whole point. It is a tax. We are not about that. The levy is a tax.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: Why is it not—
  Lord Rooker: The Bill proposes that the occupiers, who already pay a tax, will pay the levy—a tax. The owners do not pay a tax at present.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: That has nothing to do with it.
  Lord Rooker: It has everything to do with it. I shall explain. We are not in the business of introducing what would be a new tax. I shall explain the details as to why, although I am also prepared to say that this is not the end of the matter. Nick Raynsford is having meetings constantly. There was a meeting last week with the British Property Federation and I know that he will be writing to them in the next couple of days. While we are saying that in respect of the Bill, we cannot find a way to accept the amendments, that is not to say that in the future, these matters will not be considered. However, Nick Raynsford will be writing to them in the next few days following the meeting.
  From now on, I shall stick to my notes, but I just wanted to get all that bad, souring news up front so that the context in which I am speaking can be understood. I shall now turn to the individual amendments.
  Amendments Nos. 113 to 116 relate to the role that property owners play in business improvement districts. That is something to which a great deal of thought has been given, both when drafting the Local Government Bill and during discussions in another place.
  I should say at the outset that the arguments put by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, are incredibly seductive. I remember at the Urban Summit in Birmingham last year, I was walking across one of the promenades at the International Convention Centre. A man stopped me, took me on one side and started to explain. I said that it sounded incredibly sensible. I went away and took further advice and my learned friends in the department said, "It might sound sensible Jeff, but it won't work in practice". It is seductive and I can understand why people see it that way.
  We recognise that property owners will play a key role in developing, encouraging and taking forward business improvement districts. But we think that the Local Government Bill, as drafted, gives property
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  owners ample opportunity to be involved at every stage of the BID process. I shall qualify that, because they will not get a vote.
  Noble Lords: Oh!
  Lord Rooker: I read that at the time and I thought that it could not be right; they cannot be involved at every stage because they have not got a vote. But there are plenty of other things that they can do. Clause 45 enables the property owners to make voluntary financial contributions to BIDs. Many property owners would like to make mandatory contributions in the same way as non-domestic ratepayers—that is, existing taxpayers. However, there are significant practical difficulties in extending a BID levy to property owners outside the rating system. Simply, that would create a wholly new tax on property ownership. That would be a very significant change in taxation principles in this country and would have far-reaching consequences that go well beyond the BIDs issue. By the way, most of the points that I shall make are practical. These are not ideological or political arguments; they are practical arguments.
  Bringing in the property tax would seem difficult to justify when experience suggests that voluntary contributions are successful and many town centre schemes have succeeded on the basis of voluntary contributions from landlords. The suggested amendments not only provide for a wholly new tax on property ownership, but also allow the BID proposers to have discretion about whether or not this tax will apply to property owners or simply to business ratepayers.
  This would set up a dual system that would be inherently unfair to ratepayers who will be obliged to contribute to the BID levy should a majority vote in favour of the scheme. It would be extremely costly and difficult to administer. We do not know on what basis a BID proposer will decide whether to include a property owner in the levy. Additionally, creating a new tax on property would create a significant new burden on local authorities. Local authorities would have to put together a database of property owners in their local area and come up with new systems of collecting and enforcing the payments of the BID levy from property owners. By basing the business improvement districts on the existing non-domestic rating system, we seek to minimise costs to local authorities and to make the BID framework suitable for all locations.
  We are also concerned that the definition of a "superior" interest in a property, as set out in Amendment No. 115, could provide further complications. This definition means that the BID levy could extend to superior leaseholders, as well as to the freeholders of a property, making the system even more confusing to administer. We have recently issued a working draft of guidance on business improvement districts which is available in the Library—I believe that it is available in this room at the present time. In this document, we detail a variety of different ways

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  that property owners can contribute to BIDs without implementing a cumbersome new tax or making the system unduly expensive to administer.
  Clause 43 currently provides that a business improvement district can be established for the purpose of enabling "projects" to be carried out for the benefit of,
  "those who live, work or carry on any activity"
  in the BID area. Amendment No. 113 to Clause 43 seeks to ensure that a BID can be used for the benefit of anyone investing in an area as well as those working or carrying on any activity in the area. However, to "invest" in an area is "to carry on an activity" there. The amendment is therefore redundant because it adds nothing to the meaning of the clause.
  We have concerns about Amendment No. 116, which relates to the apportionment of the BID levy. First, the administrative burden of identifying the individual with the superior property interest and then calculating the proportion of the levy paid by ratepayers and property owners respectively, would be detrimental to setting up a business improvement district. Ratepayers' rateable values are identified on the rating list drawn up and made by the Valuation Office. The local authority already records ratepayers' addresses for billing purposes. It will not cost a BID money to identify the ratepayers or to work out their rateable values, as this list is already publicly available.
  If the BID or the billing authority is compiling its own list of owners, that would be a significant fiscal and administrative burden. If the money used to identify owners is later recouped through the BID levy, that would leave less money for the BID to spend on improvements in its local area. If a BID simply received voluntary financial contributions from landlords, it would not have to offset the identification and collection costs, leaving more of the levy to spend on local projects.
  As the Bill stands, Clause 52 requires that for a BID ballot to be approved, two tests must be met. First, at least a simple majority of those voting must vote in favour. That is basically the principle of the voting system in this country. Secondly, those voting in favour must represent a majority of the rateable value of those voting.
  Amendment No. 118 seeks to amend Clause 52 so that two-thirds of those ratepayers voting must vote in favour for a ballot to be successful and Amendment No. 119 requires that 75 per cent of the ratepayers in the defined area turn out to vote.
  These additions to the balloting process are unnecessary and make the voting process much more cumbersome. The principle behind much of this legislation regarding business improvement districts is to provide adequate protection to ratepayers, who will be liable for the additional levy, within a permissive framework—a framework that will encourage partnership and co-operation without excessive legislation to complicate the process.
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  Sufficient protection for small businesses is provided through the "dual key" voting mechanism which was specifically designed to protect the interests of ratepayers without making the criteria for a successful ballot too difficult to meet. I assume it is taken for granted that the system set out in Clause 52, which comprises the A and B formula, cannot work if there is a secret ballot. So we are not talking about a secret ballot. You have to be able to identify the voters in favour so that you can cross-check their rateable values. I refer to the practical point about which the noble Baroness asked. All this information is publicly available; that is, what the rateable values are and who the occupiers are. Therefore, once it is known how they voted, it will be possible to calculate A and B to ensure that the "dual key" system works. That is not a new point. I understand that it was referred to during the Bill's passage in another place.
  Amendments Nos. 118 and 119 create additional complications that are felt to be unnecessary. A simple democratic principle in this country is that democracy involves the right to vote rather than the obligation to vote. This should be the same within a business improvement district, especially as protection for small businesses is already written into the voting mechanism.
  Amendments Nos. 120 and 121 concern the number of votes an individual may cast in a ballot on a BID proposal. Amendments Nos. 120 and 121 seek to limit each person voting in the BID ballot to no more than one vote. That discriminates against the ratepayer who occupies a number of properties in the defined area by limiting him to one vote. If an occupier pays rates on an hereditament he is entitled to a vote relating to that hereditament as he will have to pay the additional levy on that hereditament.
  If property owners were allowed to vote in the BID ballot, we would need to decide whether an owner-occupier had one or two votes. This issue merely illustrates another of the complexities of granting property owners the right to vote.
  Amendment No. 122 would remove the second test of the dual key: that those voting in favour must represent a majority by rateable value of the hereditaments of those voting. It would replace that test with a turnout threshold for the vote. This does not protect the interests of small businesses against the interests of larger businesses or businesses against the interests of larger businesses or vice versa as the "dual key" mechanism was designed to do. This safeguard is essential if businesses are to have the confidence to support business improvement districts. This safeguard has been embedded since the districts. There is an interesting gap in that sentence. I have to assume that the sentence should state: this safeguard has been embedded since the business improvement districts were first a gleam in someone's eye. The word processor did not work properly. The same thing happened with an earlier sentence.
  4.30 p.m.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I have every sympathy with the difficulty experienced by the noble Lord in reading his brief. However, he managed to avoid the solecism of one Minister who read to the end of his brief which stated: "This is not much of an argument but it should do for their Lordships".
  Lord Rooker: I have read the brief a couple of times. I noted where the full stop occurred and wondered about it but neglected to inquire about the gap in the sentence. As I say, the measure that we are discussing is not a new process. The "dual-key" mechanism is designed to win acceptance for small businesses. That is important. The "dual-key" approach has given great reassurance to many involved in the consultation process. The removal of the second condition involving rateable values, while being easier to administer, would not be favourably received by large business interests—interests that are crucial to the success of a BID.
  A turnout threshold simply makes it more difficult for the BID proposal to meet with overall approval. It does not safeguard the interests of different business groups. It also goes against the democratic principle that people should be given the right to vote, not be compelled to do so by a threshold.
  Amendment No. 123 suggests that if property owners were included in the mandatory BID levy, they should be able to vote in the BID ballot. The vote of a property owner would he in proportion to the financial contribution that he makes. For example, should the owner be required by the BID arrangements to pay 80 per cent of the BID levy, his vote will count as 80 per cent of the rateable value of his property in the BID ballot. Once again, this would confer a huge administrative burden for the local authority conducting the ballot and over-complicates an already technical voting system.
  Amendment No. 124 relates to the power of veto. Clause 53 gives a billing authority the power to veto a business improvement district under circumstances that the Secretary of State may prescribe. Amendment No. 124 seeks to define those circumstances and states that the billing authority must have regard to the interests of property owners and the manner in which they are contributing to the BID levy when deciding whether or not to exercise the veto.
  Amendment No. 124 makes billing authorities a watchdog for BIDs that may have compromised the interests of property owners because they may have been included in the mandatory levy. This not only places yet another burden on the billing authority's time and resources but is also against the spirit of business improvement districts.
  BIDs aim to foster partnership working between local authorities and other local stakeholders. If the local authority is responsible for scrutinising the BID proposals in detail before it allows a BID to go ahead, the partnership will be unbalanced and the voting mechanism will be undermined.
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  Amendment No. 124 also implies that the primary focus of the billing authority in deciding whether or not to exercise its veto is the interests of property owners. In fact the primary use of the local authorities' veto should be to safeguard the interests of the whole community, in particular the residential population and anyone who is not fully represented on the BID board. It would be inappropriate for the local authority to place the interests of property owners or ratepayers higher than those of local residents or other interested groups when deciding whether or not to exercise its veto.
  Amendment No. 132, which comprises a new clause, sets out that a property owner cannot pass on the liability for his BID levy to his tenant or leaseholder unless a new lease is negotiated during the life of the BID, or a new tenant or leaseholder moves into the premises. In those circumstances, the contract drawn up between the landlord and the tenant would specify who would pay the BID levy. This new clause would allow landlords to pass on their contribution to the BID to their tenants whenever a lease comes up for renewal. It also fails to prevent landlords from passing on the cost of the BID levy to their tenants by raising rents or through any other mechanism. This is not sufficient safeguard for ratepayers and it does not solve any of the fundamental administrative problems with including property owners in the mandatory BID levy.
  I hope that all the arguments and reasons that I have given are practical; none of them is ideological or politically inspired. We welcome the eagerness of property owners to become involved with BIDs—I make that absolutely clear—and we strongly believe that the framework set out in the Bill will be sufficient to engage and maintain that interest.
  However, having listened to the concerns of the property industry, we shall review business improvement districts once there is a sufficient number up and running to make sure that property owners are properly engaged in the process. If we find significant cause for concern, we shall look again at the BIDs mechanism to see whether changes need to be made. That is not a throw-away afterthought; it is part of our considered response.
  I hope that my comments have satisfied my noble friend Lord Graham. I meant what I said about there being no ping-pong. Nick Raynsford will write to the British Property Federation following the meeting which I believe took place on 2 June in a spirit of constructive engagement and partnership. We want BIDs to work; there is no question of that. However, there are some real practical problems with regard to property owners. We might have—this may negate slightly what I have said—a political reason not to want to introduce a new tax. The Treasury may say, "No new taxes". But even if we were to go down that route, the practical problems would be massive.
  We should bear in mind how far we have progressed in regard to BIDs, and that the relevant information is already available on local authority computers. They know who to bill for non-domestic rates as they have

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  the names and addresses of occupiers and know the relevant rateable values. However, we have no information whatsoever on owners. I am not saying that that information would be impossible to find but one would have to put together a register of property owners and set up a billing system, which would have to include sanctions for non-payment. We already have all that, of course, as regards non-domestic ratepayers—the people who pay what I still refer to as the council tax for business ratepayers. That system is tried and tested after having been in operation for many years since the introduction of the infamous poll tax legislation. No one argues that that system does not work.
  We can, therefore, get cracking as regards BIDs. I do not carry in my head the proposed timetable but there is nothing to stop us getting cracking on BIDs. The good will is there as is the ability for property owners to pay voluntary contributions and our willingness—pressure, if you like—to get them involved on a voluntary basis, albeit without the relevant vote. We want to get them set up in areas where people want to go ahead. There is no barrier to that in terms of time. If we wanted to introduce a new tax, that would introduce enormous delay. But we do not have a tax on property in this country. The matter goes well beyond the BID areas and property owners. Such a tax would be an innovative process which I do not think at the moment the Treasury and the Government are minded to introduce. As I say, it would be impractical in any event.
  I do not seek to avoid the tax issue but the tax is already payable. We are introducing it as a top-up on the existing tax. We have an existing system with a database but we do not have the relevant information on property owners. Therefore, it would be a brand new tax in that respect. As I said, if there is significant cause for concern, having reviewed BIDs when a sufficient number is up and running, we shall be prepared to see whether we can change the mechanism to meet that concern. I hope that with that explanation Members of the Committee will reflect on it and withdraw the amendments. Members of the Committee are free to return to the issue on Report and at Third Reading when I hope to provide much more precise arguments. As I say, my points are essentially of a practical nature. There is nothing ideological here.
  I refer to the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, introduced the amendments. So far as I am aware I have not said anything that Nick Raynsford did not say in another place. Therefore, my comments should not be news to those who promoted the amendments that we are discussing. It is unusual for Ministers to be faced with lines of people queuing up to pay a new tax. We are not used to that. I am not saying that we would not embrace it but it would be novel. "Tories for new taxes" is a new slogan. I am sorry, I should not have said that. It just popped out. That has introduced a wholly negative note when I am
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  trying to appeal to the good will of noble Lords. I deserve a slap on the wrist for that. I had not written it down anywhere.
  This is an unusual situation. But it underlines the importance that property owners put on this. I understand that. They say they want to be part of the mandatory system. I understand that. I am not criticising them. The good will that they have shown has been very positive and we welcome that. A sign of that good will is that they want to be part of the process of paying what would be a new tax. I am saying that it is impractical to do that even if we were in the business of introducing a new tax on property, which in this Bill we are not.
  4.45 p.m.
  Baroness Hanham: My noble friend Lord Jenkin and I do not want to comment further on the substantive part of these amendments. However, I want to ask a couple of questions on the amendments in my name, regarding the voting, those who have a right to vote and the percentage of votes. We have tangled before with the argument about the number of people who should vote on anything to demonstrate their full support for it. This is perhaps another example, like the referendum for regional assemblies. This has a very direct relationship with money raising. This is voting for Christmas. It is a new tax on occupiers of businesses. Therefore it seems to us that a higher test is required than perhaps is normal.
  I want to comment on the test. By the time I had worked out the A plus B over C minus D and multiplied by X I had given up. It became apparent to me that this will not work—the Minister described that very effectively—unless there is a majority of the rateable values in favour. While I was listening to the Minister's inspiring words I was thinking about that. One could find an area—there are plenty around, such as town centres—where there is a very large supermarket, a very large chemist shop, a very large department store, a very small jewellery shop, some very small butchers' shops and a very small vegetable shop. There will be others round and about, but in that case the rateable values of the three or four major stores in the area could completely swamp the small businesses. To the three or four major stores it may be of enormous benefit for a BID programme to be carried out, but for the very small shops it may not be at all beneficial. They will be completely swamped. I am trying to remember my thesis. It could be that the small shops could be completely overwhelmed. Is that right?
  Lord Rooker: That is right on one half of the formula. The other half of the formula is that the majority of those voting are in favour. On what the noble Baroness says, there will be many more small businesses than large ones. The big ones will be small in number but huge in size. The small businesses will be large in number but small in size.
  The first part of the dual key is that the majority of those voting have to be in favour; therefore, the small businesses have the dual key to balance the high

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  rateable value. In other words, there is a protection. If all the small businesses were against it, the chances are that there would be more votes by individuals against it than there would be votes in favour by the big boys. That is where the dual key comes in. The noble Baroness is right in what she says on one half of the formula, but that is balanced by the dual key in the other half. The votes of the small businesses with low rateable values count individually on a first-past-the-formula basis. In effect, they have to support the scheme anyway; if they do not they can stop it.
  Baroness Hanham: I knew I should sit down and that I was wasting my time. I thank the Minister for that explanation. 1 shall leave this matter for this afternoon and leave my noble friend to deal with his amendments. I may return to the matter in the future.
  Lord Jenkin of Boding: I have listened with interest and with not too much surprise, but with some disappointment to the general thrust of the Minister's argument. I shall turn in a moment to the matter of taxation as I have been looking at an interesting study and discussing this with officials of the ONS.
  My first point is that the Minister and the Government underestimate the degree of support that there is for adding owners—lessors—to the statutory part of the scheme so that they do not just come in under Clause 45 as "any other person". It is a fairly small peg on which to hang what may be very large contributions to BID. I was going to say "my noble friend", but my co-president of the Association of London Government, the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who has now left, quoted from a paper from the British Retail Consortium which I also have. I mentioned ATCM, the British Council for Offices, the Property Federation, the Retail Consortium, the Corporation of London, the London Borough of Lambeth and the Westminster City Council. Those local authorities have joined in supporting the amendment. I believe that the Minister greatly exaggerates the problems that would exist for local authorities if they came in.
  I do not believe that anyone would quarrel with the cost of compiling the property register for the purposes of a BID, but the cost would clearly have to come out of the proceeds of the levy. I do not see why the general body of council tax payers should bear that. It must be part of the cost of setting up. I mentioned Section 16 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. That has been on the statute book for over a quarter of a century. It states:
  "Where, with a view to performing a function conferred on a local authority by any enactment"—
  clearly this would be such a provision—
  "the authority considers that it ought to have information connected with any land, the authority may serve on one or more of the following persons, namely—

  "(a) the occupier of the land: and

  "(b) any person who has an interest in the land either as freeholder, mortgagee or lessee or who directly or indirectly receives rent for the land; and

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  "(c) any person who, in pursuance of an agreement between himself and a person interested in the land, is authorised to manage the land".

  Local authorities have been using those powers for a quarter of a century without stirring up the kind of hornets' nest that the Minister has suggested, no doubt on advice, would be the problem for local authorities in doing this. They have the power to look behind the ratepayers. There is no suggestion that the exercise of the powers of Section 16 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act has given rise to anything approaching the difficulties on which he has laid such emphasis. I hope that he may be prepared to talk to some local authorities that support the amendments to see whether they would regard the issue as such an insupportable burden and one that they would find intolerable.
  On the basis of advice, I quoted an outside figure of £50,000 for a substantial BID to compile the property register. That would be against the £1 million that would be raised by the levy in that BID, which suggests it is a relatively modest cost. It would be a one-off cost. I understand it would not have to be kept up to date. I honestly believe that the Minister's department is substantially exaggerating the problem that would be imposed by bringing property owners in under that head.
  On whether it is a tax, perhaps I can go back a little. This matter was raised in relation to my Bill in 1998 when the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, who was performing the same function in responding to my Bill, said:
  "It is clear that under the provisions of the Bill"—
  my Bill—
  "businesses in an area will have to pay a certain amount if there has been a local vote to that effect. Although individual businesses will have the opportunity to vote, they will not have a choice on payment of the charge if the decision is taken to implement the draft scheme. As I am sure the Committee will recognise, I his is exactly analogous to the taxation system in any democratic country. We can influence the level of income tax via the ballot, but there is no choice on whether or not to pay. This is, by definition, a tax and spending of the income received would count as public expenditure".—[Official Report, 27/2/98; col. 887.]
  The noble Baroness went on to quote Section 2.68 of the European System of Accounts as used by the Office for National Statistics to make it clear that it would be public expenditure. The discussions that I have had this morning suggest that, whether or not this is a tax, Section 2.68 of the ESA does not have anything to do with it. Whether or not it is a tax comes under a completely different section of the ESA. Section 4.14 deals with taxes on production and imports. There is then a reference that I do not understand, "D/". It says that taxes on production and imports consist of compulsory unrequited payments in cash or in kind. I ask what "unrequited" means. Interestingly it means what the Minister suggested: that one pays into a pool but it does not necessarily mean that one receives as much out of the pool as one puts in. That is the purpose.
  I put this question: if there is, unusually, a BID with one participant, who has a big industrial estate like Park Royal, who pays into the pool for the benefit of

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  extra security around the premises, that is fully requited because the entire benefit accrues to the person paying the levy. But if there are two people, the benefit cannot be apportioned between the two, so it becomes a tax. In the first case it is a charge and in the second it is a tax. I find that a very strange argument indeed.
  Before the noble Lord entered the House of Commons, we were arguing about the selective employment tax. There was an argument about dental assistants. The noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, who was then a parliamentary under-secretary in the Department of Employment, argued that if a dentist had one dental assistant there was no selective employment tax, but if he had two there was. The noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, had sufficient grace to recognise that that was an untenable position and he withdrew the regulations. They were brought back in a different form. We have the same situation here. If there is one property it is a charge and if there are two it becomes a tax.
  In a sense this is becoming a meaningless argument. Five years ago I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, was trying to tell me—then we were mostly referring to the occupier as most of that Bill concerned non-domestic ratepayers—that it was a tax. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has confirmed that this afternoon. I believe that the noble Baroness referred to the wrong section in the ESA, but she is not here to defend herself. Then it was a tax on the occupiers.
  The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has confirmed that this is a tax on occupiers. I rang the Public Bill Office in another place to find out what the supporting money resolutions were that support the new tax in Part 4 of the Bill. I was referred to a money resolution. It was agreed that,
  "for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Local Government Bill, it is expedient to authorise…the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenditure under the Act of a Minister of the Crown".
  That clearly is not the case. The resolution continues by referring to,
  "any increase attributable to the Act in the sums which under any other enactment are payable out of money so provided; and…the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums which under any other enactment are payable out of that Fund".
  Clearly that does not have anything to do with the BID levy.
  A ways and means resolution was passed at the same time with a majority of 264 votes against 22. Members of the Committee should bear in mind that it was after 10 o'clock at night. It stated that,
  "for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Local Government Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment into the Consolidated Fund of…any sums received under the Act by a Minister of the Crown…any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable into that Fund under any other enactment; and…any sums received by a valuation officer by way of penalty".—[Official Report, Commons, 7/1/03; col. 139.]
  None of those conditions refers to the levy.
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  If we have a tax, why do we not have a necessary resolution to support it? I suspect that the answer is that there are two different kinds of taxes. First, there is the kind that the Treasury raises. I was Financial Secretary for a number of years. One has to have the necessary money resolution to support the Finance Bill, which is then a money Bill. Then there is what for some other reason is described as a tax. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has got his explanation from the wizard behind him, that such taxes do not require a specific resolution. My riposte to that is that if that is right for occupiers, why can it not be equally right for owners? Then one is thrown back on the other argument—is it so horribly difficult to take the action to bring the owners in that one cannot contemplate it?
  That brings me to the noble Lord's third point. He is prepared to contemplate that action. What was his phrase? I scribbled it down. He said that if a sufficient number of BIDs were up and running, the Government would be prepared to review the BIDs. One is grateful for that small mercy; that makes about 99 per cent bad news and 1 per cent slightly less bad news. I take what the noble Lord said entirely seriously and as entirely genuine—that it is not merely dust thrown into the face of the Committee and that it will happen; I trust him.
  If in the light of the experience of the BIDs, and the warnings given about the opportunity of catching the freeloaders among the freeholders and owners—they are turning out to be rather short-term and lacking imagination and real substance—the Minister may be prepared to reconsider the question—he would be prepared to find a mechanism for bringing owners into the system rather than using a provision hung on a subsection about "any other person".
  The Minister has made a great many arguments. We will certainly want to look very carefully at what he said about the drafting of some of the amendments. I hope that he will agree that his officials could have another meeting when parties outside have had the opportunity to study the Hansard report of the arguments of Members of the Committee. I too had a note of the meeting with Mr Raynsford and officials. One question that will be asked is about the fact that it was said on that occasion to the British Property Federation, "It is a tax because the Treasury says that it is a tax". We need a written statement from the Treasury setting out exactly why it makes that argument.
  The Minister laid huge emphasis—coming back to it again and again—on the fact that there would be a new tax on property owners and—surprise, surprise—some of them seemed willing to pay it. Then he said something about the Tory government, which I am not sure that I heard correctly being a rather deaf old man. The argument obviously weighs heavily with Ministers. However, we have a long list of representative bodies that recognise the advantages of BIDs—which the Government have recognized—the role of property owners—the Minister's department has spelled it out in the guidance—and that the provision could perfectly well be used.

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  In the end, we come to what the Minister said was not a threat— that if the amendment or anything like it were made on Report or on Third Reading, the Government would, in another place, simply remove the entire part of the Bill. I find that quite a distasteful way to legislate. We are only in June. By the time that we have reached that stage, most of the rest of the Bill—the new financial system that my noble friends have debated and will continue to debate at some length—will be pretty well settled. Then there was the threat that we might have an extra two or three weeks deciding whether we are to add owners into BIDs. The Minister shakes his head. He said that it positively was not a threat, but it sounded remarkably like one to me. If we want to exercise our right to vote an amendment in at some later stage, it is a threat to say, "My God—look what's going to happen".
  I hope that the Minister will reflect on the matters before later stages of the Bill. I hope that he will agree that his officials could have a detailed meeting on the drafting of the amendments. After all, he would have to have a new Bill, so perhaps we could include at some stage a power to extend Part 4 to owners by statutory instrument. I am merely suggesting the possibilities, all under the rubric that he said that, if there were a sufficient number of BIDS in operation at the time of the review, it would be proper for the Government to reconsider the line that they were taking.
  If the Government did so, we might be able to get a lot further over that line and not trip over the Minister's tripwire. What worries me is that the provisions may have more to do with Section 28 than anything else. We might be able to make a good deal more progress at a later stage. In his response to my remarks, I hope that the Minister will agree that we can continue discussions on the matter with the representative bodies, to see whether we can provide a scheme that would overcome some of the hurdles, many of which have been exaggerated, as the Minister identified.
  There is clearly a great desire outside the House that the owners should be in the scheme. I have talked to a lot of people in the past few days, and they find it extremely difficult to see why there is such resistance from the Minister's department to that happening. The problem is not the practical difficulties. We have ratepayers and non-domestic ratepayers, and we are being asked why cannot we be satisfied with that. We are not satisfied with that. We think that owners should be statutorily involved in the process and come in with the voting system, and we do not have that at the moment.
  5 p.m.
  Lord Rooker: I shall respond briefly to the noble Lord. He made a point about the money resolution. I am pleased to announce that the piece of paper that I was passed only repeated what I said. Non-domestic rates are a tax. The levy is a tax on the occupiers. Because it is an existing tax on existing occupiers, there is no reference to it in the money resolution or the ways
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  and means resolution. If it were extended in the Bill, certainly to property owners, it would require a reference in the money resolution.
  When the BID levy is paid by occupiers, it is a tax, but they already pay the rates, so it is not a new tax on that group of people. That is the point, and I made it. It would be a new tax on a different set of people for a different purpose if it were on the property owners. I made a caveat towards the end of my remarks that, while we did not have any ideological reasons, there may have been what was in part a political reason not to introduce a new tax. However, the main thrust of our argument was the practicality, not the politics.
  I want to make a point about my so-called threat. The Bill cannot wait. It cannot spill over the end of the Summer Recess without Royal Assent. Everyone understands that or, if they do not, they have to from now on. It is no secret. If the new system of local government finance implicit in the first two parts of the Bill is to come into force next year, as all parties in local government wish to happen, we cannot wait for Royal Assent until October. The Bill needs Royal Assent in July, or in the two weeks in September when the new parliamentary timetable ensures that both Houses sit. It is a small amount of time.
  I assure Members of the Committee that the problem is not really to do with the Bill, but the rest of the programme. If the Bill is affected by ping-pong, there is no time to bring it back. That is the problem with this unreconstructed and unreformed Chamber. Another place has reformed itself and sends legislation down on a conveyor belt, a lot of it not scrutinised properly.
  Noble Lords: Oh!
  Lord Rooker: I have made my opposition clear since I came to this place. The level of scrutiny here is much greater, but we have not reformed sufficiently. The consequence of that is that, if there were to be ping-pong on the Bill, the only way in which we could protect the main thrust of the Bill is not to proceed with that ping-pong. This House will not have time, so Part 4 would be removed. That is not a threat as regards the Bill, but a consequence of the logjam that arises this summer.
  Meetings go on all the while. I have to say, for the avoidance of doubt, that if anyone wants to write, the address is, "The right honourable Nick Raynsford, Minister of State for Local Government and the Regions, 26 Whitehall, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister". Nick had meetings with the British Property Federation only last week, well after Second Reading in this House. He is about to write to it. I do not need to repeat the words—the noble Lord did not misquote me—but if, when the BIDs are up and running and there is a sufficient number, we find out that the property owners are not properly engaged and there is sufficient cause for concern, we will look at the BIDs mechanism to see whether changes can be made. I do not know what kind of changes would be envisaged, because the system has to be as open as that. In other words, we have not closed the door once we have them up and running.

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  In so far as major changes to the Bill are concerned, at this stage in the timetable and given what I have said about attempting to get Royal Assent, I suspect that there is not even scope to put an enabling clause in for property owners. That might sound okay, but once Parliamentary Counsel get hold of an idea like that, another 10 clauses will go into the Bill. We can forget that—it simply will not happen. There is no time to do it. The reason why we are in the Moses Room today and not the Chamber is part of the answer. We are sitting in parallel. There is no time in the Chamber to consider the Bill in Committee. That makes my case; I wish I had thought of that earlier, because it is a better example.
  5.15 p.m.
  Lord Graham of Edmonton: I listened carefully to what the Minister said in response to the point that I made. I never had in mind an exercise in ping-pong. I had in mind what the Minister said. He told us that he was convinced that the process, as laid out, would work. I raised doubts as to whether it would. The Minister said that if, in the light of experience, it seemed that the process could be improved along the lines that we have suggested, he would be prepared to consider such improvements as might emerge. The Minister has been fair to the Committee, and I thank him for it.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I do not want to get involved in an argument about which House conducts its affairs more effectively. I suspect that there would be few people in either House who would not agree with what the noble Lord said in the past few minutes. We have to do the work that another place simply does not do because it has decided that it wants to go home and live with its family. It breaks up early, and large parts of Bills arrive here completely undebated. We are discussing Bills in the Moses Room on the promise that important Select Committee debates would be held at prime time on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Have they been? No, not one.
  I do not know what has gone wrong, but that was part of the process. I said in the debate that I would support it on those grounds. More fool me, I suppose; I was a sucker. We have not had a Select Committee debate other than on a Monday or a Friday. That is not what was offered. However, I will not go into that.
  We will have to come back to this, and I am sorry that the Minister did not say that he would continue to discuss the matter with the relevant interests in the mean time. That could be helpful. I am not sure that I necessarily agree with the Minister that, if we had a clause that gave a power to extend the process to owners, it would need to be as elaborate as he suggested. Perhaps that, too, might be explored.
  I was surprised that—I was going to say, "My noble friend", but I could call him, "My noble co-president"—the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, felt that a review would be sufficient. If it came next year, it would be helpful, but would we need fresh legislation, against the background of the
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  Government's congested legislative programme? Whole pieces of legislation, such as the Planning Bill, have gone now, and it is not likely to be any better next year. How long would we have to wait? If there were a power in the Bill, the matter could be dealt with by delegated legislation. I would like that option to be explored between now and the next stage.
  I am not prepared to abandon the issue now on the basis that I am afraid that the Government might find themselves in difficulties in September. We have made a strong enough case. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Rogers of Riverside, has not been present; I know that he would have spoken firmly and strongly in favour of the amendment. He asked whether he could put his name to it, and I encouraged him to do it. The initiative came from him. With the support of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, we have, in a sense, had all-party support for the amendment. I would have hoped that the Government would have given rather more weight to it.
  It is clear, however, that we will make no progress on this this afternoon, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendments Nos. 114 and 115 not moved.]
  Clause 43 agreed to.
  Clause 44 agreed to.
  Clause 45 [Additional contributions and action]:
  Baroness Hamweemoved Amendment No. 115A:
  Page 20, line 23, leave out "or required"
  The noble Baroness said: Following that discussion, Amendment No. 115A is something of a minnow.
  In Clause 45, we find a list of those who are to be allowed to make financial contributions to enable BID arrangements to be carried out. Apart from billing authorities and county and parish councils in relevant areas, that includes,
  "any other person authorised or required to do so in accordance with the arrangements".
  My amendment, which would leave out the words "or required" is designed to probe what is meant by the term.
  In another place, the Minister, Mr Leslie, said, first, that he imagined that there might be circumstances in which a local authority might be a tenant of a property in a town centre and a ratepayer and, thus, bound to make a contribution in an area. Secondly, he said that he "suspected" that the provision would give power to public bodies to pay, if they wanted to do so.
  If we are talking about public bodies other than the local authorities that I mentioned, why does the Bill say "required", if they are empowered? I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify the language. I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Baroness seeks to find out what we mean by "required". The clause allows voluntary contributions for the BID to be received from anybody authorised or required to make a contribution in the BID arrangements. Certain

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  public bodies are unable to make voluntary financial contributions to BIDs without expressly being required to do so. That is because of their accounting and auditing procedures. Such bodies may include, for example, police authorities.
  The power will not allow the BID arrangements to force voluntary payments from organisations that are reluctant to contribute to the levy. It is simply aimed at allowing all organisations to give money to a BID if they wish but do not otherwise have the power to do so. Clause 45(1) makes it clear that bodies may make a voluntary contribution. Subsection 45(2) is supplementary to 45(1), so, even if the body is required by the arrangements to make a contribution, it is not required by subsection (1) to make that contribution; it merely has the power to do so. I hope that, with that hit of further elucidation, the noble Baroness better understands the clause.
  Baroness Hamwee: I think that we are being told that the little words change the vires of some public bodies. The Minister did not shake his head. In that case, I find it interesting that the word "or" is not the word "and". The arrangement is an admirable one, and we support the BIDs process. I forgot to say that some of the major amendments in the previous group to which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, spoke were tabled by my honourable friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton last time. However, the two little words "or required" mean that a public body such as a police authority must contribute, even if it does not want to. That is what the clause seems to say. I am happy to come back to this next time, unless we can get some more clarity.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Baroness is right in her first proposition. It changes the vires, and there is no doubt about that. We are trying to ensure that—how can I best put this?—even if a body has to match the requirement, by virtue of subsection (1), to make a contribution, it merely has the power to make that contribution.
  We are trying, in a sense, to get the best of both worlds. The noble Baroness is unhappy with the response, and, having listened carefully to her, I can see where she is coming from. We will need to make sure that we have got it absolutely right. I think that we have, but she has raised a point that I would like to look at a little more closely.
  Baroness Hamwee: I am grateful for that. I was trying to work out how to make a sceptical noise that would appear in Hansard. I would like to be more satisfied about it than I am, but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 45 agreed to.
  Clauses 46 to 48 agreed to.
  [Amendment No. 116 not moved.]
  Clause 49 [BID Revenue Account]:
  Baroness Hanhammoved Amendment No. 117:
  Page 21, line 21, leave out subsection (5).
  GC 142
  The noble Baroness said: I can be quick about this. We are unhappy with the unlimited provision set out in subsection (5) of Clause 49. Subsections (1) to (3) set out the arrangements for the BID revenue account to ensure that it is used for legitimate BID purposes. We, of course, welcome those provisions. Subsection (4) allows the Secretary of State to make further provision in relation to the BID revenue account. That is, doubtless, a necessary subsection to allow for flexibility in the management of the BID revenue account as the system gets up and running. However, we see no reason for subsection (5), which gives the Secretary of State unfettered authority to amend,
  "any enactment (whenever passed or made)".
  Our concerns were confirmed by the report from the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform. On Clause 49(5), the committee said:
  "The ODPM's memorandum provides no explanation of the need for this provision and states, at paragraph 48, that it has no current intention to use it. In the absence of an explanation and given the Henry VIII power contained in clause 58 to make further provision in relation to any provision (including clause 49) made by or under Part 4 of the bill (see paragraph 6 below), we conclude that clause 49(5) is an inappropriate delegation of power".
  I am much encouraged by the fact that the Minister has put his name to my amendment. Quite possibly, he also sees that the Select Committee has a point. I am delighted to move the amendment, and, presumably, the Minister will acknowledge that he supports it. However, he might like to explain why the subsection was there to start with. I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: There is no problem here. It was a great speech, to which I listened with interest, but we should move on. I understand that we have simultaneously tabled amendments to comply with the recommendations of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform.
  Baroness Hanham: You supported my amendment.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: We could haggle over whose it is, but I will not do so. We are grateful for the noble Baroness's support for our amendment.
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Clause 49 agreed to.
  Clause 50 [Administration of BID levy etc]:
  Baroness Hamweemoved Amendment No. I 17A:
  Page 21, line 34, leave out subsection (3).
  The noble Baroness said: I, too, have been having trouble with the groupings. I did not ask for Amendment No. 130A, which is exactly the same, to be moved out of this group, but, somehow, it has gone wandering.
  The amendment would leave out of Clause 50 the following words:
  "Nothing in subsection (2) is to be taken as limiting the power conferred by subsection (1)".
  I tabled the amendment to probe the Government on why that is necessary or desirable. "Desirable" may be the appropriate term.

  GC 143
  Yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that it was a golden rule when drafting legislation not to repeat a provision that is in another Act because somebody would challenge the position if there were differences. I fully agree with that, and it forms the basis of the amendment. Other provisions in the Bill say that certain things may happen and may include what is set out in Clause 50(2). However, such provisions do not limit the power to make regulations. The first example of what I am discussing is found in Clause 3; it refers to making regulations under subsections (6) and (7), but does not include this further provision. So I do not know whether there is anything special about Clause 50. I am sorry to be a bit picky, but that is what we are here for. I beg to move.
  5.30 p.m.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: Perhaps I should explain what Clause 50 does. It gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations concerning the administration and collection of the BID levy. The amendment seeks to restrict the power of the Secretary of State so that the regulations made under the clause can only set out a system for the collection and enforcement of a BID which mirrors the existing system for non-domestic rates.
  We have always made it clear that we intend the BID levy to be collected and enforced through the existing business rates system. We should not, in our view, be inserting restrictions that would not allow alternative systems to be developed.
  While the BID levy will be primarily collected through the rating system, BIDs and local authorities may wish to send out a separate bill for the BID levy in addition to the bill for non-domestic rates. This is because rate bills are issued at specific times of the year and the rates are collected in instalments.
  A BID may not wish to collect its levy in instalments or at set times of the year. In this case, the Government would have to make provisions allowing local authorities to collect the levy in a manner that was compatible with their local circumstances.
  These powers would be used to ensure that the mechanism for introducing BIDs is flexible. The BID levy will be enforced in the same way as non-domestic rates but some parts of the collection procedures may need to be adapted so that BIDs work effectively.
  The clause relates to the collecting mechanism and is designed to have that flexibility. I hope that explanation satisfies the point that the noble Baroness is concerned about.
  Baroness Hamwee: With respect, I think it was irrelevant. Clause 50(2) says that the provision which the Secretary of State can make by regulation includes paragraphs (a) and (b). I am therefore asking why it is necessary to say that nothing limits the power when the word is "includes". It does not say the provisions which may be made by regulations "are" those in
  GC 144
  paragraphs (a) and (b). That is my point. Again, we do not need to waste time reading this now because I am sure we shall be able to deal with it at a later stage.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: We are possibly at cross-purposes in discussing the matter. We both need to reflect on what we have said, but I respect the point that the noble Baroness makes.
  Baroness Hamwee: I am grateful for that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 50 agreed to.
  Clause 51 agreed to.
  Clause 52 [Approval in ballot]:
  [Amendments Nos. 118 to 123 not moved.]
  Clause 52 agreed to.
  Clause 53 [Power of veto]:
  Baroness Hamweemoved Amendment No. 123A:
  Page 22, line 29, at end insert "by regulations approved by an affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament"
  The noble Baroness said: Clause 53 gives local authorities the power of veto. Clause 53(2) provides that the billing authority can exercise a veto in the circumstances that are "prescribed", to quote the Bill. The regulations dealing with the matter seem particularly important, as one might almost say that the billing authority is being given a veto to say yes or no to primary legislation. I might be putting it at a slightly high level, but it seemed worth suggesting that the regulations should be approved by affirmative resolution of both Houses. That would be the effect of Amendment No. 123A. I beg to move.
  Baroness Hanham: Amendment No. 125, which stands in my name, is grouped with Amendment No. 123A. It refers to line 32 of page 22. At present, the circumstances in which a billing authority may exercise its veto under Clause 53 are to be prescribed and are not included in the Bill.
  Our amendment picks up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on subsection (2), which states that the billing authority may veto proposals within a period that will be prescribed. We wish to probe how long the period is intended to be. Will the Government consider including in the Bill a three-month limit, for example, which we feel to be sensible? We would not like an indefinite period, as that would be damaging for everyone involved in the BID process.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: The clause gives the billing authority the power to veto a business improvement district under circumstances that the Secretary of State may prescribe. Amendment No. 123A seeks to make any regulations concerning the BID ballot subject to affirmative resolution. The Government have already tabled amendments to put in place the recommendations of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform. The committee did not recommend affirmative resolution for those powers. We have a habit—a good one, I

  GC 145
  think—of following, by and large, committee recommendations. We do not think it necessary to adopt the noble Baroness's suggestion. The committee has not recommended approval by affirmative resolution, because we have already set out clearly in the BIDs guidance the circumstances under which a veto will be exercised.
  Amendment No. 125, which would limit the time in which a local authority can veto a BID proposal following a successful ballot, is also unnecessary. Perhaps more importantly, it hinders what should be essentially flexible powers to allow BID arrangements to be as innovative as possible.
  In the Bill, the Secretary of State has taken powers that allow him to make regulations governing the circumstances in which a local authority can veto a BID and the period in which the veto can be exercised. The circumstances in which local authorities will be able to exercise their veto are also set out in the draft guidance on business improvement districts. As we have stated, the local authority can veto a BID where it can,
  "demonstrate that the proposed BID would conflict with locally adopted plans made under statute, or otherwise formally adopted by the council.
  Otherwise, the veto will rarely be exercised. After all, BIDs, as we have heard voluminously today, are about partnership between local authorities and local business communities. Where the local authority thinks that the BID will conflict with its other plans, it should state that long before the BID ballot takes place. We make that clear in the guidance.
  In the rare cases that a veto is used, the Secretary of State will have the power to prescribe the period in which it may be exercised. We see no particular need to include those periods in the Bill—in primary legislation. We want to learn from the practical experience of those who have set up BIDs before we put the specific periods into regulations. The BIDs provisions are supposed to allow maximum flexibility to allow for different circumstances.
  The amendments run counter to the spirit of the legislation. We want the flexibility, and we want to put it into secondary legislation. Obviously, we want to learn from practical experience—the sort of experience that the noble Baroness talked about earlier—and there will need to be some consultation before we finalise what the time-gap might be for the veto to be exercised. That is where we require the flexibility.
  I hope that those responses answer the two adjacent points that were raised.
  Baroness Hanham: I will not pursue the matter today. We have a lot more work to do. None the less, the Bill is littered with references to how things will be delivered by regulation. It does not say that here, and all that we are doing is to suggest that there should be a time by which an announcement must be made to the people who have taken part. That is not an onerous responsibility, and it does not require regulations, whether made by the affirmative or negative resolution
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  procedure. It would give some indication of the time by which an announcement would have to be made. For today, I will withdraw the amendment.
  Baroness Hamwee: My reaction is broadly the same, except that I would add that the fact that the Select Committee did not take the point does not stop constructively critical Members of your Lordships' House doing so. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Tordoff): I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, that she cannot withdraw an amendment that has not been moved. She can decide not to move it at the appropriate point.
  [Amendments Nos. 124 and 125 not moved.]
  Clause 53 agreed to.
  Clause 54 [Appeal against veto]:
  [Amendment No. 125A not moved.]
  Clause 54 agreed to.
  Clause 55 agreed to.
  Clause 56 [Duration of BID arrangements etc]:
  Baroness Hanhammoved Amendment No. 126:
  Page 23, line 41, leave out subsection (4).
  The noble Baroness said: Last time, the Minister said that he had tabled the amendment first, when he put his name to mine. This time, we have a slightly different amendment.
  Here, again, we see a subsection that gives the Secretary of State power to use regulations to make provision for altering BID arrangements, including terminating them. Can the Government explain the need for the provision? In what circumstances would the Secretary of State be likely to exercise the power?
  On a separate point, subsection (5) goes on to explain that the provisions in subsection (4) may also prevent or restrict the alteration or early termination of BID arrangements. Subsection (6) then says that subsection (5) will not limit the power in subsection (4). That is confused and clumsy drafting. Perhaps, the Minister could add some clarity. I beg to move.
  Lord Rooker: I shall speak to Amendment No. 127 and move it at the appropriate time.
  The amendment would make subject to affirmative resolution the power of the Secretary of State to make the regulations regarding the alteration and termination of BID arrangements in accordance with the recommendations of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform.
  I know that I am the new boy in this place, but I also know that, unlike another place, there is a Select Committee that looks at such things. People are free to raise any issue that they want, but the Select Committee spends time going through the Bill and issues a report, giving a considered view on whether the secondary powers should be beefed up. Members can table amendments, but the Government have a view. In the two departments that I have worked in, I

  GC 147
  have always reported back to the powers-that-be. It is an important committee, and, whatever it recommends, we had better toe the line because the House will have the support of the Select Committee.
  In some ways, it is a bit barmy to come along and second-guess the committee, when it has looked at the Bill. People are free to raise whatever point they want, but, if the Select Committee makes a recommendation, the Government's inclination, by and large, is to accept it. If it does not give a view, we are entitled to say that there is sufficient lack of comment to conclude that it is satisfied with what we have arranged.
  The regulations will be important. They set out the criteria on which a BID can be terminated before the date set out in a BID proposal—for example, an emergency that affects a BID, such as fire, flooding or foot and mouth disease. In view of that, it is understandable that the Select Committee sought the affirmative resolution procedure.
  Amendment No. 126 would remove the power. That would seriously hamper our ability with the circumstances described. Parliament will have plenty of opportunity to scrutinise the regulations under the affirmative resolution procedure. I hope that, with those reassurances, the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment. I will move Amendment No. 127 when we come to it.
  Baroness Hanham: I shall scrutinise what the Minister said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  5.45 p.m.
  Lord Rookermoved Amendment No. 127:
  Page 24, line 6, at end insert—
  "( ) No regulations under subsection (4) shall be made by the Secretary of State unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing the regulations (whether containing them alone or with other provisions) has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament."
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Clause 56, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 57 [Regulations about ballots]:
  Baroness Hanhammoved Amendment No. 128:
  Page 24, line 8, at end insert—
  "( ) No regulations may be made under subsection (1) unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before and approved by both Houses of Parliament."
  The noble Baroness said: In moving the amendment. I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 129 and 130.
  Amendment No. 128 is a straightforward amendment. Any regulations made under subsection (1) in relation to ballots should be subject to affirmative resolution, so that the House has a chance to see what is being done. Subsection (2) gives some idea about what might be likely to be prescribed under subsection (1), although it is not an exhaustive list. Regulations may be made that deal with the question, the timing and those eligible to vote, among other matters. Those are important issues that deserve more
  GC 148
  detailed scrutiny than they would receive under the negative resolution procedure. Would the Government consider using the affirmative resolution procedure instead? I would be enormously grateful if the Minister did not say that the deregulation committee did not recommend anything about it.
  Amendments Nos. 129 and 130 aim to probe the Government on two specific matters that the list in subsection (2) makes it clear could be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State. We are not convinced that it would be advisable for the non-domestic ratepayers entitled to vote in a ballot to be subject up to the whim—perhaps I should say discretion—of the Secretary of State. We are yet more unconvinced that he should also have the authority to suggest what people the billing authority may legitimately approach to refund the cost of the ballot and under what circumstances.
  We feel uneasy about those two specific matters of regulation. Why is it necessary for them to be relegated to secondary legislation rather than being set out clearly in the Bill? In particular, who are the poor likely suspects whom the Secretary of State may earmark to finance the ballot? Will they be able to appeal against footing the bill? I beg to move.
  Baroness Hamwee: I tabled Amendment No. 130A, which is in the group. I make exactly the same point that I made with regard to Amendment No. 117A. Clause 57(2) provides that provisions to be made by regulations include the eight matters listed. Clause 57(3) states that those are not exclusive—that there can be more. I make the distinction that I made earlier between that and other provisions in the Bill that do not spell out the fact that to list what can be included does not exclude other matters, which is what I would understand in any event.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I had better speak first to Amendment No. 131, a government amendment. As usual, it reflects the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It will make the Secretary of State's powers under Clause 57(1) subject to affirmative resolution. In that case we have complied, as we attempt to in nearly all circumstances, with that committee's important work.
  I shall work through the opposition amendments. Amendment No. 129 seeks to remove the power of the Secretary of State to make regulations regarding those ratepayers who may vote in a ballot. That power would be used to clarify which individual had a right to cast a vote in the BID ballot—for example, the person casting the vote must be the non-domestic ratepayer of a hereditament situated in the BID area.
  I imagine, although I cannot be sure, that Members of the Committee opposite have tabled this to provoke debate about delegated powers, which we have discussed before, or because they assume that property owners will be included in the BID ballot and they do not want the Secretary of State's power to be confined to defining the ratepayers alone. If it is the first reason, that is fine. If it is the second, we have had a great debate about that too.

  GC 149
  It is important, however, that this power remains in the Bill to provide clarity and authority to the voting procedures which will have to command the respect of ratepayers. They could otherwise be subject to legal challenge and undermine the local authority's power to impose the BID levy.
  Clause 57 also gives a billing authority the power to recover the costs of conducting the BID ballot from the BID levy, once the BID is up and running. Amendment No. 130 seeks to remove the ability of the billing authority to recover the costs. We think the amendment is unreasonable and would impact negatively on the relationship between the billing authority and the BID stakeholders.
  A business improvement district, as we are all agreed, is a partnership. We see from that perspective the importance of its making a contribution, but that does not prevent a billing authority from contributing to the cost of setting up a BID by paying for the BID ballot to take place. However, we do not believe it is right to enable external stakeholders—to use the jargon—to impose a requirement on billing authorities to undertake work on a BID without giving them any opportunity to recover the costs.
  The billing authority cannot refuse to take part in a BID ballot, so you cannot properly compare its role with that of other stakeholders in the BID, who would be subject to different circumstances and no doubt pressures, and would stand to gain significantly from the BID projects. However, if the billing authority can regain its costs, it will not suffer detriment from being involved in BIDs. It is actually more likely to make them more of a willing partner in the schemes. That is how we would all see it working.
  In addition, billing authorities may be asked to take part in more than one BID arrangement. The question could properly be posed—I think I would have posed it as a leader of a local authority—as to how many BIDs it might take for a billing authority to have to look for savings elsewhere. We are not sure that that would be desirable. Obviously it is a matter for local consideration.
  Finally, we understand that Amendment No. 130A seeks to limit the power to make regulations on BID ballots to those topics that are listed in subject 2. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, shakes her head.
  Baroness Hamwee: I am sorry, I thought I had made this clear. The amendment seeks to ask whether the word "includes" means "includes only". It is exactly the same point as was made in Amendment No. 1 17A. If it has to await further consideration, I am happy for it to do so, but I wanted at least to speak to it because the same point arises.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I understand the point entirely. A question was raised as to whether people could complain that they have to foot the bill. The answer to that is simple: no. Of course, they can vote in the ballot and that gives them the opportunity to participate in the process. They can make complaints publicly and campaign loudly, but their primary route
  GC 150
  is to participate and to be involved. If they disagree with the project in hand they have the right to vote. It is important for them to exercise that right.
  Baroness Hanham: I thank the Minister for his reply. I believe he has replied to one more question that I asked. Subsection (2)(b), one of the areas about which I complained, concerns the domestic ratepayers entitled to vote in the ballot that will be identified by regulations not subject to the affirmative situation. That raises a point that I raised earlier about who is entitled to vote. There may be more. It was suggested that the ratepayer would be the person who would have the vote—I think that was the suggestion. The ratepayer may have three properties in the same road.
  I do not believe we have the draft regulations, but it would have been helpful to have them so that in such a situation we would know how that matter will be identified. We will not be able to discuss that any further beyond today. I presume that the regulations will be available before a BID is started so that the billing authority is able to identify who will pay the bill. That lines up with what the Minister has said regarding the fact that the authority will know from whom they have to raise the money. I presume that the regulations will be available at some stage.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I want to make a point. By putting the matter into the regulations in the way in which we suggest—we have some sympathy with the point made—we will be able to carry out some further consultation so that further thought can be given to the matter. I do not know whether that helps, but we are trying to be as helpful as we can and to understand the point being made.
  Baroness Hanham: I always worry when the Minister says that he is trying to understand the point I am making. I hear what he says about consultation and I hope that that is correct. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendments Nos. 129 and 130A not moved.]
  Lord Bassam of Brightonmoved Amendment No. 131:
  Page 24, line 23, at end insert—
  "( ) No regulations under subsection (1) which include provision of the kind mentioned in subsection (2)(b) shall be made by the Secretary of State unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing the regulations (whether containing them alone or with other provisions) has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament."
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Clause 57, as amended, agreed to.
  [Amendment No. 132 not moved.]
  Clause 58 [Power to make further provision]
  Baroness Hanhammoved Amendment No. 133:
  Page 24, line 30, at end insert—
  "( ) No regulations may be made under subsection (1) unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before and approved by both Houses of Parliament."

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  The noble Baroness said: I am looking to see whether the Minister has his name attached to this amendment. I am told off all the time so I have to carry out some self-preservation here. In moving Amendment No. 133 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 134. Amendment No. 133 reflects the concerns voiced by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and its comments on Clause 58 will be familiar to the Minister. I was going to read them out but I shall not because I believe that the Minister will say that the Government always follow what that committee says. We believe that we need that on the record. Can the Minister confirm that he will be adopting the recommendations of that committee on that point and, if not, why not?
  Amendment No. 134 will leave out subsection (2) from Clause 58. I feel strongly that that undermines the parliamentary scrutiny. I am happy to see that there are so many Henry VIII powers scattered throughout the Bill. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has drawn attention to them and we have tabled amendments in relation to all of them to ensure that attention is drawn to the fact that they are there. Can the Minister explain why Clause 58 is necessary? I beg to move.
  6 p.m.
  Lord Rooker: I will speak to government Amendment No. 135 and move it formally at the appropriate time.
  Amendment No. 135 reflects the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The amendment will make the Secretary of State's powers under Clause 58(1), where it includes provision for amending an Act subject to the affirmative resolution. It is necessary to build flexibility into the BID arrangements, but I accept that in this case it is reasonable and sensible for Parliament to scrutinise the regulations. We are very happy to make the change, as recommended by the Committee.
  Amendment No. 133 appears to seek to go further than recommended by the Committee; it would make all the regulations under Clause 58 subject to the affirmative procedure rather than just those which contain provisions amending an Act subject to the affirmative procedure. This is a question of balance and of finding a way of providing BIDs with sufficient flexibility while retaining the safeguards. The Committee's recommendations safeguard earlier enactments with affirmative resolutions, which seems sensible, but we are not convinced of the merits of going further.
  Amendment No. 134 seeks to remove subsection (2) which gives the Secretary of State the power to amend legislation in order to give full effect to the business improvement district provisions. But the subsection is necessary to allow supplemental, incidental and transitional changes to previous legislation that will ensure that the provisions of this part of the Bill and any subordinate legislation work properly. I emphasise that it does not allow the Government to
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  amend legislation for any other purpose. As government Amendment No. 135 will require the affirmative resolution for the relevant regulations, we could not make any changes without the consent of Parliament. I hope that explains it.
  Reading subsections (1) and (2) of Clause 58 on their own, I fully accept that it looks like the Government could do anything to a lay person, but that is not the case. I took advice on this when the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, was still here, because I thought if he reads Clause 58 he might think that there is a way of dealing with the owners already in the Bill. However, I am assured that that is not the case because the Clause refers to giving full effect to,
  "any provision made by or under this Part".
  The owners are not included under this part, so this is not a catch-all to enable the Government to amend Acts of Parliament. Government Amendment No. 135 makes it clear that Parliament will have to approve any changes anyway.
  Baroness Hanham: I thank the Minister for that explanation. It is a pity that legislation that includes provisions such as this then needs such explanation. If the Delegated Powers Committee had not drawn our attention to this, it might have slipped through without anybody raising questions about it and any explanation having to be given. At least the explanation is now in Hansard so people outside the House will at least know what the Government mean and that the provisions and regulations under Clause 58 will be made by affirmative resolution. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 134 not moved.]
  Lord Rookermoved Amendment No. 135:
  Page 24. line 32, at end insert—
  "( ) No regulations under subsection (1) which include provision amending an Act shall be made by the Secretary of State unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing the regulations (whether containing them alone or with other provisions) has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament."
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Clause 58, as amended, agreed to.
  Clauses 59 to 62 agreed to.
  Clause 63 [Small business relief]:
  The Earl of Caithnessmoved Amendment No. 136:
  Page 27, line 13, leave out subsection (5).
  The noble Earl said: We move now from BIDS to rating, a slightly esoteric subject for many Members of the Committee but one of great importance. I have to declare my interest: I am a surveyor. I am a consultant to an independent residential property company in London, but it does not do ratings so there is no financial benefit to me or my firm from any provision in this part of the Bill. I hope that that covers any declaration of interest or non-interest, and that I do not need to repeat it.

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  Rating is a very simple tax. It is brilliant in concept because it is very easy to establish, levy and collect—and then the Government step in and make it horrendously complicated. On behalf of all my friends in the rating profession, may I thank the Government for all the extra work they will cause them and how much fun my fellow surveyors will have in the coming years as a result of the Government's actions? If the Government stuck to the "KISS" principle, that would make things very much more simple and speedy—businesses would know where they stood, the Government would be happier and doubtless local authorities would be too. But that is not the way of the world.
  Clause 63 introduces a small business relief. I am not against that in principle, but it needs to be considered. Why the Government wish England to take so long to follow Scotland in introducing its small business relief, I do not know. Why they have specified a different figure and a different rateable value, I am not sure. Perhaps the Minister could explain.
  Why the attempt to make the small business relief self-financing? The Government parade the idea that they want to help small businesses, but they are not helping them at all. They are allowing small businesses to receive something with one hand and taking it away from large businesses with the other. Of course the Government are not helping—the taxpayer is not helping. The Government have yet again issued forth a load of spin in this area.
  Why is this revenue-neutral? Why is it revenue-neutral in one year? Why is it not spread over the whole period of the list? Why make it so much more complicated for businesses, large and small, some of whom will benefit and some of whom will be grossly disadvantaged by this? I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: It is worth spelling out what the impact of the amendments would be. I am grateful for the declaration of interest. No doubt when the previous Government scrapped rates and introduced the poll tax, there was much grief in the estate agency world. They were denied the prospect of further work until council tax was introduced. As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said, it makes work for the estate agency world.
  The formula for the calculation of small business relief is to be found in Clause 63(3). It is clearly set out with the letters "D" and "E", which are defined in Clause 63(5). "D" is the rating multiplier to be applied to a property receiving small property rate relief and "E" is the amount by which the resulting bill will reduce by the, and through the, application of relief.
  Amendment No. 136, by striking out subsection (5), would leave "D" and "E" undefined. On its own, it would wreck the clause and destroy the small business relief scheme. Research published by the old Department of the Environment in 1995 showed rates to be a specially heavy burden for small businesses, accounting for a significantly higher proportion of operating profits than in the case of larger businesses.
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  In this clause, we are trying to implement the relief scheme set up in England, as set out in the White Paper published in December 2001. The mandatory rate relief will be available for properties with rateable values of less than £8,000. The percentage of relief will be on a sliding scale. There will be 50 per cent relief for properties with rateable values up to £3,000. The percentage of relief will then taper off gradually so that, for example, properties with rateable values of £6,000 will have their bills cut by 20 per cent. To qualify for relief, a business will need to apply to the local authority, declaring that it occupies only the one property for which it is claiming relief.
  In England, the relief scheme will be funded by a small addition of no more than 2 per cent to the bills of other ratepayers, so there is a recalibration, a rebalancing. The means by which this can be done are contained in one of the provisions in Clause 64.
  Obviously, this is about striking the right balance between different classes of ratepayer. It is also about affordability. We believe that the scheme we have devised for England strikes a fair and not unreasonable balance between the interests of small businesses which will be receiving the relief and other ratepayers who will be funding it, while also being straightforward to operate. The noble Earl said it was a straightforward scheme, and it certainly is. That was the beauty of the old domestic rating scheme too.
  The purpose of Amendment No. 137 is to set in concrete, effectively, the amounts of relief to be provided by writing these into the primary legislation. The level of relief in the amendment is more generous than that proposed in the White Paper. Properties with rateable values of up to £10,000 would benefit as opposed to the White Paper proposal that the relief should end at £8,000. This amendment would remove any flexibility. At the last revaluation in 2000, rateable values rose on average by about 20 per cent. We therefore raised most relief thresholds accordingly. The amendment would prevent us from doing so in the future in the case of small business rate relief. Perhaps that is not the intention of the movers of the amendment, but that is the effect, and it needs to be understood.
  The amendment might, on the face of it, look more generous to businesses, but in practice, because of my point about flexibility in threshold raising, it may not be. It would require a further Act of Parliament to increase the threshold following any future revaluation. As I am sure the noble Earl will accept, that is a cumbersome mechanism with which to make those sort of adjustments.
  I hope that that explains the points raised. On the general issue of why this is revenue-neutral, we are looking at a particular class of taxation. I think the noble Earl may be suggesting that the taxpayer at large should fund a scheme of bigger benefit to small businesses. We are ensuring that there is a rebalancing

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  within one system of taxation which is applied locally and collected for national benefit. I hope that deals with the points raised by the noble Earl.
  The Earl of Caithness: I am grateful for that reply, but I thought that the Minister dealt rather in generalities—he spoke of large businesses and small businesses, saying that the Government thought they had a happy medium. But there was no explanation of why the Government had decided on £8,000 as the rateable value threshold. Why is it different from the £10,000 rateable value in Scotland? Why will the Government penalise anybody just above the £8,000 limit? Why is it revenue-neutral? Why is there not some help from the taxpayer? Why are the Government not fulfilling their obligations or their statement of help to small businesses? Perhaps they do not want to help small businesses after all.
  The effect of the amendment is, as the Minister said, to leave the introduction of small business rate relief in place but allow for the taxpayer to pay for it. I hope that the noble Lord will have a little more to say. Will he comment any further?
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: The only comment I can really make with regard to the noble Earl's point about the Scottish situation is that that is a devolved matter. It is for the Scottish Parliament to determine. If that is what it wishes to do within its own arrangements, that is fine. But we have to act for England in this case, and we have designed this scheme as fit for the purpose that we see as appropriate.
  The noble Earl and I can disagree about relative generosity, but the Government think that the clause begins to address some of the problems on which we agree. Perhaps in the past there has been more of a burden on the smaller business ratepayer than the larger business ratepayer. This is the scheme we have come up with—we can disagree about it. We certainly disagree about where the burden should be placed. We think it should be placed within that class of taxation rather than on the taxpayer at large. But this is the scheme we are proposing, and we have taken soundings on it in the past. That is why it is in the Bill.
  The Earl of Caithness: I am grateful for that. I warn the Minister that I will come back to this in more detail on Amendments Nos. 139 and 140. That gives the fifth cavalry the chance to come to his aid.
  I will want to know the reason for deciding on £8,000. I will also want to know what the Minister estimates as the cost in terms of benefit for small businesses as a result of the existing list. But we can deal with all that when we come to Amendment No. 139. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 137 not moved.]
  Clause 63 agreed to.
  6.15 p.m.
  Lord Phillips of Sudburymoved Amendment No. 138:
  After Clause 63, insert the following new clause—

  RELIEF FOR CHARITIES AND COMMUNITY AMATEUR SPORTS CLUBS
  (1) In section 43 of the 1988 Act (occupied hereditaments: liability) for subsection 6) there is substituted—
  "(6) This subsection applies where on the day concerned the ratepayer is—M

  (a) a charity or trustees for a charity and the hereditament is wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes (whether of that charity or of that and other charities); or

  (b) a community amateur sports club within the meaning of Schedule 18 to the Finance Act 2002 (c. 23) (relief for community amateur sports clubs) and the hereditament is wholly or mainly used for the purposes of that club or of that and any other such community amateur sports club or clubs."

  (2) In section 45 of that Act (unoccupied hereditaments: liability) for subsection (6) there is substituted—
  "(6) This subsection applies where on the day concerned the ratepayer is—

  (a) a charity or trustees for a charity and it appears that when next in use the hereditament will be wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes (whether of that charity or of that and other charities); or

  (b) a community amateur sports club within the meaning of Schedule 18 to the Finance Act 2002 and it appears that when next in use the hereditament will be wholly or mainly used for the purposes of that club or of that and any other such community amateur sports club or clubs.""

  Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
  Lord Phillips of Sudbury: That is a good start.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: The fans have arrived.
  Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I think that the happy mumbling is a fair reflection of the fact that this amendment has no enemies. It is no accident that there are supporters from the four corners of the House—the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, from the Cross Benches, the noble Lord, Lord MacLaurin of Knebworth, former chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, from the Conservative Benches, and the noble Lord, Lord Sheppard of Liverpool, from the Labour Benches. All three are extremely sorry that, for various reasons, they cannot be here.
  The whole sports world is extremely grateful for the Government's introduction of tax exemptions for community amateur sports clubs in 2002. It was a huge step forward. To be honest, there have not been enough thanks from the sports community as a whole to the Government. One of the reasons, perhaps, is that rates remain the most present and universal expense for clubs, and many councils do not provide relief. As sports clubs are not charities, it is entirely up to councils to decide whether they should exercise their discretion to relieve rates for community amateur sports clubs. It should not be forgotten that, if councils provide such relief, they must pay a quarter of the

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  costs, unlike the mandatory 80 per cent exemption for charities, where the whole cost is borne by the Inland Revenue.
  The issue was introduced during a debate in the House in 1999, initiated by the late lamented Lord Cowdrey, to which there was a unanimous response. He was concerned about the state of sport in this country, not merely at professional and international level, but throughout society. During that debate, the noble Lord, Lord Sheppard, made an extremely telling remark. He has asked me to quote him as saying,
  "there needs to be an unbroken chain leading towards sporting achievement of the highest standard. A key link in the chain is provided by the Community Amateur Sporting Clubs. If that is missing, much of their promise and skills is wasted".
  That is why the noble Lord says:
  "I believe it is in the public interest to give relief to such clubs".
  Why, the Committee may ask, has the sporting world not leapt at the community amateur sports clubs (CASC) exemption? Given that there are around 140,000 sports clubs, why have tens of thousands of applications to register not flooded in? I was going to say that it is a mystery, but it is no longer so. The reason that, at the last count, fewer than 400 clubs had registered as CASCs, is a combination of circumstances peculiar to these wonderful beasts. First, amateur sports clubs have no professional help; secondly, they have a phobia about bureaucracy and think that becoming a CASC, let alone a charity, will lead them into deep bureaucratic ways; and, finally, they are afraid of moving into the unknown and adopting a status from which they cannot withdraw. The survival of many CASCs is extremely tenuous, which I shall discuss in a moment. Rates are the most important factor of all to such clubs, which is why there is a such a low take-up of the CASC exemption.
  I am perfectly willing to accept that the Government may not believe us because we said that thousands of clubs would take up the CASC exemption. When the issue was debated in the Commons in January, the Minister, Mr Leslie, said, first, that the Government felt that they needed to wait and see how things worked out vis-a-vis the CASC exemption, and, secondly, that to give rating exemptions to CASCs would be anomalous. We have had long enough—over a year—to see how CASCs develop. Fewer than 400 have registered. Fewer than 40 clubs have registered as charities, which is a possibility that has been available only in the past year or two.
  Members whose names are attached to the amendment—and, one could almost say, everyone else—feel that community amateur sports clubs are the lifeblood of England's communities. They reach people that genuinely no other voluntary organisations reach, particularly young tearaways; that is to say, young men and women with a lot of energy but few outlets for it. CASCs provide self-discipline, teamwork skills, self-esteem, community involvement and participation in a way that many will not experience in any other pursuit.
  Another feature of CASCs—this goes directly to the point of the amendment and the need to make this further concession to CASCs—is that they are the very
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  groups that all governments strive most strenuously to achieve: organic, bottom-up, self-help organisations. They are community-based, amateur and involve all ages, classes, occupations, sorts and conditions. They are a Minster's dream.
  There are more than 5 million members of such clubs in the country, many of whom are young people. Because of those benefits, although we come here as supplicants to seek a further concession, there is a genuine sense that the Government would do their own bidding very effectively by allowing CASCs to have the same rating exemption as charities. The costs—a hugely important consideration—are modest by government spending reckoning.
  On 19th December, there was a Written Answer asking how many CASCs were on the rating lists. The answer was:
  "The rating lists for England include about 16,000 sports properties, including those used by community amateur sports clubs, as well as professional and commercial sports bodies".
  It continues:
  "Of the 16,000 sports bodies, 7,500 have rateable values of under £3,000 and a further 4,000 have rateable values above £3,000 and below f8,000".—[Official Report, Commons, 19/12/02; col. 949W.]
  Those are the new small business exemption limits. A modest number of around 7,000 have a rateable value of over £8,000.
  The calculations carried out by the Central Council for Physical Recreation (CCPR) provide a statistic that I should have given to the Government Front Bench before speaking, but I shall happily provide a copy immediately. It reckons that the cost of 80 per cent mandatory relief for CASCs would be around £10 million a year beyond what the Government currently pay. That assumes a much, much higher take-up for registration of CASCs than the present rather pathetic number.
  There is a feeling on this side of the Committee that this concession should have no enemies. Some councils are now starting to say, given the proposed new small business relief, that if a club will not register as a CASC or charity, they will not exercise discretion to give it the relief that it has hitherto provided. For example, Copeland Borough Council has told Whitehaven rugby club just that. It says that if the club does not register as a charity, it will not give it any concession. Given that the discretionary relief is particularly onerous for councils to carry out and is expensive to administer, I have no doubt that many other councils will follow the same line. It should not be forgotten that the many clubs with a rateable value of over £8,000 will find that their rate bills are increased. As I understand it, the new small business relief is supposed to be self-financing, which will place a higher burden on the others.
  Many may say that sport is doing fine and ask why we need more concessions. It is not doing fine. When the debate was held in 1999, the general consensus was that sport in this country has many wonderful achievements to its name but that grassroots sport is not doing fine. I have some up-to-date statistics.

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  In tennis, at elite level, we have two men in the top 100 world rankings, but there are no women in that position. In rugby, on which there was a very big survey recently, 46 per cent of clubs reported a decline in membership. The only element of clubs that is increasing is mini-rugby. That is good, but clubs need all the help that they can get to keep that impetus going into the senior clubs. In cricket, there is a slow but steady decline in affiliated and unaffiliated clubs. In soccer, there has been a dramatic decline of almost 4 per cent in the number of clubs in the past two years, meaning that almost 1,500 clubs have gone out of business. In addition, in a recent CCPR survey, a third of clubs said that their finances were precarious; 38 per cent reported a decline in membership; 68 per cent reported an increase in red tape, and so on. The picture, despite many bright spots, is not good.
  There is no point in waiting any longer to see where things are, as we know already. CASCs are not an anomaly; they have already been given special tax status in the 2002 budget. I hope very much that the Government will accede to this request, which has the full backing of the CCPR, Sport England, the Rugby Football Union, the Football Association and many other organisations. I beg to move.
  Lord Smith of Leighmoved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 138, Amendment No. 138ZA:
  Line 28, at end insert—
  "(3) To qualify for the relief, community amateur sports clubs must demonstrate they will invest their relief into their sporting activities.""
  The noble Lord said: I support very much the arguments presented by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. However, when he says that there has been a decline in rugby, I presume that he refers to rugby union. There certainly has not been a decline in rugby league, which is expanding dramatically at present. It is now played in every county throughout England and is the most successful game in Wales.
  The noble Lord's remarks on regeneration through sport are very important. If we contrast the levels of investment in community sport in this country with that in France, and the difference in each country's crime rate, there is an important lesson for us all. Although I support the principles of the amendment in seeking rate relief for sports clubs, in my experience, we must go one stage further. Sports clubs are complex organisations, with many different sections including one that looks after sports. There is, therefore, no guarantee that the money that clubs save will be used to improve the sporting element of the club. Many clubs have bars, and we would not wish to see the money used to reduce bar prices. In my experience, that has happened.
  In my amendment, I wish to add to the proposed new clause a condition that investment in community sport must be seen to come out of the money that goes into clubs. My own local authority runs such a scheme with discretionary relief. It works very well and has increased the partnership between the local authority and sports clubs. It also ensures that money is used to
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  improve sport at community level. I hope that Members of the Committee will accept this additional power, which would ensure that the intention of Amendment No. 138 is achieved. I beg to move.
  6.30 p.m.
  Lord Monro of Langholm: I support the amendment, which I think admirable. It is important because of its simplicity. With all due respect, the additional amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Smith, perhaps adds complication. At a time when the Government are rightly looking seriously at the fitness of the nation and, in particular, the fitness of our younger people, this seems one of the least expensive ways of making good progress. I shall own up to the fact that 38 years ago in 1965, I moved an amendment to the then Finance Bill to have mandatory 100 per cent de-rating of sports clubs—without success. I have chipped away and chipped away, but other people have been more successful. Certainly what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, with the help of Lord Cowdrey and others, achieved two years ago was a tremendous advance.
  I am glad that the Government brought in the change that they did, but I must say that I think it was the wrong change to make. I cannot imagine a more complicated system of charitable status or a more expensive system to attain a very simple aim, which probably, in terms of a sports club, achieves a relatively low sum. To go through all the legal proceedings of charitable status is a very forbidding occupation for most volunteer sports club secretaries. I think that is why so few have tried to attain that status.
  If we moved forward with this amendment, all that would be beside the point. It would be much more simple and local authorities could press ahead and give mandatory 100 per cent relief of rates. Of course, many do that now. Certainly, many local authorities give 50 per cent discretionary relief and some give various percentages higher. They realise that the sports facilities in their local authority areas are very important for a whole host of reasons—many of which have been given by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. We should do all that we can to encourage sport, particularly at the relatively low cost of £10 million estimated by the CCPR, from a budget of £51,000 million. Therefore, it is a very tiny percentage of the expenditure of the department.
  As we know, the amendment is warmly supported by all the sports groups—the NPFA, the CCPR and others. They all believe that this would be one of the least expensive and most effective methods of encouraging sport in England at the present time. Obviously, this is an issue that the Scottish Executive and the Welsh Assembly would follow up if passed in this country. I warmly support what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said. I apologise for dashing in and out and looking at the monitor, but I am deeply involved in the debate in the Chamber. I hope that the Minister

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  will see light here—that this is the best value for money—and I hope that he will agree to the amendment.
  Lord Moynihan: I, too, support the amendment. The Bill is of immense importance to the future of voluntary sport. Business rates are the largest tax faced by voluntary sports clubs. As drafted, the Bill will penalise larger voluntary sports clubs in order to fund relief for small businesses. That aspect of the Bill needs to be amended to take account of the unique characteristics of the voluntary sports clubs and to stop treating them the same as businesses. The amendment is designed to provide community amateur sports clubs, as defined by the Finance Act 2002, with 80 per cent mandatory rate relief parity with charity.
  The background is clear. The Finance Act 2002, to which praise has been given, created limited tax exemptions for community amateur sports clubs, as defined by the Act, that were unwilling or unable to become charities. As has been rightly pointed out, there is widespread support in both Houses for this amendment. In another place, Early-Day Motion 702 in the last Session, signed by 151 MPs, supported the provision of 80 per cent mandatory rate relief for community amateur sports clubs. The Select Committee report into the draft Local Government Bill similarly recommended that community amateur sports clubs receive 80 per cent mandatory rate relief. When a similar amendment was debated in Committee in the Commons, it received strong, all-party support.
  To the Government, the critical issue is clearly cost, and reference has been made to the excellent work undertaken by the Central Council for Physical Recreation, which identified that the cost would be approximately £10 million. I believe that £10 million should be viewed against the benefits that it would bring to the ailing voluntary sports club sector as well as the reduction in red tape for both clubs and councils. Sport remains the most popular form of volunteering in communities and it is now widely recognised that community sport plays a key role in promoting health, social cohesion and reducing anti-social behaviour. The cost of obesity alone is in excess of £2.5 billion each year, against the £10 million which we are discussing today.
  We should set this amendment in context. After a series of delays the Government have announced their support for a London Olympic bid. Yet, in the past 48 hours, we have seen funding for sport in this country continue to be cut as potential future Olympians are turned away from training centres closed by cuts. Consider the tragic case of table tennis, which many Members of the Committee will have read about this week. In addition, we have an Olympic bid without leadership.
  If the United Kingdom is to see success at the London Olympic Games, it needs to focus on widening, not restricting, participation in sport; on identifying, not denying, talent the right to flourish; and on building a strong alliance—this is critical—between schools, governing bodies and clubs to ensure
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  that through wider participation in sport we nurture the Olympic champions of the future. The amendment is an important first step in that direction. The provision of relief to community amateur sports clubs would assist not only future Olympians, but also government policy for health, education, social inclusion and crime reduction. I hope that we shall have a surprise from the Government today when—convinced by the rhetoric from all sides of the Committee and, indeed, from another place—they realise that it would be £10 million well invested in future talent, in community participation and in their absolutely correct priorities for social inclusion, health, crime prevention and wider participation in sport. All those objectives can be achieved by accepting the amendment as it stands.
  Lord Addington: I apologise for missing the first few moments when my noble friend Lord Phillips introduced the amendment, but I should like to add to what has been said. Amateur sports clubs effectively take on the large proportion of the sports education in this country. They subsidise our failing school sports and physical education system to an almost unimaginable level. They are regularly called upon. The Government have recognised their role and, apparently, the school sports co-ordinator has a very important liaison function. Yet we are saying, "You are doing something on the cheap, for free, effectively, for us", but we are not prepared to give a basic level of relief. That is what this amendment calls for.
  I am afraid that rugby league is in bad shape. It may be spreading where it is played, but the players are getting older. That is a great problem in all sports—most sports players are getting older and we are not producing kids who play sport any more. Rugby union and rugby league first-team players are aged 40—I have personal experience of that. That is good news for physiotherapists, but not good news for sport.
  We are not producing the great flow of people that we did, but amateur sports clubs are doing that. The potential savings to the health service are massive. The Government have already conceded that the point of this amendment is important, but unless they are prepared to move to ensure that every sport benefits from its provisions, we shall come back to the matter again and again. Every time there is a delay in the process of giving that little bit more funding, the benefits of expansion will be denied.
  Amendment No. 138ZA expresses a good sentiment but I cannot see how it would be possible to administer. The main point here is that, effectively, amateur sports clubs are subsidising the Government. Do not make them pay any more than they have to.
  Lord Rooker: I should like to say that I have just heard five brilliant speeches in favour of a brilliant amendment.
  A noble Lord: Go on, make it six.
  Lord Rooker: It is supported by Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour Members and Cross-Benchers. I am on a hiding to nothing. On the other

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  hand, the chances are that it would be a Secretary of State accepting the amendment and not a humble Minister of State. I come with the bad news that I cannot accept the amendment, but nevertheless, I agree with every point made in those speeches. Frankly, any sensible Member of either House would agree with the general points made. I am not hiding behind the proprieties of this House in dealing with what is essentially a finance measure. I understand that there has been a great deal of support for it in another place but, in a way, another place is the place to sort this out. I fully concur with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about the Olympic bid.
  I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for saying "Thank you" in his opening speech for what had been done previously, and I do not want to belittle any of the points made. I turned to officials half way through one noble Lord's speech and asked, "Would there be any trouble if I accepted this?". "Yes, there would be", they said. I am told that it is reshuffle week as well, so that would probably not be a good idea.
  Obviously, it is a new clause. I fully accept that there is an idea drafted here and that there is a head of steam behind it; one looks for pegs to hang it on and Bills to fit it in. This is obviously a Bill into which it could neatly fit. I must point out that this particular Local Government Bill does not contain any provisions for mandatory rate relief for community amateur sports clubs.
  I shall now turn to the notes—everything that I have said so far is not written down. In November 2001, the Charity Commission announced that it would now recognise as charitable purposes:
  "The promotion of community participation in healthy recreation by the provision of facilities for the playing of particular sport",
  and,
  "The advancement of the physical recreation of young people not undergoing formal education".
  They are two laudable points.
  I must say to Members of the Committee who have just turned up to our proceedings—we have been in Committee for a few hours on this Bill so far; that is, 12 at the moment and coming up to 16—that every time I refer to the Local Government Finance Act 1988, I cannot resist reminding colleagues that it was the poll tax Act. Sections 43 and 45 of that Act provide mandatory rate relief to all charities at both the occupied and unoccupied rates. The Act does not make any distinction between different types of voluntary bodies, as they all do good community works. Any sports club that gains charitable status would immediately benefit from the existing rate relief for charities provided under the Local Government Act Finance 1988 at both those rates.
  The Government introduced a tax package for community amateur sports clubs—for which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said thank you—in the Finance Act 2002. That provided a range of tax reliefs for sports clubs on their income and on donations which local people made to support them. Schedule 18 to the
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  Finance Act 2002 provides the criteria required to gain charitable status. I do not have any figures on that. I should be grateful to have such figures, as I should like to know them.
  As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said, few have taken the step that we are discussing. You can walk into—I shall not provide any business with publicity—branches of well-known stationers in the high street and buy prepared legal documents to enable you to take certain steps, such as making a will yourself rather than employ a solicitor. One would think that someone would knock up a little package to be sold in stationers for sports clubs. All they would have to do would be to fill in a form. Why not? What would be the problem? Is that a good or a bad point? Members of the Committee are laughing at me.
  6.45 p.m.
  Lord Phillips of Sudbury: It is very kind of the Minister to make that suggestion. My firm would provide just such a package. I shall give the Minister details later.
  Lord Rooker: I refer to a package, which could be bought off the shelf, including forms that could be filled in. I understand the fear of bureaucracy that is engendered by the mere mention of the Charity Commission. The main purpose in life of the people that we are discussing is the relevant amateur sports club not filling in forms and getting involved in bureaucracy. But, given that the relevant legislation is in place to assist them, I do not see why they should not be assisted in the way I have described. I cannot lay claim to that suggestion. But it occurred to me that if so few of those bodies have taken the step that we are discussing, we should be able to encourage the rest to do so.
  Where sports clubs do not meet the Charity Commission's criteria, or where they have decided not to seek this status, I have to repeat what I am sure was said in another place; namely, that local authorities have the power under Section 42(2)(c) of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 to grant rate relief of up to 100 per cent to any non-profit-making body at their discretion. I cannot rest my case on what I am about to say, but I say to Members of the Committee who are new to our proceedings that the Bill is about freedom and flexibility for local authorities. The whole idea is to remove burdens from them. That is the whole thrust of the legislation. I should like to think that—although I would not describe the measure we are discussing as centralising—we are giving freedoms and flexibilities to local authorities that they have dreamt of only in recent years.
  There is already legislation that enables local authorities to grant rate relief of up to 100 per cent for certain worthy bodies. I suspect that a little more local pressure in the right quarter ought to be applied to those local authorities that do not grant such relief. The Committee will be aware that community amateur sports clubs may also benefit from the proposals in the Bill for the rate relief scheme for small businesses, which would provide mandatory rate relief of up to

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  50 per cent for qualifying properties. Sports clubs will also remain eligible for up to 100 per cent rate relief as a top-up to the new mandatory relief at the discretion of a local authority. Local authorities are required to make some contribution to the rate pool for discretionary relief but they do not have to make a full contribution.
  The following information may be a little out of date. I do not refer to any clubs from my former constituency. I understand that rates are based on open market rental values. The rates bill is therefore less than 50 per cent of the annual rental value because the rates poundage is less than 50p in the pound. Therefore, the rates may not be the primary expenditure of many sports clubs. They may not pay the open market rental if they have entered into a particular arrangement. They may not pay the full amount. Therefore, as I say, the rates may not constitute the main expenditure but they will constitute a large part of the expenditure of some clubs.
  I have some good news now. The Cabinet Office's Strategy Unit report, Private Action, Public Benefit, proposes that the list of charitable purposes be expanded to include the advancement of charitable sport. That proposal would be of particular benefit to amateur sports clubs, as many more, including the larger ones, would become eligible for mandatory rate relief as a result. The report also makes recommendations that should reduce the onerous process involved in the registration of charities as well as proposals on trading, membership charges and selection rules.
  Although the Government are still considering the proposals in the report, if adopted they would build on the existing measures in place to assist sports clubs to gain charitable status. In other words, the matter is not frozen. We have not reached the point of saying, "This far and no further". Work is going on at present. I do not know what the outcome of the Government's final consideration of the Cabinet Office report will be, but these measures taken together should ensure that community amateur sports clubs benefit from reduced-rates bills without the need to introduce special provision in legislation beyond what is available for charities. As I say, the charitable route exists. If it could be made easier for community amateur sports clubs to attain charitable status, so much the better.
  Amendment No. 138ZA attempts to ensure that the money saved through rate relief will be channelled hack into sporting activity. As I believe the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, since community amateur sports clubs will not pay the charge that we are discussing—they are probably not paying it at the moment due to discretionary rate relief—it is difficult to know how to prove that the money that is saved is being channelled back into sporting activity. Provided that a club could show that it had spent the amount saved on sporting activity, it would fulfil the terms of the amendment. However, there is no way of proving
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  that the money that is spent on sporting activity is the money that is saved through rate relief. That is the difficulty.
  I told my noble friend earlier that I hoped to give him some reassurance; however, I may sound negative initially, as I am resisting the amendment. Members of the Committee are, of course, free to return to the matter on Report. However, as I said earlier today, the Bill needs to receive Royal Assent between late July and early September in order to bring in the new local government financial structure for the next financial year. I have warned the Committee that if any ping-pong were contemplated with regard to the Bill, the Government would take away the ball. However, I would not dream of making threats. I believe that the amendment that we are discussing is brilliant. I could not possibly be accused of making threats.
  I hope that, with the assurances that the Government do not have a closed mind on the issue, the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment. I have no doubt that I shall make a similar speech at later stages of the Bill.
  The Earl of Caithness: The Minister should not be so reticent in saying that a Minister of State in this House cannot accept an amendment. When in government, my noble friend Lady Blatch and I regularly accepted the principle of amendments. We even had them redrafted by civil servants and returned to the noble Lords who introduced them. I used to return such amendments to Members of the Opposition. I believe that the Minister would like to accept the principle of the amendment that we are discussing, take it away, redraft it and return it to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for Report stage.
  Lord Phillips of Sudbury: That is extremely—
  The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes): I hope that I may be of assistance to the Grand Committee. The amendment to which we are speaking now is Amendment No. 138ZA. It has not yet been agreed or withdrawn. Then we shall revert to Amendment No. 138. I look to the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, as to what he wishes to do with his Amendment No. 138ZA.
  Lord Smith of Leigh: I thank the noble Lord for that advice. I am sorry that there seems to be doubt that the scheme we are discussing could work. I assure the Committee that it is a practical scheme that works in my authority. We draw up a contract with the sports clubs that receive discretionary relief to ensure that the savings they obtain from rate relief are channelled into new investment. Clubs need to show how they will benefit from the relief by allocating the money that is saved to new investment. Otherwise—
  Baroness Blatch: This is my first intervention, but I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. The noble Lord said that he wanted a commitment to new investment if the relief was granted. However, as regards some of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and as regards the information that I have,

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  sometimes it is a question of surviving rather than channelling money into new investment. Clubs may need to use money to stave off the necessity to close or simply to clear their backlog of debt.
  Lord Smith of Leigh: I understand the point that has been made. However, sports clubs have bars. Sometimes the bar section may have great influence as it is making money rather than spending it. My concern is that the money we are discussing may be allocated to the bar section of the club and 2not be channelled, as the Committee would wish, into sporting activity. As I say, my local authority has a scheme that works very effectively in that regard. However, having listened to the comments that have been made, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment No. 138ZA, as an amendment to Amendment No. 138, by leave, withdrawn.
  The Deputy Chairman of Committees: We now revert to Amendment No. 138.
  Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am extremely grateful to the Minister and to all those who have spoken in this mini debate. I got two crumbs of comfort from what the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said. First, he did not continue with the line adopted by the Government in the Commons of saying that the measure would be anomalous or that we ought to wait and see. Secondly, I was certainly encouraged when the noble Lord was quite open in admitting that he did not realise what a pathetically low take-up there has been so far both for charities—the figure is about 40—and CASCs where the figure is some 400.
  Therein perhaps lies a little hope. I know that Gordon Brown is extremely keen on the sentiment behind the amendment and the sentiment behind the introduction of CASCs. His speech on the matter during the debate on the Finance Bill was extremely eloquent. He could have been speaking on this amendment on behalf of Members on this side of the Committee. If the Minister could be prevailed upon to present the measure to Gordon Brown—because he is probably not aware that the ambitions we all had in this regard have not been realised—the Government may take a different view at Report stage.
  I believe that it is hoped to increase the number taking advantage of both CASC and charity tax exemptions, which include rates, by means of an off-the-shelf charity pack. However, it does not work like that. The process is much more cumbersome, complex and long-winded. The experience of Banbury Cricket Club has scared the living daylights out of every cricket club in the land. To be fair, the CASC regime has been wonderfully effective and efficiently run by the Inland Revenue. To register as a CASC involves filling in two sides of one sheet of A4 paper. That scheme is well administered. The simple truth is that we shall not get the benefit of this great reform unless we can bring
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  CASCs into line with charities as regards rates. I urge the Minister, if he would be so kind, to review that aspect of the matter.
  Lord Rooker: I certainly cannot give the commitment that was originally asked of me. However, I am happy to draw to the attention of my colleagues in the Treasury the speeches that have been made today and, in particular, the actual practical effects of the Finance Act 2002. I shall ask them for an update on the effectiveness of that legislation as it is clear that I shall have to return to the matter on Report. I fully accept what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said; namely, that the thrust of the Chancellor's remarks made when the Finance Act was being debated was that he wanted the provision we are discussing to work. Changes that have been made in the area of charitable giving are not always followed up. It is a question of introducing such changes widely. There is enormous potential in that regard of which people are unaware. As I say. I shall inquire into the effectiveness of the legislation in regard to the matter that we are discussing in order to be able to return to the issue on Report.
  Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am most grateful to the Minister for those remarks. I assure him that Richard Caborn, the present Minister for Sport, is no less rabidly keen on the matter than was his predecessor, Kate Hoey. He is trying to do something in the way of roadshows going round the country—I am involved in this—trying to drum up support and to eliminate misconceptions. As I said. I am most grateful to the Minister for his comments. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  7 p.m.
  Clause 64 [Calculation of non-domestic rating multiplier]:
  The Earl of Caithnessmoved Amendment No. 138A:
  Page 27, line 38, leave out subsection (3).
  The noble Earl said: We return to the more esoteric subject of the details of rating rather than the charitable aspects of it. Amendments Nos. 1 38 A and 138B are probing amendments on the funding of the small business rate relief. I posed a number of questions to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, on Amendment No. 136. I hope he now has the answers for me.
  Looking at the issue in more detail and looking at the threshold of £8,000 of rateable value, that is probably equivalent to £150 a week in rent. Not many people with offices and retail property will benefit from that in the South East and particularly in London, although those may be small businesses. If there is such a finite cut-off point as £8,000, however the Government seek to justify that, it seems grossly unfair that someone just above the line has to subsidise

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  someone just below the line, and yet the businesses could be almost or totally identical but in a slightly smaller or larger space.
  I suggest that the Government look at the Scottish scheme. In Scotland not only is there a different rateable value for small business relief of £10,000, but those who will have to pay for that have to be in premises with a rateable value of over £25,000. So the top end will subsidise the bottom end. Therefore, there will not be the problem that the Government will impose on many businesses in England, where those just above the line pay more than those just below it. In Scotland there is a break in the middle. I commend that system to the Government.
  I believe the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, knows the other questions to which I want answers. I beg to move.
  Lord Hanningfield: We intend to oppose the Question that Clause 64 stand part of the Bill. I believe that the Bill will be more readable without that clause and its complications. Can the Minister mention the timing of the provisions in the clause and how he believes that it will work, bearing in mind its complicated nature?
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I shall try to deal with both points. We all know that since 1990 there has been a national single rate poundage or multiplier introduced by the former government and one for the whole of Wales.
  Clause 64 introduces something different. I believe it is a better system. Instead of one multiplier and a single rate poundage, it provides for two multipliers. There will be a small business non-domestic rating multiplier and a non-domestic rating multiplier.
  When a small business rate relief scheme is run under Clause 63, the non-domestic rating multiplier will be set at a higher level than the small business rating multiplier to produce an addition to rate yield equivalent to the cost of the small business relief. That is how it will work. The addition to the rates bills of those not receiving relief will be small. As we said in the White Paper, it will probably be less than 2.5 per cent.
  In addition to providing for the funding of small business relief in England, the clause makes changes in the case of England and Wales as to how the multipliers—including the English small business multiplier—are to be adjusted to take account of the effects of revaluations.
  Every five years, all non-domestic properties are revalued—the Committee knows that better than I do. The purpose is not to change the total yield from rates, but to redistribute the rate burden in line with movements in the property market since the last revaluation. Therefore, if there is a significant increase in total rateable value at a revaluation, the multiplier must be reduced. Alternatively, if there is a significant decrease in total rateable value, the multiplier must be increased. Thus in a revaluation year the English and Welsh multipliers will include an adjustment to offset
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  changes in the total rateable value for each country between 31 March 2005, the last day of the old rating lists, and 1 April, the first day of the new lists.
  However, the value for the first day of the new lists is subject to erosion through successful appeals by ratepayers for reductions in their new rateable values where those reductions have retrospective effect from 1 April. So the Secretary of State and the Welsh Assembly are currently required to estimate what will be shown for 1 April once the effect of successful appeals has been allowed for. Those are the estimated final rateable values for 1 April, which are used when making the adjustment to the multipliers to offset the effect of revaluation.
  The estimates may be difficult to make. Accordingly, Clause 64 allows adjustments in the multipliers for subsequent years to compensate for any error in estimation at the revaluation. That is plain, good sense. The calculation of the multipliers at the 1995 and 2000 revaluations were based on what have turned out to be sound estimates of losses in rate yield. That being the case, the new power to adjust the multiplier to compensate for errors in estimating losses in rate yield is likely to have only a marginal effect on the level of multipliers. I should stress that this new power to make subsequent corrections to the multipliers could see the multipliers being set at lower levels as well as higher levels.
  Finally, the provisions contained in Clause 64 are not designed to affect the total rate yield. They will ensure that the relief given to small businesses will be paid for by an increase of a per cent or two perhaps in the hills of other ratepayers. They will also ensure that the multiplier can be set with even greater accuracy to offset the effects of a revaluation.
  I am reluctant to say this, as it will probably upset Members of the Committee opposite, but the amendments would wreck Clause 64. That is plain. It would be impossible to fund the English rate relief scheme through a small supplement on the bills of other ratepayers. It would also be impossible to adjust the England and Welsh multipliers, whether down or up, to offset the effects of a revaluation that had not been fully provided for when originally setting the multiplier at that revaluation.
  The noble Earl does not like where we have struck the balance, but we believe that we have it about right. Our research has shown that something like 1.7 million rateable values—about a million or so—are less than £8,000. That is roughly two thirds of those who will he subject to the new system. A majority of ratepayers in this scheme will benefit. We calculate—this answers one of the points made earlier by the noble Earl—that the £8,000 threshold would have an impact of less than 2 per cent on the rate bill. The judgment was that that was at the appropriate level.
  There was also a question about the timing of the introduction of the small business relief. The answer is that it cannot be introduced before April 2004 because the preparation will take time and so an introduction in 2005, the point of revaluation, may be appropriate.

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  The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, spoke of his intention to oppose the Question that Clause 64 stand part. I have a complicated note here that explains more of the mechanisms. I have gone over most of those points in what I have said so I believe I have answered the range of issues. However, omitting the clause would blast a major hole in the operation of the scheme. We believe that we have the balance of benefit about right. The Scottish scheme demonstrates the joy of devolution; that is how they want to deal with the matter in Scotland, which is fine. The Scots have designed the scheme rather differently. We believe that we are providing the majority of non-domestic ratepayers with a benefit. Clearly, the numbers demonstrate that.
  The noble Earl has made a point about those on the margin and just above it. That is a reasonable point to make, but we have to draw the line somewhere and that is where we have cast it.
  Baroness Maddock: Given the debate that we have had today on these issues and the views expressed outside the Committee by small business groups and the CBI, can the Minister tell the Committee what proposals there are to monitor the effects of the proposals in the Bill? Already the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has promised that under BIDs they will look carefully at what happens and maybe adjust matters. Certainly the CBI is keen to see the balance of effects between rents and rates on the proposals. Can the Minister give some reassurance that there will be robust monitoring?
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: Active, robust, periodic, specific, effective—I am sure that it will be all those things. I believe that there is a commitment in the White Paper to a review process. It would be foolish to do otherwise. Clearly, we do not want a non-domestic rating system to have an adverse impact, for example, on the rate of business formation. We recognise that.
  I believe I said earlier in reply to the noble Earl's earlier contribution that we recognise that the burden is there. It is an efficient tax. We have to take account of movements. That is why the multipliers are there to he adjusted according to property values. When there is a slump in property values clearly there will need to be an adjustment to take account of that. We recognise that it is a burden on business and we have to try to set the right and appropriate level for that burden. There will be arguments and disagreements as to what that is, but we are committed to keeping a very careful eye on that.
  Lord Hanningfield: There is some unhappiness in the outside world about the proposals. Could there be an element of local discretion? If they go ahead with the proposals, the Government will certainly have to make the proposals clear and understandable to the outside world if they are to be implemented next April.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am rather entertained by this commitment to localism from the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. I believe I said earlier that the
  GC 172
  scheme was introduced in 1990. That got rid of the potential scope for local discussion. Back in the late 1980s I remember, as leader of a council, being asked whether I could provide extra relief to a local company that was then in dire straits and big trouble. Yes, we provided some assistance, but, as I remember, we were not able to do that under the later national scheme, which has to have national conformity. At the end of the day, it is about divvying up to the local authorities an appropriate amount based on the national formulation and the way that national scheme works.
  I understand what the noble Lord says, but his government introduced the scheme. It has worked well and it is very efficient. In this Bill, we are trying to address some of those global issues where there are sensitivities to a particular sector of businesses—the small business sector, a million of which will benefit from this. We try to take account of that in updating the system.
  The Earl of Caithness: I am extremely grateful to the Minister for that very full reply. My only comment on it is that most of it did not address any of the points that I raised, but it was very interesting to listen to and I am sure it was extremely helpful to the Committee.
  Perhaps I can ask the Minister to write to me on the following points. He mentioned the impact of the £8,000, but could he tell me the impact if the rateable value were £10,000? What are the amounts of money involved at £8,000 and £10,000? Will the Government look at something like the Scottish system, whereby those immediately above the rateable value have, as it were, a holiday period, which is therefore taken by the bigger businesses? Also, I would like a further note on why all the costs should be borne by other ratepayers. Those are the four issues. I am not asking the Minister to give me an answer now but, if he could write to me before further stages of the Bill, it would be extremely helpful.
  7.15 p.m.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: We do not have the work done or access to that information as we debate the issue today. I am sure that the noble Earl understands that; he has been in this position. Of course we are happy to follow up those points. If we do not, I am sure that he will table a parliamentary Question.
  The Earl of Caithness: I am sure that there will be no need to when I receive the answers. I am grateful to the Minister. The amendment was quite dramatic, but it was a way to acquire some of the answers that we need. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 138 B not moved.]
  Clause 64 agreed to.
  Clause 65 agreed to.
  Clause 66 [Transitional relief]:
  The Earl of Caithnessmoved Amendment No. 139:
  Page 32, leave out lines 39 to 44 and insert—

  GC 173
  "(10) In making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State shall have regard to the object of securing (so far as practicable) that the aggregate amount payable to him and all billing authorities by way of non-domestic rates as regards a relevant period is the same as the aggregate amount which would be so payable apart from the regulations.
  The noble Earl said: In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 140 and 140A. We move now from skirmishing into real heavy pounding. Rather like the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I will start to read rather than talk, because the subject is so important that I need to get it on record in the way in which it should be.
  The amendment seeks to allow a more flexible system of transitional arrangements on non-domestic rates to be introduced following the next and subsequent revaluations. It achieves that through modifying the excessively restrictive provisions in new Section 57A(10) of the 1988 Act, which is proposed in Clause 66. I was interested when, in the debate on Amendment No. 138, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that there was freedom and flexibility for local authorities. Under the Bill, the Government seek to destroy and nullify freedom and flexibility in existing legislation.
  Clause 66 introduces a number of important changes to transitional arrangements following rating revaluations. First, the clause removes the Secretary of State's option of not introducing transitional arrangements. Secondly, the Bill insists that the transitional arrangements should be self-financing within each financial year at no cost to the Exchequer. Previously, the Government could decide whether the results of a revaluation warranted transitional arrangements. The Government could also decide whether they would support transitional arrangements through the Exchequer. The Bill removes the flexibility of government to consider either option.
  Rating revaluations work by transferring rates liabilities to properties with relatively higher rental values compared with the previous revaluation. The impact of the revaluation on a particular property is governed by the change of that property's value relative to the average for the whole of England. Thus, if the value of a particular property rises by more than the average, the rates liability will rise. If the value does otherwise, the liability will fall.
  As revaluations can produce quite large changes in rates liability, transitional relief has been used to cushion ratepayers against the largest increases through staging changes in rates liability over a number of years. In order to recoup some of the revenue lost due to that capping of increased bills, a transitional penalty has been imposed on those whose bills should be falling, and their reductions have also been capped and phased in.
  We regard denying immediate reductions to those whose bills should be falling to be inequitable and morally indefensible. Those businesses, whose relative property values have fallen, are often in the greatest need of reduced rates bills, yet they have been required to pay a premium to protect successful businesses from
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  full increases. Independent research shows that, between 1995 and 2000, businesses were overcharged by £3.5 billion because of downwards phasing.
  The Exchequer has previously made up the balance of revenue lost due to transitional relief. The Bill requires that future transitional schemes should be fully self-financing from within the rating system to avoid the need for any Exchequer support. That policy was criticised by the Select Committee in the House of Commons which scrutinised the draft Bill.
  Although I understand the motivation behind the relevant clause, I do not think that the Government should fetter future flexibility to act in that way. In a different economic climate from today, the Government may wish to provide financial support. Indeed, that occurred in 1992 when the previous requirement for a statutory self-financing scheme had to be unwound through primary legislation— the Non-Domestic Rating Act 1992—to permit Exchequer support at a time of recession.
  I have even greater concerns over the Bill's requirement that transitional arrangements would have to self-finance with each financial year. That would require either a continuation of downwards phasing, or a substantial UBR premium in the early years of the revaluation cycle to fund transitional relief, or both. The present transitional arrangements are so complex that rates bills are exceptionally difficult to follow and businesses simply fail to understand the derivation of their tax liability.
  It was because of those concerns that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, in conjunction with the two other professional rating bodies, the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation and the Rating Surveyors' Association, funded independent research into options for transitional arrangements. That research was undertaken by Occupiers Property Databank and published in February 2003. It is the only comprehensive analysis of transitional arrangements and revaluations. The report demonstrated that a self-financing transitional scheme without "downwards transition" could be achieved if the Government could accept making the scheme self-financing over the five-year life of a rating period.
  The Bill does not allow that flexibility, so the amendment would allow the flexibility to establish alternative transitional arrangements schemes. The alternatives are detailed in independent research and have been provided to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. They would allow transition to be implemented with greater simplicity and fairness for the ratepayers, and at the same time protect revenue for the Exchequer. A detailed explanation of those alternatives and how they would affect Treasury revenue from business rates is provided in paragraphs 34 and 35.
  The precise format of a transitional scheme is to be determined by regulations. My proposals are achievable, however, through reducing the time that properties are held in transition, avoiding downwards transition and paying for staging increases in rates bills through a small increase in UBR that is unlikely to exceed 1p, spread over the five years of a rating list.

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  That is complicated stuff, but it is the nub of how the provisions will work. At the moment, the transitional scheme is very complicated. Businesses do not know where they stand, and the Government are depriving themselves of any flexibility to make alternative arrangements should economic changes arise. That was a mistake that we made in the 1990s and had to unwind. I hope that the Government will think again and not fall into the same trap as we did. I beg to move.
  Baroness Maddock: In view of the time, I shall not take long. My honourable friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton in another place was very supportive of the thrust of the amendments when they were considered there. We wish to support the principles of flexibility and fairness, so we support the noble Earl.
  Lord Rooker: In answer to one point raised by the noble Earl, I assure him that we are constantly trying to learn the lessons of the 1990s and not make the same mistakes. I shall do what he did and stick to my notes, which will then all be on the record and can be read over the next few days. Then it will be time to depart.
  Clause 66 guarantees to ratepayers that there will be a transitional scheme to accompany any future revaluation. The current provision in the Local Government Finance Act 1988 simply confers a power to establish a scheme, but does not impose a duty to do so. Business, including the CBI, has stressed the necessity of transitional schemes accompanying future revaluations.
  The details of future schemes—the maximum annual increase and decrease in bills—will be decided in the run-up to the revaluation concerned, when the revaluation's impact on individual rateable values will be known. But as stated in the White Paper, Strong Local Leadership—Quality Public Services, any future transitional scheme must be self-financing. There is no reason whatever why the general taxpayer, as opposed to the ratepayer, should meet the cost of transitional relief. Accordingly, Clause 66 requires that the total rate yield for any year is not to be affected by a transitional scheme.
  The clause allows for flexibility in how schemes may be structured so as to be self-financing. The methods likely to be used include having a transitional scheme which balances the rates lost through phasing in increases in bills against the rates gained by phasing in decreases. Such phasing of decreases in bills as well as increases has been the feature of past schemes.
  In addition to providing for a scheme that balances rate income lost through phasing in increases and rate income gained through phasing in decreases, the clause allows for an addition to rates bills generally as a means of making good the loss of rates resulting from phasing in increases in bills. The notes look a lot easier on paper than they are to say, by the way. That means that my speech will look all right in Hansard. The clause allows for a scheme which is funded by a
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  combination of phasing in decreases and an addition to rates bills generally. That will allow us to put in place a fair and workable scheme.
  It would be simplest if I addressed the amendments in reverse order. Amendment No. 140A is designed to ensure that if over the life of the transitional scheme it turns out that the scheme is in fact not revenue neutral, but is producing a loss in rates revenue, the losses cannot be made good by adjustments to the scheme. In effect, the general taxpayer would have to make good the shortfall in funding for local government.
  However, if a scheme is not revenue neutral, in that it is producing too much in rate revenue, Amendment No. 140A would allow for the scheme to be adjusted to recompense ratepayers. The amendment would therefore produce a one-way street unfair to the general taxpayer. The Bill as drafted would allow for a transitional scheme to be adjusted if it was producing either too much or too little in rates revenue. The Bill is therefore fair to both the ratepayer and the general taxpayer.
  Amendment No. 140 seems to exclude from the scope of a future transitional scheme all ratepayers whose rates bills are unaffected by a revaluation. That would rule out an addition to rates bills generally as a means of paying for the relief for those facing increased bills at the revaluation. The amendment could in practice conflict with Amendment No. 139 as, by ruling out the possibility of an addition to rates bills generally, there might be no realistic way of making a scheme self-financing even over a five-year period, as proposed by Amendment No. 139.
  If, as proposed in Amendment No. 139, a scheme were to be revenue neutral over a five-year period, instead of year by year as set out in the Bill, there would have to be a way by which the Treasury recovered in later years what it had paid in the early years. The Exchequer would also need to recover interest on what had been paid out in the early years of the scheme, and would need to recover a sum to offset the effects of inflation between paying out sums concerned and recovering them. All that would make for a complicated calculation—I am pleased to say that I do not have to explain it—which would introduce an element of uncertainty for ratepayers.
  A five-year revenue-neutral scheme would be much more complicated to operate, and far less intelligible to the ratepayer than a scheme that was revenue neutral year by year. Furthermore, it is difficult to see any reason for such a scheme. Why should the general taxpayer in effect give a loan to ratepayers at the start of each transitional scheme?
  When prices rise the customer has to pay the new price. When rents are increased the new rental is payable in full on the day it comes into force. Transitional relief means that we are easing the burden on ratepayers. We do not believe that the general taxpayer should cover the cost of that. It seems fair that ratepayers in general should pick up the bill. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot have transitional relief and expect someone else to pay for it. Advocates of these amendments seem to want the increases

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  phased in slowly, the decreases phased out quickly or immediately, and the general taxpayer to pick up the bill in some years' time. That does not sound fair.
  Despite past intentions of making transition schemes revenue-neutral, significant cost has been borne by the general taxpayer. We are determined to end that. The clearest way to do so is to ensure that the scheme is revenue-neutral in each year. We do not see how that can be objectionable to anyone. An attempt to make a scheme revenue-neutral over the five-year life of the list would mean that, at each revaluation, complex estimates would need to be made in advance of announcing any transition scheme.
  If, at the end of the fourth year, it were discovered that the Treasury had not recouped the money that it had contributed in the early years, rates bills would have to he increased to balance the scheme. That would create uncertainty for the lifetime.
  In the light of what I have said—more to the point, in the light of what I have read—I ask the noble Earl to withdraw his amendment.
  7.30 p.m.
  The Earl of Caithness: I did warn the Committee that this was heavy pounding. It is good stuff; we are just getting into the meat of rating now. It is such fun, is it not?
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: May I intervene briefly? I am a very generous person, and I was hoping in a moment to go to the Peers' Guestroom to celebrate my 50th birthday, to which everyone is welcome. If the noble Earl intended to digress at length, can I urge him to he at least slightly briefer than he planned?
  The Earl of Caithness: I was going to be brief. I was also going to congratulate the noble Lord on his birthday. It is nice that, for a change, we have so many Ministers who are younger than me. The times were when I was the youngest.
  I wish to read what the noble Lord has said. I also request the chance to talk to him before the next stage. What he is producing is unfair to businesses and complicated. I believe that we can produce a scheme that is much fairer to businesses, fair to the Treasury, fair to the taxpayer and less complicated for businesses to understand. Those are two different points of view
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  that we will not resolve in Committee. But, if we could meet before the next stage, we might be able to find common ground so that we could retain some of the flexibility that, I believe., the Government will need. I speak not with a party hat on, but with some experience.
  When I was a Minister I remember using the same arguments and asking why the taxpayer should contribute to business matters. We found that it had to happen at some stage. If you take away that flexibility, you will handcuff yourselves and make life extremely difficult for yourselves.
  From a business point of view, there is a greater certainty and ability to plan if there is five-year self-financing transitional relief rather than a one-year period. I know that the Minister is keen to be helpful. I am sure that he will try to find time in his busy diary.
  Lord Rooker: For the avoidance of any doubt, Ministers are always happy to see Members of both Houses. I am not the policy Minister for this Bill. I cannot undertake negotiations about the Bill. The Minister for Local Government and the Regions and his colleagues are the policy Ministers. I will draw their attention to what the noble Earl has said. There have been constant meetings about business improvement districts. I do not want the noble Earl to think that I am being discourteous.
  The Earl of Caithness: I understand the point entirely. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, would wish to attend any meeting, given her interest and support. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment and wish the noble Lord a happy birthday.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendments Nos. 140 and 140A not moved.]
  Clause 66 agreed to.
  Clause 67 agreed to.
  Lord Rooker: This may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Monday at 3.30 p.m.
  The Deputy Chairman of Committees: The Committee stands adjourned until Monday 16th June at 3.30 p.m.
  Committee adjourned at twenty-six minutes before eight o'clock.

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  Work Permits: IT Sector
  Work Permits: IT Sector
  G8 Summit: Government's Objectives
  G8 Summit: Government's Objectives
  DfID: Secondments
  DfID: Secondments
  Armed Forces: Medical Reservists
  Armed Forces: Medical Reservists
  33 Field Hospital
  33 Field Hospital
  Water Supplies for Civilians in Times of War
  Water Supplies for Civilians in Times of War
  Depleted Uranium: H & S Advice to Service Personnel
  Depleted Uranium: H & S Advice to Service Personnel
  Iraq: Post-conflict Deployment of UK Armed Forces
  Iraq: Post-conflict Deployment of UK Armed Forces
  Congo
  Congo
  Health Records: Requests for Access
  Health Records: Requests for Access
  Non-residential Property: Stamp Duty
  Non-residential Property: Stamp Duty
  Money Laundering
  Money Laundering
  Biomass Energy
  Biomass Energy
  Council Tax and Rent Debt: Enforcement
  Council Tax and Rent Debt: Enforcement
  Light Pollution
  Light Pollution
  Planning Inspectorate Executive Agency: Performance Targets
  Planning Inspectorate Executive Agency: Performance Targets
  Royal Prerogative: Ministers of the Crown
  Royal Prerogative: Ministers of the Crown
  Suez Veterans: General Service Medal
  Suez Veterans: General Service Medal
  Northern Ireland: Equality Agenda
  Northern Ireland: Equality Agenda
  Northern Ireland: Equality Officers
  Northern Ireland: Equality Officers
  Northern Ireland Departments: Underspend
  Northern Ireland Departments: Underspend
  North/South Implementation Bodies
  North/South Implementation Bodies
  Waterways Ireland
  Waterways Ireland
  North/South Language Body
  North/South Language Body
  Northern Ireland: Special Advisers
  Northern Ireland: Special Advisers
  Belfast Airports: Rail Links
  Belfast Airports: Rail Links
  Northern Ireland: Disused Rail Tracks
  Northern Ireland: Disused Rail Tracks
  Northern Ireland: Buses
  Northern Ireland: Buses
  Northern Ireland: Translink Services
  Northern Ireland: Translink Services
  Northern Ireland: Speeding Convictions
  Northern Ireland: Speeding Convictions
  Portadown and Armagh Rail Link
  Portadown and Armagh Rail Link
  Northern Ireland: Park and Ride Facilities
  Northern Ireland: Park and Ride Facilities
  North/South Ministerial Council
  North/South Ministerial Council
  Fintona Development Association
  Fintona Development Association
  Tourism Ireland
  Tourism Ireland
  Northern Ireland: Planning Appeals and Approvals
  Northern Ireland: Planning Appeals and Approvals
  Northern Ireland: Environment and Heritage Service Budget
  Northern Ireland: Environment and Heritage Service Budget
  Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast
  Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast